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US Regulators Investigating Binance’s BNB Token: Report

The SEC is looking into whether the crypto exchange should have registered the initial coin offering of Binance coin as a security, according to Bloomberg.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (Akio Kon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (Akio Kon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is examining whether Binance’s initial coin offering of its Binance coin (BNB) token in 2017 was an unregistered security offering that should have been registered with the regulatory agency, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing confidential sources.

  • Without commenting on the details of the reported probe, a spokesperson for Binance told CoinDesk via email, "As the industry has grown at a rapid pace, we have been working very diligently to educate and assist law enforcement and regulators in the U.S. and internationally, while also adhering to new guidelines. We will continue to meet all requirements set by regulators."
  • BNB was trading down 4% after news of the report came out.
  • Binance is currently under investigation in the U.S. by the Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Internal Revenue Service. Binance is the world’s biggest crypto exchange and says it’s not domiciled in any one country.
  • The SEC is also investigating market-making companies owned or partially owned by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao that do business with Binance.US, a U.S.-based affiliate of the global exchange, according to a person familiar with the review, Bloomberg reported.
  • According to the report, one of the SEC’s focuses is on whether Binance.US is wholly independent of the global exchange and whether employees may be involved in insider trading.
  • An SEC spokesperson declined to comment on the existence of any possible probe.
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UPDATE (June 6, 21:08 UTC): Added statement from Binance in first bullet point.

Nelson Wang

Nelson edits features and opinion stories and was previously CoinDesk’s U.S. News Editor for the East Coast. He has also been an editor at Unchained and DL News, and prior to working at CoinDesk, he was the technology stocks editor and consumer stocks editor at TheStreet. He has also held editing positions at Yahoo.com and Condé Nast Portfolio’s website, and was the content director for aMedia, an Asian American media company. Nelson grew up on Long Island, New York and went to Harvard College, earning a degree in Social Studies. He holds BTC, ETH and SOL above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Nelson Wang