Binance-Sec, agreement to avoid the freeze: it will repatriate the money of US customers

Binance and the SEC, the American Consob which supervises the financial sector, have reached an agreement that allows the largest cryptocurrency platform in the world to avoid the specter of a total freeze.

It is only an intermediate step, given that the investigations are continuing, but in the meantime Binance and its boss Changpeng Zhao have “agreed to repatriate the assets held to the United States for the benefit of clients of the cryptocurrency trading platform Binance.US”, the SEC said in the statement it announced the deal on Saturday.

It has not been specified how many of Binance’s US clients are affected, nor the value represented by these funds. Under the agreement, Binance Holdings, BAM Management US, BAM Trading Services, and founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao will repatriate the assets of Binance.US clients. However, the latter will be prohibited from using funds freely: it will only be able to do so to cover current costs and to reimburse US customers who decide to redeem their assets.

Bloomberg says the deal allows it to protect “billions of dollars of client funds, without shutting down the platform.” Binance therefore welcomed the mediation, recalling that the request for freezing that the Sec had made would have been real damage, even for the customers themselves.

Earlier this month, the SEC accused the cryptocurrency giant of securities law violations that it said amounted to “a vast web of deception” and “calculated evasion of the law.” According to the reconstruction, the treatment of billions of dollars of customers would also have been illegal, which would have been deducted from an account attributable to a person belonging to CZ. And from there they would end up in a third company, where the funds would be used to trade crypto.

The squeeze on Binance is part of a general US regulatory initiative, which has also overwhelmed Coinbase.