Almost a billion dollars in cryptocurrency reportedly left Binance's wallets just before the exchange platform and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, were accused of regulatory violations by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
According to Thanefield Capital data research, an unusually large amount was withdrawn across centralized exchanges a few hours before the Binance CFTC indictment, which occurred at 3 p.m. UTC on Monday, March 27. Almost $1.5 billion left platforms such as Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, and Bitfinex in the 12 hours preceding the indictment. More than half of it, $850 million, was taken out of Binance.
Binance received an additional $240 million withdrawal just one hour after the announcement. According to Nansen data, over $400 million was withdrawn in Ethereum-based funds in the last 24 hours.
However, Binance still has $63.36 billion in cryptocurrency assets, including over $2 billion in USDT, $17 billion in Bitcoin, and $8.1 billion in Ether.
CFRC filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Binance and CZ. The Commission, which has been investigating Binance's business since 2021, claims that the company failed to meet its regulatory obligations by failing to properly register with the derivatives regulator. Binance allegedly conducted Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin transactions for US citizens since at least 2019.
The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world has also been investigated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and federal prosecutors, who have looked into its compliance with anti-money laundering regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether Binance provided unregistered securities to US traders.
Changpeng Zhao has already denied the CFTC's allegations, claiming that the cryptocurrency exchange "does not trade for profit or'manipulate' the market under any circumstances."