In the video blog CryptoLaw of the social network X (formerly Twitter), a Ripple lawyer criticized the accusations of the US Department of Justice, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Agency (FinCEN) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against the Binance cryptocurrency exchange.
John Deaton believes that US authorities tried to base the evidence against Binance on a scheme previously worked out in the case of the bankrupt FTX exchange.
Binance Bows Out: Settlement Implications https://t.co/UMFzqROD5g
— CryptoLaw (@CryptoLawUS) November 28, 2023
One of the authorities' key accusations against former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was that the exchange abused customer trust and mixed corporate funds with user assets to resolve ongoing business issues. Ripple's lawyer is confident that Binance's legal problems are in fact fundamentally different from what happened with FTX, where exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried used client funds to purchase real estate and finance political campaigns.
According to Deaton, Binance's liability lies in the area of violation of the Bank Secrecy Act and failure to report suspicious transactions, and only in the initial period of its existence. Therefore, US authorities, including the Department of Justice, FinCEN and CFTC, have not discovered any evidence that Binance may have misused or simply embezzled customer funds, even after a comprehensive study of the exchange’s balance sheet.
The day before, Binance.US reported that Changpeng Zhao resigned from all leadership positions of this American crypto platform, lost his voting rights on the board of directors and other instruments of influence on the management of the company.