The feds sued Binance on Monday, and the lawsuit is a doozy. In a 74-page complaint, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission accused the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges of creating huge loopholes to let American customers—who are not supposed to trade crypto derivatives—onto its platform. And, boy, does it have receipts.
The CFTC complaint cites numerous private messages from Binance's CEO and its former chief compliance officer to show the company had a deliberate strategy to subvert regulators—by, for example, nudging American customers to use VPNs to mask their locations and throwing a bash in Las Vegas for big U.S. clients. It also includes damning texts from Binance execs that say things like, "We see the bad but close 2 eyes" and—of Russian customers—"Like come on. They're here for crime." And for good measure, it shows Binance knew Hamas terrorists used its platform for small transactions but that they "can barely buy an AK47 with 600 bucks.” Not good.
