[HN Gopher] Binance under CFTC investigation over trading activi...
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Binance under CFTC investigation over trading activities: report
Author : edf13
Score : 77 points
Date : 2021-03-12 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theblockcrypto.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theblockcrypto.com)
| edf13 wrote:
| And the price of BNB falls...
| paulpauper wrote:
| Small relative to how much it went up and relative to
| volatility
| agumonkey wrote:
| and in line with the whole market, nothing like the XRP / SEC
| event.
| savant_penguin wrote:
| "The news comes just a day after Binance announced it has hired
| Max Baucus, who served decades in the U.S. Senate"
|
| The old game never changes
| throwaway4good wrote:
| With US "long-arm jurisdiction" comes US long-arm corruption
| where companies with no business in the US are forced to pay US
| lobbyists and US has-been politicians ...
| r00fus wrote:
| s/forced/coerced/
|
| It's not like binance is exactly squeaky clean here. Long-arm
| jurisdiction means it impacts US citizens who are required to
| pay taxes regardless of residence.
|
| Couldn't Binance just reject doing business with US citizens
| and not worry?
| ur-whale wrote:
| >US citizens who are required to pay taxes regardless of
| residence.
|
| US citizens and also Eritreans (there was Libya at some
| point in time), so really, nothing to write home about.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| Binance is squeaky clean here, they do reject doing
| business with US citizens (except for their US entity which
| is fully compliant with US regulations and is not the
| target of this investigation).
| celticninja wrote:
| Which is worse. This guy is going work for a known shady
| organisation to help them manage regulations and set them
| up so that their shady dealings end up within the law, or
| they get a minor slap on the wrist, and they're allowed to
| continue doing business.
| Tenoke wrote:
| That's exactly what it's doing (for .com), including
| monitoring for vpns and other ways that users try to
| circumvent. My guess is they'll be fine as I dont see what
| more they could've been doing and I really doubt they were
| allowing people they could tell are US citizens to use
| Binance.com given all the comments from Americans over the
| last months.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I guess it's maybe not the case but it does feel like the US are
| doing everything to support trading only on the local and more
| limited Coinbase.
|
| Binance has already went as far as to forbid US customers from
| using them, make a much worse but compliant US-only exchange, go
| as far as they can in finding VPN users and others who subvert
| the rules, hired a US senator to help them, and the US is still
| making more moves against them.
|
| The situation in the US is already really tedious if you want to
| invest in many big (top 10, even top 5 projects) and to trade in
| general in some states. It's disappointing to see.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Another spin on this situation would be "US is going after any
| exchange which doesn't comply with US regs/guidance and
| currently Coinbase is the only exchange willing/able to do so"
| AMerePotato wrote:
| Maybe the US needs to change it's regulations. It's handling
| of cryptocurrency is hostile to legitimate use of the
| technology. The current tax situation being the worst of it
| in my opinion
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I mean, don't you think it's reasonable for a government to
| want to ensure that their citizens aren't being ripped off or
| able to participate in illegal activities?
| Tenoke wrote:
| Is the implication that (almost?) every other western country
| wants their citizens to be ripped off because they allow
| Binance? I don't think it's quite as simple as that..
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think the more likely implication is that the US casts a
| wide shadow over international financial regulations, and
| that other countries that seek to do business with or in
| the US will aim to regulate in lockstep with the US.
|
| To that extent, waiting until the US fixes a source of
| fraud is strategically reasonable.
| kemonocode wrote:
| Surely that's only in the best interest of the people, just
| like in all the areas a major government has a vested
| interest in exerting a large amount of control upon. Surely.
|
| EDIT: wording
| jcpham2 wrote:
| This is unsurprising. They'll pay a fine.
| Tenoke wrote:
| For what? They've went above and beyond to prevent US citizens
| to trade with their main exchange and to only leave a gimped
| version in the US.
| paulpauper wrote:
| that should not be hard. they can pay from one of the
| presumably thousands of accounts frozen and money/crypto stolen
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lye4n5/bina...
| freebuju wrote:
| Crypto subs on reddit are not exactly famous for being
| trustworthy sources
| ahelwer wrote:
| Maybe triggered by the sheer quantity of tax returns filed this
| year listing Binance as the platform used to trade
| cryptocurrency.
|
| Binance has binance.us for Americans but the selection is much
| worse and it is trivial to continue using regular binance with a
| VPN.
| mszcz wrote:
| I never truly understood that - prohibiting companies outside
| of US from getting American customers. If the US govt doesn't
| want that to occur maybe they should police their citizens
| instead and see how that goes? I mean, an American citizen
| signs up for a service that he's forbidden from using and
| somehow that's the company's (that's offering that service)
| fault? Looks to me like trying to pass off doing your bidding
| to others.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _an American citizen signs up for a service that he 's
| forbidden from using and somehow that's the company's (that's
| offering that service) fault?_
|
| Americans aren't forbidden from using Binance by the U.S. The
| U.S. says if you're doing business with Americans, you have
| to follow these rules. Binance isn't following those rules.
|
| One solution is to follow those rules. Another is to not do
| business with Americans. Either way, the obligation is on the
| vender. Not the consumer. (If the consumer lies about being
| American, the vender may be able to collect damages.)
| mszcz wrote:
| > Binance isn't following those rules.
|
| Allegedly ;)
|
| > Either way, the obligation is on the vender.
|
| Yes, but that's an obligation that's put forward by the US
| govt. If I'm incorporated in another country why do I have
| to concern myself with their market regulations?
| wmf wrote:
| US investment regulators are determined to see investors as
| victims and other parties (crypto exchanges in this case) as
| perpetrators even if that's not quite what's happening. You
| can profit from something you know is a ponzi or pump-and-
| dump and you're still the victim. (The only exception I know
| of is the Madoff clawbacks.)
| [deleted]
| thebean11 wrote:
| I don't think you'd normally report the exchange used to trade
| on your tax return, just the transactions themselves.
|
| They can definitely make assumptions, though, when you report
| you sold XYZ coin that's not traded on any US-regulated
| exchanges.
| ahelwer wrote:
| For cryptocurrencies there is a field where you fill out the
| institution on which you executed the trade.
| rafale wrote:
| Never seen that. What form has it?
| ahelwer wrote:
| Ah, turbotax exposed the field but looking at the
| generated form 8949 I see the info wasn't passed on to
| the return.
| lucasnortj wrote:
| Good. Crypto is nonsense. Ban it already
| sakopov wrote:
| AFAIK, binance.com still allows logins from the US (if you have
| an old account from a few years back), you just can't trade in it
| (supposedly). However, you can transfer funds out of the account.
|
| I had some coins stashed away on my binance.com wallets which I
| ended up transferring to binance.us and they sent me an email
| telling me that my binance.com account will be disabled after a 2
| week grace period because I'm accessing it from the US. It's been
| more than a month now and I can still log into it. It seems that
| Binance took a more lax approach to this than other exchanges in
| the past which is biting them now.
| _rtld_global_ro wrote:
| It's not the case for me, I can login but my funds are a lost
| cause I'd suggest you transfer them out while you still can. On
| a hindsight I have no idea why I'd used it, it shady as hell I
| hope US sue them to oblivion but I doubt it would happen in a
| meaningful way. (rant)
| elliekelly wrote:
| > but my funds are a lost cause
|
| Can you explain what you mean? Do they not even appear in
| your account when you log in? Or are you for some reason
| prevented from transferring them?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > It's been more than a month now and I can still log into it
|
| I'm glad I can still login. I needed the info in there to
| complete my 2020 taxes. I exported all my data from 2021 too
| incase I can't login next year. I would advise doing the same.
| paulpauper wrote:
| maybe binance should be investigated for theft
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lye4n5/bina...
|
| these agencies always focus on the wrongs things to investigate
| csomar wrote:
| To begin an investigation (by the USA) they need first to
| establish that Binance has been operating in the US (aka US
| customers).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they need first to establish that Binance has been
| operating in the US (aka US customers)._
|
| Tether allegedly owns billions of U.S. dollars in a Bahamas
| account. Tether is a Binance affiliate. They are subject to
| U.S. jurisdiction.
| Kranar wrote:
| As per US charges against FIFA officials, the US claims
| extraterritorial jurisdiction over any matter involving US
| dollar transactions.
| StreamBright wrote:
| First of all it is a clear case for law enforcement to get
| involved, I am not on Binance side on this one. However, I
| would strongly discourage anybody to start investing in crypto
| with a 100K ticket. It is much better to try it with 100USD and
| see how it works and start to put in a fix amount every month.
| Kranar wrote:
| No theft took place there. The user made an unbelievably poor
| decision to wire 100k out of a business account into a personal
| account where the names don't match up. Furthermore the person
| communicating with Binance is not the legal owner of the
| account but instead the grandchild of the legal owner.
|
| Third, the legal owner of the account is apparently afraid of
| using online banking, but not afraid of cryptocurrency and this
| is used as a justification for not just using the simple ACH
| method that could have resolved this whole thing in a matter of
| days.
|
| If you're Binance, everything about this looks like money
| laundering and Binance is absolutely in the right to have acted
| this way. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if Binance
| reported this to the authorities.
| pinkybanana wrote:
| To me it sounds so weird, that it is quite difficult to
| believe that it is not money laundering. Sounds exactly like
| someone somehow gained access to some old, retired persons
| old business account and decided to cash it out via crypto.
| sjtindell wrote:
| I agree completely. Particularly the part of the story where
| they refused to use ACH. Supposedly this person has run a
| business before but did not employ a lawyer or even visit one
| at any stage?
| kaetemi wrote:
| Considering that support asked about him logging on from
| different locations, I'd guess he logged on to US binance from
| a foreign VPN at one point. That, in combination with a wire
| from a business account to a private binance account.
| Definitely flags on that account.
|
| Based on such flags, they might assume the source account is a
| stolen account, and I suppose they have to make sure the money
| goes back to the legitimate owner, not just back to the
| assumed-to-be-compromised account.
| capableweb wrote:
| What they are under investigation for now is much bigger than
| some random person loosing $100K which is a small sum when you
| consider the size of the whole market.
|
| And even so, nothing is stopping any agency from having
| multiple investigations running at the same time, one does not
| exclude the other and all that.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Binance.us is legal, right? When I tried to sign up for
| binance.com (not knowing better) it said that I needed to use
| binance.com instead.
|
| edit:removed unintentional coin shilling.
| josefresco wrote:
| I signed up for Binance.US about two months back. It's legit
| but a very low quality offering. Support is just massively
| overwhelmed and unresponsive. But most exchanges are
| overwhelmed now so it's not that unusual.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Same, I signed up when GME/DOGE both started spiking since I
| have DOGE laying around in a wallet. Getting coins into the
| exchange was easy enough and I can't comment on trying to
| withdraw but I can say the verification stuff is stupid-slow.
| I've provided info for all 3 tiers of verification and my
| account has sat in "pending" for over a month on the last
| step (first step was instant, second step took a week or so).
|
| I can always buy BTC on coinbase and transfer them over then
| convert them to USD/(T) but that's not ideal.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Please don't shill coins here, even if you don't intend it that
| way.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Oh I suppose it did come off that way. My bad.
| olalonde wrote:
| > The news comes just a day after Binance announced it has hired
| Max Baucus, who served decades in the U.S. Senate and later as an
| ambassador to China, to help the firm navigate the U.S.
| regulatory landscape. Binance said Thursday that Baucus will
| provide the exchange with policy guidance and act as a liaison
| between Binance and regulators.
|
| Crony capitalism is alive and well in the US...
| chizhik-pyzhik wrote:
| It's trivial as a US resident to use binance.com using a VPN.
| There is no KYC requirement and they do nothing to block VPN IPs.
| qeternity wrote:
| Binance led the migration to USDT as the default reserve currency
| in the crypto ecosystem.
|
| This could get very spicy.
| gruez wrote:
| not bitfinex?
| qeternity wrote:
| iFinex own Tether, but it was Binance who really led the
| charge.
|
| I don't know who the real puppet master is...they're all in
| cahoots (i.e. Binance and FTX). The illusion of choice is
| alive and well.
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(page generated 2021-03-12 23:02 UTC)