The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a lawsuit Monday against crypto exchange Binance and its charismatic CEO, Changpeng Zhao, alleging they went to great lengths to do business with U.S. customers while not following U.S. regulations. The suit spells out a litany of alleged offenses that harkened back to wild west days of cryptocurrencies where no rules applied, despite Binance claiming it was playing by the rules.
The company says it is surprised by the CFTC’s as it had been working closely for years with the agency and had spent $80 million and hired 650 additional people to bolster its compliance efforts. Here are nine of the most eye-popping allegations contained in the CFTC suit:1) Where Chaopeng Zhao goes, Binance goes The suit said the company was purposely vague about where it was based, with its founder, who is often called simply CZ, often saying that wherever he happened to be in the world, was the company’s headquarters that day.2) Whatever you do, don’t let anyone know you’re American Regulators allege Binance counseled its high-value U.S. customers to log in to their accounts using virtual private networks — or VPNs — to obscure their location. The company also didn’t typically ask …