Gary Gensler faced the press to explain the heavy charges brought by the SEC against the exchanges Coinbase and Binance.
Safety or not?
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong likely regrets encouraging the US Congress to put pressure on Gary Gensler. The chairman of the SEC reacts this week in a brutal way.
As a result, Coinbase has just been asked by 10 US states to explain itself. The NASDAQ-listed exchange has 28 days to demonstrate why it should not be banned from continuing operations.
BinanceUS risks seeing all of its customers’ funds frozen if justice gives the green light. Note that funds on binance.com are not affected.
The SEC chairman took to CNBC and Bloomberg to explain:
“These exchanges combine a number of functions that are not seen in traditional economics. In fact, the New York Stock Exchange does not manage an investment fund in parallel, nor does it have its own market makers. But that’s exactly what Binance does through sister organizations that flood the platform with transactions. This is called laundry trading. »
[Le wash trading consiste à faire croire aux investisseurs que les volumes d’échange d’un titre sont plus élevés qu’ils ne le sont réalité afin d’attirer le chaland. C’est illégal aux États-Unis.]
“Binance customers don’t even know who has custody of their money. Are they held here or abroad? We know that billions of dollars in customer funds have been transferred to Merit Peak. We accuse CZ of controlling Merit Peak as well as Sigma Chain, a market maker that artificially inflated volumes. »
For Gary Gensler, CZ “act against its customers” through these companies.
“We don’t need more digital currencies”
If cryptos are just a giant ponzi, Gary Gensler did not say no:
“The SEC has decided to remain neutral, but we have to ask ourselves questions. There is a lot of debate about whether these tokens really have any utility. We don’t need more digital currency. We already have a digital currency, that is the US dollar, the euro, the yen. They’re all digital now.”
“On these exchanges, there are often hundreds of tokens. Coinbase offers about 250 tokens. Even 16,000 tokens via his wallet. The same for Binance. All we have to show is that one of these tokens is a security that should have been properly registered with the SEC. We’ve already highlighted a dozen examples for each of the Binance and Coinbase exchanges. »
[SOL, ADA, MATIC, SAND, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, NEXO, BNB, BUSD, FIL, ATOM, MANA, ALGO, AXS et COTI]
“It is up to the public to decide what they want to invest in, but the law says it must be based on proper registration. Without it, the public can’t tell if it’s a scam or a fake. And we know that this ecosystem is full of peddlers and scammers. »
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that Garry Gensler admits is not a security. In the eyes of the SEC, bitcoin is a “commodity,” just like gold.
Finally, it should be noted that Binance also clashed with the French authorities last week. The exchange was forced to delist a dozen cryptocurrencies, including monero.
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