Original author: 0x711, BlockBeats

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit in Chicago federal court on Monday, accusing Binance and its CEO CZ of violating CFTC regulations, including the Commodity Exchange Act, by soliciting and accepting orders from U.S. customers without any registration agency To conduct commodity futures transactions, options, swaps and leveraged retail commodity transactions not completed within the trading platform, and without any compliance registration.

As soon as this incident happened, the crypto market was shaken. Bitcoin fell below the $27,000 round mark for a short time, and the fragile confidence in the market was once again hit. People can't help but wonder how much impact the CFTC's prosecution of Binance, the brother of CEX, will have on the encryption market, and whether CZ will become the next Arthur Hayes.

As an independent regulatory agency of the U.S. government, CFTC's main function is to supervise the commodity futures, options and financial futures and options markets, and to protect market participants and the public from fraud, market manipulation and unfairness related to commodities and financial futures and options. To ensure the openness, competitiveness and financial reliability of futures and options markets. With the continuous expansion of the encrypted asset market, the CFTC has continued to strengthen its supervision of the encrypted field in recent years, and fines have continued. BlockBeats compiled several major CFTC lawsuits against encryption companies, hoping to shed some light on the Binance case.

Bitfinex and Tether

Bitfinex and CFTC are definitely a pair of "old enemies". The CFTC’s prosecution against Bitfinex dates back to 2016, when the CFTC accused it of “providing illegal over-the-counter financing for retail commodity transactions without registering a futures-related license” and ordered it toPay a fine of $75,000。

In 2019, the CFTC filed civil charges against both Bitfinex and Tether. Among them, the CFTC accused Bitfinex of charges similar to those in 2016, that is, providing non-compliant trading services through unregistered trading platforms, and suspected of violating anti-money laundering laws. Additionally, the CFTC accused Tether of making misleading statements about its cryptocurrency stablecoin. The case was finallySettlement reached in October 2021, with Bitfinex paying a fine of $1.5 million and Tether paying a fine of $41 million.

BitMEX

In October 2020, the CFTC, the FBI and the US Department of Justice jointly sued BitMEX and its founder executives. The indictment alleges that BitMEX provided U.S. investors with leveraged trading services in cryptocurrency derivatives, while BitMEX acted as a counterparty for certain transactions. At the same time, BitMEX is not registered as a commodity futures trader, and it is accused of violating the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act. Additionally, the indictment accuses BitMEX executives of failing to implement compliance measures. Four BitMEX executives were simultaneously indicted, and three of them were arrested.

finally,BitMEX reaches settlement agreement with CFTC, and agreed to pay a $100 million fine. As part of the agreement, BitMEX also needs to implement a series of compliance measures to ensure that its trading platform meets CFTC regulatory standards. also,The three co-founders of BitMEXArthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed were barred from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations and each paid $10 million in civil penalties.

CabbageTech, Corp.

CabbageTech Corp. is a New York City-based virtual currency trading platform. In February 2018, the CFTC filed a lawsuit against the company alleging fraud and irregularities in commodity futures trading.indictmentAlleges that the company's founder, Patrick McDonnell, deliberately misled investors and misappropriated client funds. Additionally, the CFTC accused the company of failing to disclose key information to investors and failing to register as a commodity futures trader when necessary.final court decisionDefendants paid $1.1 million in fines and damages related to "maliciously defrauding customers."

My Big Coin

Summarize

Summarize

It can be seen from the above cases that CFTC’s prosecutions against encrypted trading platforms are mostly based on violations of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and “operating without a license.” The most severe law enforcement was against the BitMEX platform. In this case, in addition to huge fines, the three founders were also severely punished. However, the BitMEX case involves joint law enforcement by multiple parties, and the violations seem to be more serious than the Binance case. , the reference value is limited.

Combined with the CFTC’s claims in Binance’s prosecution documents, “CFTC seeks civil monetary penalties and remedial incidental relief measures, including but not limited to trading and registration injunctions, forfeiture, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest”, it is not difficult to see that Binance’s It is necessary to "save money and avoid disaster".