Tomorrow's Levine's Newsletter will be sweet :D Btw, is there a single bitcoin exchange who is operated by people that do not behave like teenagers?
Try company, ugh. The stuff I've seen at FAANG...
SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
161–170 of 489 posts
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#162[flagged]
More like:
- It should be illegal to defraud unsuspecting individuals by hiding information that would necessarily clarify the riskyness of the contracts they are engaging in.
- Businesses have way more information asymmetry advantage and we want to help limit this.
- Financial responsibilities of business and individuals is something that should be looked at by a third party because this can be financing bad things and/or be unfair to the individual due to the aforementioned information asymmetry.
- Various other reasonable points, while not perfect can certainly provide conscientious arguments for the them.
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#163The 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.
How do we know that Binance is "above board" when they have never published a GAAP audit and their auditors have taken down their "proof of reserves"?
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#164Earlier 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…
So your position is that the US Government intends to require every creator and trader of crypto to complete registration, notification, filing requirements with SEC? They pretty obviously don't want to enforce that or ask that of our populace. So we just get them enforcing whenever they want to (probably because Zhao is Chinese, basically).
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#165"The S.E.C. said the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange mixed “billions of dollars” in customer funds and secretly sent them to a separate company controlled by Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao."
That's a criminal offense.
Here's the court filing.[1] This is just a civil case for now, but expect criminal charges. "Between October 2022 and January 2023, Zhao personally received $62.5 million from one of the Binance bank accounts."
The court filing shows the structure of Zhao's companies. The SEC has figured out how Binance works.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2023/comp-pr...
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#166The 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.
> being above board
SEC has alleged multiple efforts to lie and deceive both regulators and users. It's hard to see how that qualifies as "above board".
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#167Earlier 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]
Saying this needs a one word answer is pretty reductive. I think it's obviously more nuanced than that.
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…
You are almost correct. It doesn't matter whether most people make a profit. It just matters that they are investing believing they will make a profit. Buying my worthless stock or investing in my pyramid scheme are both securities even if I'm the only one who makes anything.
It matters that the person buying reasonably thinks it could lead to profits. Not that it necessarily does.
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#169> In one instance, the Binance chief compliance officer messaged a colleague that, “[w]e are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.” Source: https://twitter.com/JohnReedStark/status/1665748594421297152 This is a legendary quote from the filing.
My theory is that Binance execs were having these chats in an encrypted medium (e.g. WA or Signal) but didn't secure themselves against a defector. I think someone on the inside took screenshots and went to the feds (or started cooperating under legal pressure). There's even a leading candidate [0]. What's funny about this is it's a fine metaphor for what ails crypto as a whole. The technology is cryptographically se…
Ahh yes Coley! So we finally find out where she's been stashed for the last two years.
Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, the “offhand comment by someone years before they took a position indemnifies you business for all behaviour infinitely into the future no backsies” law
If by "offhand" you mean the former head of the CFTC giving a lecture in the class he teaches on the subject at MIT while at the same time the SEC is also not taking any actions against crypto exchanges. There isn't a "no backsies" rule, but then you will have to tell me what changed about crypto between 2018 and now that made it pass the Howey test then and fail it now if you want me to believe that the government i…
This is off-topic unless you're aware of someone being charged for cash trading Bitcoin or Ethereum.
It's degrading to yourself to pretend in public anyone expected the SEC was cool with coins.