Crypto trade Binance. Just a few days after U.S. regulators sued Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao, the United States announced on Thursday that it will stop accepting deposits in U.S. dollars and that its banking partners will begin halting fiat dollar withdrawal channels as early as June 13.
At 10:33 p.m. EDT (0233 GMT Friday, the U.S. arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange said in a tweet that it was taking “proactive steps” to transition to a crypto-only exchange for the time being.
Exchanging, marking, stores and withdrawals in crypto would remain completely functional, the trade said in a notification to its clients.
On Monday, the U.S. Protections and Trade Commission (SEC) documented a claim against Binance and its pioneer Zhao, and hence sued Coinbase, the biggest U.S. digital money stage, after a day.
Following the collapse of FTX last year, the events indicate a dramatic escalation of U.S. regulators’ crackdown on the industry.
According to a public SEC filing submitted to a federal court and stating that they supported a freeze on Binance’s assets earlier on Thursday,
“Binance. The United States of America is a much smaller company than their international group. Ending of withdrawals is clearly going to make or prod a considerable amount of stress and frenzy,” said Matthew Dibb, COO of Singapore crypto stage Stack Assets.
“However, a large number of days for the last week, Binance has been hit with different kinds of remarks and issues from the SEC and controllers, so this was truly normal.”
The news had little impact on cryptocurrency prices, with bitcoin trading at $26,496 on Friday’s Asian day.
After falling to an all-time low of $25,350 earlier in the week as the SEC’s crackdown stoked nerves, it was headed for a weekly loss of about 2%.
Binance’s BNB token slid 0.46 percent to $261.46.
“So far, the response has been extremely muted. Tony Sycamore, a market analyst for IG Markets, stated, “Either the market has shrugged it off, or it hasn’t gotten a handle on it yet.”
Binance posted a tweet on Thursday. “Vibrantly defend ourselves, our customers, and industry against the meritless attacks of the SEC,” the US stated, describing the SEC’s approach to cryptocurrency as “extremely aggressive and intimidating.”
In the wake of the lawsuits, the crypto industry has targeted U.S. SEC chair Gary Gensler. However, Gensler has since refuted claims that the agency is attempting to crush the crypto industry.
Wayne Huang, co-founder and CEO of XREX Inc., a blockchain-enabled financial institution that runs the XREX USD-crypto exchange, stated, “As regulatory scrutiny continues, exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and industry players will further specialize in different roles to collectively provide the best user experience.”