Bloomberg – Trading volume on Binance.US is evaporating as the cryptocurrency exchange’s battle with US regulators intensifies.
As of August, monthly trading volume was down 98% since January 2022, according to researcher CCData, and is on track to decline further in September. The US operations of Changpeng Zhao’s cryptocurrency empire stood at $115.7 million as of September 15, according to CCData. The volume exceeded $286 million in August, according to the researcher.
Most of that decline has occurred since March, when the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Zhao of violations. The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Binance.US, as well as Zhao and its main exchange, Binance, in June for a series of violations, including “misrepresenting the controls and oversight of transactions on Binance.US.”
The American company faces these charges in court. Which prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to accuse Binance.US in a filing of “failing to keep its story straight.”
After filing an SEC complaint in June, Binance.US lost its banking support, suspended US dollar deposits, and began a series of layoffs. Binance.US CEO Brian Schroder departed last week, with the company laying off a third of its remaining workforce.
In a presentation on Monday, SEC lawyers asked the court to grant their request to force Binance.US to produce all the documents it requests as part of expedited discovery. To date, Binance.US has made “inconsistent representations about key facts, delayed small-scale production of documents and information, and blocked entire categories of information that potentially shed light on its flimsy claims regarding custody of client assets.”
The “accelerating exodus” of U.S. employees “further underscores the urgent need to accelerate detection of these matters now,” the SEC wrote.
Binance.US’s daily trading volume was about $10.5 million as of Monday, according to data tracker CoinGecko. In comparison, the daily trading volume of Coinbase Global Inc., the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, was $948 million.
A spokesperson for Binance.US, based in Miami, did not respond to a request for comment.
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