Binance.US probe began in 2020, per court documents.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating Binance.US since at least 2020, court filings published late Tuesday show.
The SEC has evidence that Binance.US made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits through the exchange of cryptocurrency.
On Monday, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance’s U.S. and global entities, as well as its CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, alleging that they operated an unregistered securities exchange by allowing people to trade crypto. The regulator has since sought to freeze Binance.US assets.
The SEC initiated the investigation and designated officials to take testimony on August 17, 2020, according to a court filing by SEC lawyer Colby Steele.
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“The investigation concerned, among other things, possible violations of the federal securities laws by BAM Trading Services Inc,” Steele said, referring to the company which does business as Binance.US.
Another filing by SEC accountant Sachin Verma stated that BAM Trading had generated $411 million in revenue and $225 million in gross profit for a period slightly over four years. As the company is not listed on a stock market, it has traditionally maintained relative secrecy over its financial affairs.
In a statement tweeted on Monday, Binance.US said it had engaged with the SEC in good faith for nearly two and a half years, but added that the lawsuit was “baseless… unjustified by the facts, by the law, or by the Commission’s own precedent.”
Read more: One-Two Punch Finally Registers SEC View on Binance, blockchain, Rest of Crypto
Edited by Parikshit Mishra.
