Court Dismisses SEC’s Charges Against BNB Token’s Secondary Market Dealings but Allows Multiple Others to Proceed

A US court has permitted several charges brought by the SEC against Binance to proceed, barring BNB’s selling on secondary markets, Binance’s sale of its BUSD stablecoin, and the exchange’s ‘Simple Earn’ program. Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed charges against entities selling BNB on secondary markets based on Judge Analisa Torres dismissing the SEC’s case against Ripple.

Eleanor Terret, Fox Business reporter, mentioned on X, “You can fully expect @coinbase, @krakenfx and @Consensys lawyers to use this opinion to bolster their positions in their own litigations. And the @SECGov lawyers can no longer argue that the @Ripple ruling was merely an outlier that no other judges agree with.”

However, multiple other charges brought by the securities regulator will proceed. That includes charges against Binance offering its staking program as an investment contract, the entity selling BNB tokens after its ICO, and its failure to register under the Exchange Act.

The SEC also brings charges against Binance founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao for being the control person in operating exchange and trading services without registering their firm under the Exchange Act. Binance’s management is also under fire for the same.

The case will continue in court as CZ serves a four-month prison stint in federal prison for failure to implement robust anti-money laundering (AML) protocols. That led to millions of dollars being transacted between the US and sanctioned regions like Iran and crime-related funds obfuscated by crypto mixers entering the US financial system.

CZ received a $50 million fine and Binance $4.3 billion. Despite all that, Forbes named him the 24th richest person in the world, issuing the rank while he was behind bars. His jail time will end sometime in September. Furthermore, Binance remains the world’s largest crypto exchange despite all the legal troubles.

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