Binance Reaches Deal With Government to Avert U.S. Shutdown
The Securities and Exchange Commission reached a deal with Binance late Friday that would allow the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to keep operating in the United States and safeguard customer assets as the company battles a government lawsuit.
After filing fraud charges against Binance on June 5, the S.E.C. moved to freeze the firm’s U.S. assets in a move that the exchange’s lawyers said would put it out of business in the United States.
But in a court filing on Friday, the S.E.C. said that the two sides had reached a compromise after several days of court-ordered mediation. On Saturday morning, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing the case in federal court in Washington, signed off on the deal.
Under the agreement, funds belonging to customers of Binance.US, an affiliate of the company’s larger offshore exchange, would go into special digital repositories accessible only to the U.S. exchange — and not to Binance’s international operation, or its founder, Changpeng Zhao. The deal stipulates that Binance.US can transfer company assets “solely to make payments for expenses or to satisfy obligations incurred in the ordinary course of business.”
Source: The New York Times
