Over the years, the CFTC has fined encryption companies

作者：0x711，BlockBeats

In a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Chicago, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleges that Binance and its CEO, CZ, violated CFTC rules, including the Commodity Exchange Act, without any registered authority, Solicited and accepted orders from U.S. customers for commodity futures trading, options, swaps and leveraged retail commodity trading that were not completed on the trading platform without any compliance registration.

The incident immediately sent shockwaves through the crypto market, with Bitcoin briefly falling below the round $27,000 mark, once again shattering the market's fragile confidence. One has to wonder how much impact the CFTC's case against Binance will have on the crypto market and whether CZ will be the next Arthur Hayes.

As an independent regulator of the United States government, the main function of the CFTC is to supervise the commodity futures, options and financial futures and options markets, protect market participants and the public from fraud, market manipulation and unfair business activities related to commodity and financial futures and options, and ensure the openness, competitiveness and financial reliability of the futures and options markets. As the scale of the crypto asset market continues to expand, in recent years, the CFTC's supervision of the crypto field continues to strengthen, resulting in repeated fines. BlockBeats has compiled several major CFTC lawsuits against crypto companies, hoping to shed some light on Binance's case.

Bitfinex and Tether

Bitfinex and the CFTC are definitely old enemies. The CFTC's case against Bitfinex dates back to 2016, when it accused it of "providing illegal over-the-counter financing for retail commodity trading and failing to register a futures-related licence" and ordered itPay a $75,000 fine.

In 2019, the CFTC filed civil charges against both Bitfinex and Tether. The CFTC accused Bitfinex of similar charges in 2016, including providing non-compliant trading services through unregistered trading platforms and violating anti-money laundering laws. In addition, the CFTC accused Tether of making misleading statements about its cryptocurrency Stablecoin. The case ended inA settlement was reached in October 2021"Ended with Bitfinex paying $1.5 million and Tether paying $41 million.

BitMEX

In October 2020, the CFTC, the FBI and the Department of Justice jointly sued BitMEX and its founding executives. The complaint alleges that BitMEX offered leveraged trading services in cryptocurrency derivatives to U.S. investors, and that BitMEX acted as a counterparty on some of those transactions. BitMEX is also unregistered as a commodity futures trader and is accused of violating the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act. In addition, the complaint accuses BitMEX executives of failing to implement compliance measures. Four BitMEX executives were also charged, three of whom were arrested.

And finally,BitMEX reached a settlement with the CFTCAnd agreed to pay a $100 million fine. As part of the agreement, BitMEX is also required to implement a number of compliance measures to ensure that its trading platform complies with CFTC regulatory standards. In addition,The three co-founders of BitMEX  Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed were barred from further violations of Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC rules and each paid a $10m civil penalty.

CabbageTech, Corp.

CabbageTech Corp. is a virtual currency exchange based in New York City. In February 2018, the CFTC filed a lawsuit against the company alleging fraud and illegal activity in commodity futures trading.indictmentSays the firm's founder, Patrick McDonnell, deliberately misled investors and misappropriated client funds. In addition, 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 decisionThe defendants paid $1.1 million in fines and restitution related to "malicious fraud of customers."

My Big Coin

In addition to trading platforms, crypto programs are also a major target of CFTC regulation. In January 2018, the CFTC charged Randall Crater and Mark Gillespie with fraud and misappropriating more than $6 million in client assets through the My Big Coin project. Randall Crater was arrested in Florida and charged with seven counts of wire fraud and illegal monetary transactions.

summarize

It can be seen from the above cases that the reasons for CFTC to prosecute crypto trading platforms are mostly violations of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act and "unlicensed operation". The most serious enforcement was against the BitMEX platform, in which the three founders received severe penalties in addition to hefty fines, but the BitMEX case, which involved multiple parties, appears to have broken the law ina more serious way than the Binance case.

Combined with the CFTC's claim in Binance's filing, "The CFTC seeks civil monetary penalties and remedial collateral relief, including but not limited to transaction and registration prohibitions, forfeiture, and pre - and post-judgment interest," it is not hard to see why Binance needs to be "bailed out" this time.

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