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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/binance-the-biggest-cryptocurrency-exchange-reportedly-under-investigation/ (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/binance-the-biggest-cryptocurrency-exchange-reportedly-under-investigation/)

Apparently Binance is under investigation, not by one but many sections of the government.
They are mainly focused on :
•Tax frauds
•Money laundering
Now the government is going to take strict actions against all the people who were involved, especially the trading platform, if found guilty. They have already said that 756 million dollars went through binance.  Which is actually a big amount. Now should the people be held liable or the trading platform?
- Ofc some of it might have been the mistake of binance also but at the same time as we all know it's super secure and needs a lot of documents, identification which gets verified after a while. Which does mean that if the people had valid documents .. would it still be okay to blame binance?
It's world's biggest and most trusted trading platform. I for sure hope that they are able to provide a reliable reason so as to why all the wallets transactions were not properly monitored and at the same time how could such frauds remain unnoticed?
-Well binance is going a lil slow since some of my friends tried signing up and they said it would take much longer than usual.. due to huge trading volumes. But who knows ? Maybe they are just struggling with investigations.

What do you think ?
This could be a big deal.
Would it drive the price down ?

I think it could have a bit of influence on some particular Cryptos which are not listed everywhere. For example Shiba is still being listed but slowly. Therefore it might cause a decrease in Price of such cryptocurrencies if there are some problems.

Yeah, I saw a Youtube news video about this today.  I also heard that the oil pipeline hackers did indeed ask for crypto (presumably bitcoin, though it wasn't stated explicitly), and that makes me think that the hack is partially responsible for this so-called crackdown on crypto and the investigation of Binance.  The government has to look like it's doing something, even if what they're doing is a waste of time.

Do I think this is going to drive the price of bitcon down?  No, probably not.  Bitcoin is resilient and has thrived in the face of bigger debacles.

I also don't think it's going to affect Binance's business all that much, since they're global.  If the US government bans them from servicing US customers, that might hurt a little, but they'd survive and keep going.  But I don't think that's going to happen anyway.  Should be interesting to see what the outcome of this is.

meh, chainanalysis is a hot heap of garbage.  Their website says : "Building Trust in Blockchain".  Blockchain/Bitcoin solves the 3rd party Trust problem, ironic no?  Seems like they want big gov contracts to me.  They just got 100 million in financing.  I dont like Binance but I like chainanalysis even less.

Binance would be completely fine and I don't think they will ever be accountable for something in here. The investigation is done just so the gov't can make a front that they're up to something, or that the tax dollars are at work. Also, Chainalysis isn't really doing anyone favors except for themselves. We all know that binance is a hotbed for most cryptocurrency trades right now, and linking those 'transactions' to Binance's platform is just insane. Why would a platform be held responsible if they received tainted coins? For the tax evasion case, we don't know until the investigation ends. But for now, Chainalysis linking things to Binance is just absurd.

Haven't we seen this piece of history from bitfinex/tether "investigations" in 2017.

As well as false stories of binance offices in shanghai being "raided" in 2019.


For some strange reason, people don't seem to remember things that happened only a few years ago.

Its hard to discuss topics, when history and recent events are forgotten.

Binance is very big and i dont think it will be very easy for those people that is against binance because of cryptocurrency to get it down, since some countries rise against cryptocurrency and their no succeeding to bring crypto world down, it's obvious that no amount of investigation government can carry on to bring binance down, i only seeing this like something that will make crypto more stronger in time coming.

Same old same old, there is always some investigation going on, whether its Bitfinex/Tether, now Binance etc.

I think that this ongoing Binance investigation will lead to a dead end, as many other similar before and nothing significant will happen. But even if it does, I don't thik that it would affect Bitcoin much and even if it did, it would be just temporary. On the other hand, shitcoins like that SHIBA you mentioned (and many others) that are listed there would definitely tale some serious beating.

I also noticed the news yesterday. However, it is not a big deal, IMO. Since the day bitcoin was created, we have faced numerous issues regard to exchanges, brokers, and crypto financial advisors. There are scam exchanges, strict or even ban regulations but bitcoin continues to grow and even stronger. In the past when people believed that bitcoin were going to die, it would challenge the monetary system as well as haters' bias

 I know that binance is a big exchange and because it is big, CZ knows how to handle such a problem as this. This man always knows how to fix things and calm the community. Contributing everything to the crypto community is what he is perfect in. Thus, binance will easily reach a compromise with the US government with the magic hands of CZ

The biggest crypto industry in my opinion is on Binance, but I still firmly believe that Binance's management is not that easy to destroy the industry that has given them huge profits.  In my opinion, if Binance is to receive a harsh penalty then this will have a huge impact on the market.  Because fear and high risk will make investors rethink investing in crypto.  Binance, which is the largest company, cannot be trusted, let alone any other exchange.

In my opinion, we can't really blame Binance. The crypto world is very complicated and its anonymous features and system is very weird as compared to modern payment systems that uses fiat etc, hence Binance can only put a limited effort to curb the corruption and money snuggling, and it does everything that can be possible to prevent crimes. Whenever something bad goes, the government instead of trying to catch the criminals, chase after soft targets just to satisfy their ego ;D

it is bound to happen. when these exchanges keep reporting ridiculously huge daily volumes (whether truthfully or fake volume) they are bound to attract the attention of the government. we are talking about billions of dollars after all. best case scenario is very strict regulations and even more KYC demands from this exchange on its users and a lot of user accounts closed down as the consequence.

it seems like the altcoin market should have a purge like this every couple of years. there is always a huge exchange on top of the list which goes under and another replaces it.

Yes, it will drive the price of the market down cause alot of traders will choose to move their trading holding out of exchange while some will decide to sell for stable coin before they move theirs and alot of trading platform will be extra careful this day. Besides, i saw an article that says Tether publicly provided their reserved holding for the first time though I don't read the article but i believe the IRS investigation about Binance is what causes it.

This will be a big deal for centralized exchange that are guilty but won't for those that are not.

Just because the blockchain is public doesn't mean it's transparent.  Have you ever tried to to trace bitcoin to see where it originates from?  It's impossible.  Chainanalysis offers services that do that, which is going to be ever more important as crypto becomes more mainstream and you have to verify that you as a business are not unwittingly abetting money laundering by dealing in crypto.

If this investigation is true, I believe, Binance is already doing their job to defend themselves in case this situation goes to another level. Also, I think, most of crypto-exchanges are guilty of receiving some illegal crypto coins at one point as it is indeed hard to trace where coins are coming from, especially those that don't require KYC for certain levels. If they will investigate Binance, they should investigate all the other crypto exchanges as well. Binance may be at the hot seat as they are the number 1 exchange and earning very good amount of money.

like coinbase? the ones that US government can chase after, they will investigate them. binance is known to follow obligations, if subjected to an investigation they will provide data. i doubt someone in binance.us will make big transactions enough for investigation. if you are to launder big amounts, you're not going in this exchange.

an investigation is a good story if they just publicly tell the truth of what they discover and reveal wallet addresses, they'd find more useful information to find out when users in the forum track these wallets.

This is going to be a thing of the past, binance of all crypto exchange? Nah this is going to be forgetten real fast because I believe the exchange is clean, whatever fraud that may have happened has nothing to do with binance and it's team, I haven't seen an exchange that cares more about it's REP like binance exchange

Ok i am not a biggest fan of Binance and they probably do manipulate some numbers by "accident" but i have to defend them too.

Strange wicks happen because of lack of liquidity and they are in everywhere. Market manipulators work in several exchanges that they could profit from, not just in Binance and one of their main goal is to trigger stop losses so they can make huge moves. It doesn't mean that the Exchange tries to move markets actively. And in case of Binance, they would be risking their future as a top exchange for something they don't need to do. Also we don't have actual evidence that anything they do is a scam so it's pointless to claim so.


Do you remember how much more useless the coinmarket was? It kept advertising Bitconnect even when explained it was a scam. Faked volume without ANY liquidity could put your exchanges to the top. Coinbase GUI and fixes they have done to it overall have made it much more approachable. Rest of your sentence is just guesswork.

This site is working like chainanalysis and it's free you don't need to pay anything https://www.walletexplorer.com/info

Even though it's not 100% accurate but it help you to find where the coins belongs to.

If the transaction is using a mixer, than it's will untrackable since you'll find many small input and random address were come from your transaction. It will be hard to CZ to explain those transaction to SEC as they will assume it as money laundry.

Maybe if binance is found guilty and probably got shot down by the government there won't be anymore manipulation in crypto, everything will be fine and things will go smoothly, from all I read, it seems binance is the only exchange involved in this type of accusation  :-\,  unfortunately binance have many users that will be affected if things go bad.

I don't have an account on CMC to check my thoughts, but on that screenshot the coin you're talking about is marked as favorite - this could be the reason for it to be on top.

This is not really exciting news but it is very concerning news if you are serious crypto investor.

Because, Binance is largest market place for the crypto geeks and over the time they will grow big too. If Binance is under investigation today then it can have larger effects on the crypto and specifically on the bitcoin. It can destroy the healthy economy for it's existence. Market will turn into panic blood bath and go down heavily.

If Binance actually falls in the legal activities like this and get proven guilty for this allegation then those funds will be ceased by government and moreover, they may shut down the operations of Binance.

This could be disastrous for us.

This is a literal example of lack of liquidity combined with fat fingers. And when stop losses activate, it can become an extreme example like this but huge wicks are not unique. The fact that it went so down also means that this fat fingering moron lost a lot of money. If it would be manipulation the price wouldn't just come back in an instant and no one in their right mind would like to use such an expensive and ineffective tactics for manipulation. In places that don't offer any protection against fat fingering and have low liquidity, you can potentially make a lot of money by setting lot of low buy orders.


WSB is not a coin or a token, it was a support for wallstreetbets reddit group for their fight against shorters. Price was a joke about gamestop price that you would have seen if clicked it.


Have you also seen that they have removed that?

Binance.com has been one of the world's largest exchanges by trading volume for a long time. Altcoins on Binance have been over-pumped recently and they have fake volume.
I am not surprised that Binance.com has been investigated because, in the past major exchanges such as Bifinex, Huobi or Okex have been investigated. Bitmex CEO Arthur Hayes has also been sued and jailed for money laundering. It is normal and necessary to investigate an exchange. If Binance.com makes a mistake they are responsible for their actions.

First of all, trading volume and good liquidity are whole different things, volume can be faked quite easily with thin walls, (most of the time by exchanges themselves). And sometimes even that good  liquidity just falls short momentarily creating a short window to someone fuck things up. That got fixed quickly and as you can see the buy orders came back right away.

Entire orderbook for one pair can be destroyed by a bigger whale by mistake (especially few years ago). I personally know one whale what could have crashed one of the top projects  while ago with all the pairs because he was one of the largest holders and obviously he didn't want to do that on purpose, but all you need is to make a drunken accident, that's Occam's razor for you, it doesn't need a conspiracy.

And i disagree about your opinion about WSB. I think it was good for cmc to stand with them in this case, the situation showed the need of decentralization and awareness was needed.

Being under investigation as an exchange is not a strange deal, it happens to all the companies that are working with crypto, you think Coinbase never worked with SEC or IRS or any other branch? They had to work with them 7/24 to be able to be where they are. However we have to realize WHEN binance became under investigation, binance started their binance.us website which is totally working for the Americans and that means if you want to start a company there you have to be following every single law in USA as well and that is why they are "under investigation".

The short version is "usa is looking into binance.us to see if they are following all the laws" and nothing more, if they do not follow all the laws that means there will be a huuuuge penalty for them, if they are following all the laws that means nothing will happen to them at all.

First, this is issue has nothing to do with how big Binance exchange is for the exchange cant big pass the law and if found guilty it will be brought to justice.
Second, this is only about Binance exchange it not about bring cryptocurrency down and if the government cannot bring crypto down that doesn't mean they cannot bring Binance if they are guilty of what accused of.

What I say might be complete nonsense, however, I highly believe that many exchanges are currently being used for money laundering and tax evasion. Don't get me wrong, that's just my impression, stemming from the nature of cryptocurrencies. Of course and Binance should be investigated and we'll wait on the verdict soon enough.

I wonder if this incident will have any effect in Binance Smart Chain and DeFi projects.

Due to stringent actions and pressure from the US Authorities, Binance created Binance US so that at least every US User remains under the radar of the federal government, and money laundering and tax frauds can be controlled to some extent. However, I feel that a normal investor shouldn't be that worried. Obviously, trading is mechanical and the user has no control over it. It's about the deposits and withdrawals that they could cry about and that I think can be easily explained on the basis of blockchain transparency and any user can easily depict the flow of their cryptocurrencies. So even if you are caught, there isn't a big deal to worry about. Moreover Binance too will easily get out of this mess if they haven't done anything, they are not newbies in this space.

We don't know if exchange are indeed used for money laundering and tax evasion but if it was only ignorant person will use a centralized for such purpose when there's decentralization exchange and Bitcoin tumbler site that will handle the issue without any further query.

If Binance found guilty it may affect all their services( including BSC) and the market because Binance the number one exchange but if they are ask to pay some certain fee it won't affect their products.

With the position of Binance in crypto market, I have no doubt that they will be ready for this kind of situation.
We don't have the full information of what is going on yet with this investigation.
They have come a long way already, so I hope they are prepared for this.
There are so many users that are relying on their services. And I can say, most of them are satisfied with those services.
So for me, going down is not an option. Hope they can resolve this issue before it escalates into something bigger.

It is not surprising that Binance was investigated by the American government in the end. because the US government has been investigating
exchanges for a long time. As you said it is not only Binance that is investigated by the American government. Since several other exchanges
have been investigated, the US government just wants to make sure that Binance is not carrying out any illegal activities. As long as Binance
hasn't done anything wrong, there shouldn't be any worries about the investigations the American government is carrying out.

I don't believe that there is someone in this world that's not satisfied with binance exchange, this exchange is the best for me it where I swap coins and trade coins too, also I believe that the Government has the power to investigate any crypto exchange they feel like not just binance alone so this isn't something new

Whether Binance or the traders should be blamed? Well, in a case like this the government is going to hold Binance responsible for giving such an opportunity to money launderers to make use of their platform in carrying out such activities. The government doesn't know who those people are, so all they know is Binance and that's who they are going to be holding responsible for it.

In a case whereby they know who those people are, it still won't stop fact that Binance would be held responsible , but all those people will also be held accountable for what they have done. I don't know whether this is going to affect Binance in any way at all, because I believe that they are going to be able handle the charges and still keep moving. Even if it does have any effect on their tokens’ price, it's going to be a situation that will be temporary.

I have a feeling this recent Binance FUD is a coordinated effort and we will forget this is few months when the market rebound. Binance team know this and are not stupid not to take strong people to join their side, they have the money to pay now for political influence and this will help them have soft landing

If an exchange doesn't do KYC, it ought to be shut down. If an exchange facilitates tax evasion, it ought to be shut down. I don't know if Binance is doing either, I suppose that's what the investigation is about. However where there's smoke there's usually fire. This isn't some wild fishing expedition. The investigators probably have a pretty good idea of what they're going to find, which is the genesis of the investigation.

It could be true. They have been moving many times in the past which right now is Cayman Island. They may be right about some suspicious activity to the exchange but what right will the US government have to examine their database?

I'm sure they could find more on Yobit or any other exchange that had been long active before Binance suck as Bittrex or Polo. I can not exclude reasons like it's political if they only investigate Binance.

And I believe, Binance will be ready also for this kind of investigation. They are moving their location for some legal reasons, and they know about what will happen. For sure, they have legal team already looking into this situation. As top 1 exchange, they should know better if the government is already after for them. This is also the reason why they created Binance.US, just to cater the US residents. They know their possible legal situations that they may face. I don't think they can easily topple a reputable exchange without valid reason.

If you're operating in US jurisdictions (i.e., taking money from people living in the US or otherwise using the infrastructure of the US financial system), you're subject to the jurisdiction of the US government and US regulations. If you don't like that, don't operate in US territories. It's as simple as that.

If they found guilty then surely the crypto market will get a huge hit on the prices, because in this trillion dollar market almost more than half of the assets are getting traded through the binance, even though Binance.US is having little trading volume compared to the actual Binance still it will give a strike into their reputation so people will go crazy all of a sudden by selling their assets which could result into panic selling of chain reaction.

For an exchange that gathers almost all investors and traders here, a thorough investigation and accusation could be a disaster, some forms of monetary compensation can be settled by the exchange but sealing the exchange can have a big effect on people's wealth. I don't know what the next information will be, but Binance's reputation will decrease or increase depending on this, this is a gate to prove it is in line with people's beliefs, not passing would be quite a problem for both the market and its customers

Nah, we can't force exchange to take the blame since it's not them who made such crimes but they also have the authority to implement such rules to make people stop doing illegal activities such as money laundering. You may think that you can't launder money even if you provided some credentials but that person will find a way to transfer money under radar that the platform think it is just a regular transfer funds.

They can put a disclaimer that US users are not allowed in their platform, but doing KYC for every user is not practical (as far as I know, Binance ask for KYC only of the daily trade volumes are above a specified limit). Putting up geography-based IP blocks doesn't work nowadays, because users will simply use a VPN. I would like to see how the exchange reacts to demands from the SEC. At least some of the charges made by the SEC will not stand in the court, and this legal battle will go on for at least a few years.

The report claims that some of the accounts received as much as $100 million in funds. In that case the KYC is clearly done here and if something is wrong with the transactions it is the duty of the law enforcement authorities to investigate it. I don't think that Binance is responsible, unless the authorities have specifically warned them to freeze these accounts.

The onus is on the exchange to monitor for evidence of money laundering. That requires KYC and a program that identifies red flags and devises a method for detecting them. Customers attempting to get around KYC or making frequent short-duration deposits and withdrawals are two obvious red flags.

I have been a trader at Binance for years and I never felt any problem with the platform but recently even I feel something is going on with them because suddenly they would stop withdrawals and maintenance would happen at weird times. I heard some people on twitter even complaining that their stop-loss orders didn't get triggered.

I don't know why they stop withdrawals during a crash, people have their coins on your exchange and they should have absolute control when they want to withdraw and Binance should not have a reason to hold the coins people deposited, no one is asking Binance to send their own coins. I think the investigation is important and good that it's happening now because they should realize that it's not okay to hold someone's money when they need it the most.

I'm like you've been using Binance for a long time, even forgetting what year I first started using Binance. And so far there have been no problems
using Binance, everything has gone smoothly without any problems. But due to the pandemic I ran into a bit of financial trouble, so it's been
almost a year since I stopped trading on Binance. So I don't know right now Binance stop withdrawals, but because Binance is the best exchange,
i am sure they stop withdrawals only temporarily and may not be for a long time. Because they will keep their reputation, Binance's struggle to be
the best exchange has not been an easy one, so they will try to provide the best for their users.

This already happened before but since Binance is trusted and has a strong foundation, they couldn't bring it down or rather break the trust of most users for it. If this case against Binance would be proven true, I'm sure that the said exchange will be able to face it and be accountable for it. I think it isn't just Binance that to be blamed but the launderers involved in it.

as happened before, at that time binance was hacked, and they were able to handle it satisfactorily. and I think for this of course I also have the same thought, that they will be able to solve it. With Binance's biggest or even biggest customers, I believe Binance is not going to break it

Well having this news alone does not bring any badness to the market price but of course eventually it blended with other bad news that's why the price of bitcoin now is suffering very badly.

I think we need to expect more of this if the cases progress and comes from investigation to finalization of filing cases.

We cant actually tell mate because even how trusted and strong a company but if the internal issue comes strong as well then they will be in bad shape.

I don't think they will get away if they have indeed made some mistakes just like how XRP was never able to solve their problems with SEC. That said, it also shows how easy it is to have issues but keep going in this market.

Binance asks for KYC once the limits are above the minimum so I don't think that is an area of concern at all. There are some limits upto which there is no need for KYC because you aren't taxable and they are operating on that same logic. If a trader is trading/depositing/withdrawing below the minimum threshold then they don't need to verify their identity.

While I like the trading facilities of Binance, the fact that their fees are so high shows that they aren't really interested in working for small time cryptocurrency holders. They had a fee based on a rather high fixed amount that had not been changed through months of Bitcoin rises - so it ended up as a minimum of $25-30 no matter what the amount. They strike me as a rather greedy set of company owners and they will eventually get replaced by other exchanges that have lower fees. To be responsible for almost a 3rd of all tracked money laundering is going to put a huge target on their back with the feds and shows they weren't bothered with knowing where the money was coming from. These sort of money laundering stories if true can stop them becoming a wall street stock like Coinbase.

Lmao, KYC on every customer is not only practical, it's required. AML requirements go far beyond the SEC.  The requirement comes from the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA PATRIOT Act, which are way more serious and less forgiving than a civil action from the SEC.  If you're violating AML laws, you'll be dealing with FinCEN, not the SEC.

Binance is one of the largest exchanges in the world.  I don't think that binance is doing any evasion.  In the crypto world there are many competitors who might be able to create bad news to bring down their rivals.  The decline in coin prices that he is experiencing in this month is due to a lot of bad news that he gets.  And there are some countries that are against cryptocurrencies.  I personally think.  The decline in coin prices so far is because many are panic selling.  Because they are afraid that their income will decrease.

They might be doing or they might be not but one thing is for sure, this is a move by the elites to try and pressure crypto related businesses to make sure that they are still the boss, this is an old school tactic, lawsuit or investigation to make sure that they will answer to it because the one under investigation has no choice but to comply because the otherwise will make them look guilty.

We can't really say for sure what fraudulent practices is Binance doing from behind. That's why they are in the hot seat right now. Yes, they are on top tier exchanges, but it doesn't mean they are not doing some malpractice and evasion, hence they are being investigated today.

We can't tie in this investigation to the decline of the market, there are a lot of FUD going around. In any case, if nothing has found on Binance then good, all they have to do is to cooperate on the investigation if they have nothing to hide.

Their partner/sister site WazirX is under some review as well because they have failed to report AML or some money laundering activities from some users which also involved Binance as users were able to change their coins into USDT and transfer to Binance. I am not entirely sure of the story but from my understanding that was the problem.

Binance no doubt so far has a pristine reputation and the user experience is pretty excellent too but like you said, that doesn't mean they cannot indulge in illegal and market manipulation activities. It's quite easy for such a giant exchange to use the liquid funds on them and manipulate the market to juice out money from small traders on their platform, especially the ones doing futures trading because a little manipulation costs them everything.

No it's not a move by the "elites" to try and pressure crypto related businesses. It's a move by law enforcement to ensure that Binance isn't complicit in money laundering. The confidence with which some of you spout off conspiracy theories make the rest of us rational crypto folks look bad.

They are very intent on doing FUD.  by interrogating Binance they think the market will wobble and can buy cheaply.  we know binance is the number 1 exchange in terms of volume, security and trustworthiness.  so it is very natural that the crypto community will be sensitive.

This was no more than a FUD attempt, in my opinion. Because I don't think that they are related to tax frauds or money laundering at all. Binance is the best crypto exchange in the market and I trust them about doing their job really good.

Nothing wi actually happened, it's just the same government here and there thing. Bittrex was one project who has been haunted for nmany years for manipulation of bitcoin price but later settled it with the court and now the government is now silence ever since then.
Binance is good exchange and they mean very well for their self and their exchange, never had any issue since have been there, I hope this doesn't bring the platform down for their reputation over the years.

this is the reason why binance itself can handle this situation if bittrex can surpass this kind of investigation, why not binance? also, based from this  article  (https://www.reuters.com/technology/binance-under-investigation-by-justice-department-irs-bloomberg-news-2021-05-13/), they are under scrutiny because of those US individuals that may be violating the anti-money laundering and tax-related laws. but this is the reason why there is Binance.US, just to cater the US citizens, and so I believe, binance is following the protocols of the US govt in terms of money laundering and tax laws. we will see if there will be developments on this inquiry in the next coming months. i dont think we need to worry about such news. sometimes, people are just making it a big deal even if there's nothing in it.

traders have no other exchange to use except binance ,but we have to say some people create fud for make profit when there is a panic in the market ,there lot of fake news everyday whether yotube , twitter , telegram Investors should not believe , i think binance give a good services for all their custumers in field of crypturrency and i hope they will continue doing this

There are so many reputable exchange which we can trust also like Okex and Kucoin or other old top tier exchange which is providing good service to their users, its just binance is the top thats why this is used for several fuds spread by many manipulators and if we believe on it we will lose since it can move the market so better ignore this and let this news fade away.