What will Bitcoin do if the Justice Department takes aim at Binance?
If the U.S. DOJ indicts Binance executives on charges similar to those already issued by regulators, could it have an unusual effect on the cryptocurrency market in the year ahead? In early August, sources leaked word that officials with the United State Department of Justice were considering fraud charges aimed at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. However, they indicated, officials are worried that it could cause a run on the market akin to the November 2022 collapse of FTX. Those concerns have not deterred the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from levying their own charges against Binance, which in part accused the exchange and its founder, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, of allowing Americans to use products they are prohibited from accessing and of manipulating trading volume with a market-maker called Sigma Chain that Zhao “owned and controlled.” To put the numbers in perspective, at the time of writing, Binance had facilita...
