Before Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao were charged with regulatory infractions by the United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), about a billion dollars in cryptocurrency left the platform’s wallets.
Several hours before the Binance-CFTC indictment, which occurred at 3 p.m. UTC on Monday, March 27 according to Thanefield Capital’s data investigation, an unusually big quantity was removed from controlled exchanges.
In the twelve hours preceding the indictment, almost $1.5 billion departed platforms including Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, and Bitfinex. $850 million, or more than half, was removed from Binance.
After an hour of the announcement, a further $240 million was removed from Binance. In the past 24 hours, more than $400 million were withdrawn only from Ethereum-based assets, according to data from Nansen.
Binance still has cryptocurrency assets totaling $63.36 billion, including nearly $2 billion worth of USDT, $17 billion worth of Bitcoin, and $8.1 billion worth of Ether.
CFRC filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Binance and CZ. According to the Commission, which has been examining Binance since 2021, the company failed to comply with its regulatory requirements by failing to register with the derivatives authority. Since at least 2019, Binance allegedly executed Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin transactions for U.S. citizens.
The Federal Revenue Service (IRS) and federal prosecutors are examining the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange for compliance with Anti-Money Laundering regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates whether Binance permitted U.S. traders access to unregistered securities.
Changpeng Zhao has already dismissed CFTC claims, stating that the cryptocurrency exchange “under no circumstances trades for profit or’manipulates’ the market.”
