271–280 of 489 posts
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They are alleging the exchange comingled customer funds and transferred them to another company controlled by Zhao. Why doesn’t that make you angry?
That makes me angry as well. It also makes me angry that my bank does something like this with the money I deposit. I doubt this is the pivotal point for that case though.
Isn't CZ already being sued by the CFTC? Is cryptocurrency a security or a commodity and under whose jurisdiction does Binance fall? Or were they trading in both types of instruments? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35327996
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I would love to know what context could surround the sentence "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA" that makes it not an admission that they are operating as an unlicensed securities exchange in the USA.
There's a ton of context that could work. Anything where it's framed as either (a) untrue or (b) temporary and about to be mitigated. "What we are being falsely accused of is: 'we are operating...'" "We are operating... To fix this we must xyz" But I consider the second one to make the most sense. Saying "we have a problem" is a common first step of fixing it. Saying "we will be committing a felony if I don't win thi…
you can't just go to court and disavow all statements you've made as being ironic or untrue, facially, as a means of end-running the claims against you. you have to litigate your defense.
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Easy agree. There are all kinds of things you can do with money that should be (and are) illegal. Hiring a hitman should be illegal. Buying slaves should be illegal. Bribing the court system should be illegal. This is not to say that every restrictions is justified, but taking the stance that no restrictions are justified is advocating anarchy.
An essential point to bear in mind in these crimes: each one involves a victim who is, crucially, not a willing participant. People who participate in buying or selling cryptocurrency are willing participants.
Cryptocurrency has unwilling victims as well, but the linkage between cryptocurrency buyers and ransomware sellers is much less direct
If you want a closer analogy, gambling is also something that happens between willing participants and is almost universally either regulated or outlawed.
There are some good arguments that we need clearer, better regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges and a lower barrier of entry for low income/asset investors into securities.
However, some level of regulation of cryptocurrency is clearly required and is not out of step how we handle other parts of the economy.
I remember the last post from Fred Wilson: "The Freedom To Innovate" [1]. Even if the SEC is right about Binance and others, and there are without doubt blatant and huge frauds in Web3, there are huge problems with the financial modernization within the US (and the world). Domestic wire transfers in US takes longer and are more expensive than in Europe and developing countries such as Brazil and Argentina. The SEC is…
Just because the current system sucks doesn't mean a replacement will be better. Its the responsibility of people advocating for a replacement system to explain and demonstrate why it will be better. Banks suck. But that doesn't mean crypto companies should have free reign to do whatever they want for the sake of "innovation."
As a company, you're allowed to do anything that is not illegal. Law is not a whitelist of what you're allowed to do, it's a blacklist of what you're not allowed to do. And while it makes sense to create laws that protect consumers, it doesn't make sense to create laws that blanket ban experimentation with a new system until someone "explains and demonstrates why it will be better" to the satisfaction of some authority figure.
> Its the responsibility of people advocating for a replacement system to explain and demonstrate why it will be better.
No, it's society's responsibility to not create and to repeal laws that drive innovation offshore. Because ultimately it's a country's citizens, not the innovators, who lose out if a valuable piece of technology moves offshore. If Steve Jobs had to "explain and demonstrate" why the iPhone would be better than flip phones and blackberries to the satisfaction of Congress before being allowed to experiment with its design, Apple probably would have just moved their HQ to China, and Americans would be the ones missing out.
So just because Binance is committing fraud and breaking the law doesn't mean that in general we should be blocking the ability of companies from experimenting with new technology, whether or not you personally believe a particular technology will amount to anything.
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> 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".
The burden is on SEC to prove these allegations. If they took YOU to court, calling YOU a thief, you would expect the burden to be on them, right?
WELL, the former CEOs of Binance.US who quit after realizing CZ was the real CEO against what was supposed to be the real setup seem to have testified to the SEC...along with hints the SEC has a big pile of private messages.
Read the court filing. There's a lot of inside information from "BAM CEO A" and "BAM CEO B". These were the first two CEOs of Binance.us. They came on board thinking they had a real job. Then they discovered they were just figureheads. "BAM CEO A" was fired. "BAM CEO B" quit after three months and started cooperating with US regulators. "Upon assuming his CEO duties, however, BAM CEO B quickly learned that Binance, i…
Their job was to PLEASE: Provide legal exculpation and sign everything. (hey HIMYM fans!)
> 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.
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Seems strange to say Justin Sun an CZ are even close to one another in terms of impropriety. Justin Sun is a snake oil salesman, CZ potentially broke the law while running a legitimate service. One that worked and was actually quite successful.
From page 29 of the complaint: > As Binance’s [chief compliance officer] bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.” Whoops. The press are supposed to say "allegedly" in cases like this, but when your people are on the record admitting that the business is criminal, the public tends to jump to the same conclusion…
I'm talking about the comparison of two people and what they are/have been accused of. Not whether any one court claim has legitimate evidence or not.