All Your Coins Are Belong To Us

Well, that didn’t take long. Binance.us, the American affiliate of Binance, has filed a defense ahead of today’s hearing regarding a proposed freeze on its funds. What exactly is their defense?

Basically Binance is asking the court to reject the SEC’s request for a temporary restraining order, stating that such an action would effectively end its entire business.

Which kinda sorta was the whole idea in the first place of course.

The main argument to be presented today is that the SEC has failed to identify any securities trading on its platform.

Binance also claims to have cooperated with the regulator’s investigation, providing extensive data on its operations.

Nevertheless Binance and its affiliates are being accused of failing to register as a securities exchange and allowing US customers to trade securities.

It also alleges that CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) moved $12 billion in funds through a privately-controlled entity.

Not surprisingly Binance.us strongly disagrees, stating that the SEC has been unable to demonstrate mishandling or misuse of customer assets.

To me that sounds like a cop-out response, so I’m looking forward to one that actually addresses the allegation.

Finally just to spice things up a little there’s this:

Seems like Gensler 2018 and Gensler 2023 aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye on the issue.

If nothing else this should be good for some laughs during today’s hearing.

Now I mentioned political pushback yesterday and pro-crypto policy makers seem to not be wasting time.

Apparently Rep. Warren Davidson and Rep. Tom Emmer have teamed up to introduce the “SEC Stabilization Act” to the House of Representatives, in an effort to create a more equitable capital market environment.

Aimed to provide investors with better protection against supposedly ‘excessive power’ from the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bill seeks to hold current chairman Gensler accountable.

Obviously presenting such a bill and actually getting it passed are two completely different pairs of shoes and I wouldn’t hold my breath for any leadership changes at the SEC anytime.

Nice try though, come back when you actually have a majority behind you, otherwise I’d strike this up as political posturing.

It’s going to be an interesting day. Most likely the judicial will have to sort this one out by requiring the SEC to issue clear guidelines on what qualifies as a security and what doesn’t.

The sooner that happens the better for everyone as this dreaded issue needs to be settled once and for all.