Bitcoin and Ethereum Prices Take a Hit Following CFTC Lawsuit Against Binance
On Monday, Binance, the top cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume, along with its CEO Changpeng Zhao, were sued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The CFTC filed a lawsuit in a Chicago federal court, alleging that Zhao and Binance breached trading and derivatives regulations. Following the news of the case, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin and Ethereum, dropped.
In the past hour, Bitcoin fell to $26,800 but quickly recovered back above $27,100 at the time of writing. Ethereum’s price decreased by 2.8% and is currently trading close to $1,700.
In the lawsuit, the CFTC claimed that Binance has been running a digital asset derivatives trading facility in the US since July 2019, allowing US residents to trade futures, swaps, and options on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
READ MORE: Bitcoin: Investors Flock to BTC as Inflation Concerns Mount
The lawsuit also stated that Binance attempted to expand its presence in the US despite claiming to prevent US residents from accessing its platform.
The crypto exchange allegedly violated federal laws essential to the integrity and vitality of the US financial markets by failing to comply with regulations to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
The lawsuit presented messages from the encrypted messaging app Signal collected from Zhao’s phone, in which he instructed Binance representatives to use Signal to communicate with US-based customers.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
