|
The
purportedly independent U.S. affiliate of Binance, the world's
largest crypto exchange, said in a tweet late on Thursday that
its banking partners are preparing to stop dollar withdrawal
channels as early as June 13.
Binance.US said in the customer notice that it would no longer
accept dollar deposits as part of plans to change to a
"crypto-only exchange". It did not give details of who its
banking partners are.
On Monday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
sued Binance, its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, and the
operator of its U.S. exchange. The lawsuit marked a dramatic
escalation of a crackdown on the industry by U.S. regulators,
with the SEC suing major U.S. exchange Coinbase a day later.
The SEC alleged in 13 charges that Binance artificially inflated
its trading volumes, diverted customer funds, failed to restrict
U.S. customers from its platform and misled investors about its
market surveillance controls.
The SEC on Tuesday asked a federal court to freeze Binance's
U.S. assets. Binance.US called the motion "unwarranted," saying
it had addressed SEC concerns over the safety of customer
assets.
In its tweet on Thursday, Binance.US said crypto-denominated
trading, deposits, withdrawals and "staking" - where users
deposit cryptocurrencies for use in blockchain transactions -
would remain fully operational.
"Halting of withdrawals is obviously going to create or spur
quite a bit of worry and panic," said Matthew Dibb, COO of
Singapore crypto platform Stack Funds.
Crypto prices barely reacted to the news, with bitcoin last
trading flat $26,512. It was headed for a weekly loss of about
2.3%, after having dipped to an over two-month low of $25,350
earlier in the week as the SEC crackdown stoked nerves.
Binance's BNB token, the world's fourth-largest, slid 1.5% to
$258.76.
Binance.US had struggled to find banking partners after the
failure of Signature Bank, the Wall Street Journal reported in
April.
(Reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Rahat Sandhu in Bengaluru;
Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil, Shri Navaratnam and Kim Coghill)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
