SEC Lawsuit Against Binance and CZ Moves Forward
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Binance and its co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is moving forward following a recent ruling.
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia allowed 10 out of 13 counts in the SEC lawsuit to proceed.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the majority of the SEC’s claims could continue in full, while two counts were allowed to proceed partially. This lawsuit, initiated last year, follows a plea deal Binance made with other regulatory bodies, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), resulting in a $4.3 billion fine. The SEC has used details from these plea deals to support its case.
The SEC’s allegations against Binance and CZ involve mishandling customer funds, misleading investors and regulators, and violating securities laws. Binance and CZ have been seeking to have these claims dismissed.
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The judge dismissed one count related to the sale of the stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD). Last year, BUSD faced regulatory action, leading Paxos, Binance’s BUSD issuing partner, to stop minting the stablecoin in February. Binance announced it would phase out support for BUSD by December 2023. The judge also dismissed parts of a claim concerning the secondary sale of Binance’s native token, BNB, and part of a claim regarding Binance’s Simple Earn program, which allows users to earn interest by lending tokens.
The SEC’s lawsuit against Binance is part of a broader effort to classify cryptocurrencies as securities under its jurisdiction, a move that has been criticized by many in the crypto industry and Congress as regulatory overreach. In another recent action, the SEC sued Consensys, alleging that its MetaMask wallet and associated features violate securities laws.
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.
