- Binance suspends payments in dollars due to a court ruling and regulatory pressure in the United States.
- The SEC sued BinanceUS and the exchange had to reduce USD trading pairs.
- Crypto market volatility remains low despite bad news.
Binance said in the early hours of this Friday, June 9, that the banks with which it works will stop processing its payments in dollars within the framework of a judicial resolution that temporarily restricts the operations of its commercial subsidiary in the United States.
The announcement came days after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a lawsuit against the exchange and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao.
The SEC wants BinanceUS to stop operating in that country, freezing its funds, although it has asked the courts to allow the exchange to continue processing client withdrawal requests.
“Regulatory pressure has created problems for the banks we work with,” Binance said in a statement explaining the complicated situation in that country.
“As a result, in an effort to protect our customers and platform, we are suspending USD deposits and notifying customers that our banking partners are preparing to pause fiat (USD) withdrawal channels effective June 13, 2023. We encourage clients to take the appropriate measures with their USD”, says the text of the most important exchange in the world.
In a notice to clients posted on Twitter, BinanceUS said that “USD pairs (eg BTC-USD) will begin to be phased out as we continue to support stablecoin pairs (eg BTC-USDT).”
The SEC has taken to using extremely aggressive and intimidating tactics in its pursuit of an ideological campaign against the American digital asset industry. https://t.co/AZwoBOgsqS and our business partners have not been spared in the use of these tactics, which has created… pic.twitter.com/rlIe6swIoY
— Binance.US 🇺🇸 (@BinanceUS) June 9, 2023
The exchange advises clients to withdraw the dollars via wire transfer “before June 13, 2023” and says: “Due to high volumes and the weekend bank closure, ACH withdrawals may take longer than usual to processed (for example, up to several days), we appreciate your patience.”
Binance calls the decision “a proactive step as we temporarily transition to a crypto-only exchange.” And he adds: “To be clear, we maintain 1-to-1 reserves for all of our clients’ assets.”
Binance vs the SEC: what about the price of cryptocurrencies
The news that the SEC sued Binance-US caused cryptocurrency prices to fall precipitously earlier this week.
The SEC sued Binance on Monday, June 5 for alleged “multiple violations” of US securities laws. This rocked the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
Even with the bad news related to the world’s largest exchange, it is noted that the volatility of the crypto market is relatively low compared to other years.
While cryptocurrency prices fell, the drop did not exceed 5 percent in most currencies, especially the most important, bitcoin.
Experts understand that, on the one hand, Little by little, the cryptocurrency market is stabilizing in terms of prices.
Now read:
Now the SEC is suing Coinbase and its shares are crashing
MasterCard and Visa would pause their crypto projects (what do they know that we don’t?)
Another cryptocurrency exchange in trouble? Kraken shuts down in Japan