Binance.US Suspends Dollar Deposits Following SEC Action – 6/9/2023 – Market

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance.US said Thursday that it is halting dollar deposits. Soon, users will not be able to withdraw dollars, after US financial regulators said they support freezing Binance’s assets.

The purportedly independent US affiliate of Binance, the world’s largest digital currency exchange, said on Twitter late Thursday that its banking partners are preparing to stop dollar withdrawal channels on June 13.

Binance.US said in a notice to clients that it will no longer accept dollar deposits as part of plans to move to a “digital-only exchange”. The company did not give details about who its banking partners are.

On Monday (05), the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) sued Binance, its founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and the operator of its US exchange. The lawsuit marked an escalation in industry scrutiny by US regulators, with the SEC suing Coinbase a day later.

The SEC has alleged in 13 indictments that Binance artificially inflated trading volumes, embezzled client funds, failed to restrict US customers’ access to its platform, and misled investors about its market surveillance controls.

On Tuesday (06), the SEC asked a federal court to freeze Binance’s US assets. Binance.US said the request was “unwarranted”, saying it had addressed the SEC’s concerns about the safety of customers’ assets.

In Thursday’s tweet, Binance.US said that trades, deposits, withdrawals and “staking” – where users deposit digital currencies for use in blockchain transactions – denominated in cryptocurrencies will remain fully operational.

“The suspension of withdrawals is obviously going to create or encourage some concern and panic,” said Matthew Dibb, vice president of operations at Singapore-based digital asset platform Stack Funds.

Cryptocurrency prices barely reacted to the news, with bitcoin trading at $26,512. The coin is heading for a weekly loss of around 2.3% after falling to a more than two-month low of $25,350 earlier in the week.

Binance’s BNB token, the fourth largest in the world, dropped 1.5% to $258.76.