Live data from Hacker News

SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

bloomberg.com

131–140 of 489 posts

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point one just sounds like your opinion that securities regulations should not exist. Seems like a little stump-box-y to post in a thread about high-profile, blatant securities law criminality lol.

[flagged]

It should be possible for non-consenting individuals to claw back their money when needed, by rules agreed to by the society they live in. Agree or disagree? More than one word, please. A full explanation is required to justify allowing DPRK and Russia to fund themselves by stealing from crypto-fools and innocent bystanders around the world.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% of people don’t have a bank account in the US.

Most Americans have a bank account: "According to the report, 81% of adult Americans are fully banked, 13% are underbanked, and 6% are unbanked. The share of Americans with each banking status in 2021 remained almost constant from 2020." https://usafacts.org/articles/who-is-the-least-likely-to-hav...

What GP is saying is that most people in the world do not have an account located in the US specifically. I seriously doubt they're saying 95% of Americans don't have a bank account, which would be absurd.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#133
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting this here in case it's useful. Please correct if it's wrong. What is the Howey test for whether something is a security? """ The Howey Test asks whether a transaction constitutes an "investment contract," which is a type of security. If it is an investment contract, it must satisfy four criteria: It is an investment of money. The investment is in a common enterprise. There is an expectation of profits from th…

who is buying crypto and not expecting to make a profit from it?

People paying ransoms.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you just found four ways to describe money laundering and sanctions violations. Which admittedly is a market crypto has been trying and succeeding for quite a while to own.

[flagged]

> other rights to other people’s money or redistribution of consequences you want me to add to the list

Glad you mention redistribution of consequences, given we're burning public prosecution dollars and court time in the United States to deal with FTX, who were downed by the same sort of embezzling Zhao and Binance seem to be up to.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#135
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What scam are you referring to?

Comingling customer funds with their own personal and corporate funds to use for their own gain

Note: Even when nothing bad actually happened, this exposes customer funds to risk. It's fraudulent for me to promise to store your car in a garage, but then take it on a 140 mph joyride down the freeway.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#136

Not a Binance fan but in this context, and considering the SECs unwillingness of declaring when cryptocurrencies are securities or not, it's pretty clear that they go after Binance for strategic reasons. Not sure but I assume this is controlled by the Biden admin.

> considering the SECs unwillingness of declaring when cryptocurrencies are securities or not

The SEC has been clear about ICOs from the start. BNB was launched in an ICO. Binance then traded it on its exchange. To the degree a security is being identified in this complaint, it's BNB. Nothing in this complaint is novel law.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#137
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's stupid is that quotes like this, not actual substance of what their business practices are, are the only way the SEC can establish what is and isn't a "security." there is no real truth or objective test and the SEC has offered no meaningful guidance. so they just determine this based on subjective emails the CEO sent once.

The definition of "security" is pretty objective (Howey test), but the answer it produces tends not to be liked by people in the crypto space, so they argue hard about why it's not a definition of security. What quotes like these do is make it trivial to prove the mens rea (intent) requirements, and put a lie to claims that they didn't know it was a security or that their interpretation as not-a-security was reasonab…

Some evidence that the Howey test isn't that objective and clear:

1) Gary Gensler, now SEC chairman, used to claim that 3/4 of the cryptocurrency market were not securities[0]. He has changed his tune significantly since then.

2) The SEC chairman can't answer this simple question: "is Ethereum a commodity or a security?"[1].

[0] https://twitter.com/ZK_shark/status/1650689125580668931

[1] https://youtu.be/h_oAr4wn7M4?t=1048

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#138

This is brilliant. I really want crypto to fade away out of existence and into irrelevance, FedNow is coming soon and we don't need crypto or shady crypto exchanges like Binance. Glad to see the US taking action.

CBDCs are exactly why crypto will always be around. Spying on other people’s money is not a basic human right.

> CBDCs are exactly why crypto will always be around

CBDCs aren't on the table in America anymore. They were a stupid workaround to our political opposition to postal banking.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#139
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/framework-investment-contract-an...

Coinbase and the Howey test https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are...

More accurately, Coinbase is claiming their staking service does not count as a security under the Howey Test. A judge or panel of judges will be the ones making the actual determination, Coinbase’s claim has yet to be tested in court.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#140
The SEC and CFTC missed FTX being the worlds largest fraud. Now they are desperately going after Binance for... being above board but not getting the right license, during a period when no licenses were offered (and still aren't). At what point is this just pointless bullshit, let exchanges register, regulate them like other exchanges (segregated funds etc) and fuck off already.
Post reply on HN