The US Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly asked a Washington, D.C. federal court for an emergency order to freeze the assets of Binance’s U.S. subsidiary, claiming that the world’s largest crypto exchange and its founder Changpeng Zhao had “disregard” for U.S. law.
The emergency order was submitted late Tuesday night, and it would require the forfeiture of “fiat currency and crypto assets deposited, held, traded, and/or accrued by customers on the Binance.US crypto asset trading platform.”
The freezing order applies only to Binance’s two U.S. holding companies and not to the international exchange. According to CNBC, the order would affect dozens of accounts at Axos Bank, Silvergate Bank, Prime Trust, and others.
Investors have pulled out hundreds of millions of dollars from Binance on Monday after the exchange and its CEO Changpeng Zhao were sued by the SEC for U.S. securities violation.
The allegation was that Binance, the cryptocurrency platform, and its CEO, commingled billions of dollars worth of user funds and transferred them to a European company controlled by Zhao. Moreover, the SEC alleged that Binance failed to restrict U.S. customers from its platform and misled investors about its market surveillance controls.
