Australian regulator searches Binance’s local offices
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the country’s financial services regulator, searched the local offices of Binance on Tuesday as part of an ongoing investigation of the exchange’s derivatives business, a Bloomberg report said.
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Fast facts
- The regulator’s probe includes Binance Australia’s retail and wholesale clients, Bloomberg said in its report citing people familiar with the matter.
- In April, the ASIC canceled Binance Australia’s derivatives license a day after it received a cancellation request from the exchange.
- “We are winding down our local derivatives exchange to focus our efforts on our locally registered spot exchange,” Binance Australia said on Twitter on April 6.
- Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, faces a series of investigations globally. The U.S. SEC has filed a lawsuit against Binance.US, a crypto exchange set up by Binance chief Changpeng “CZ” Zhao to serve U.S. clients, for allegedly breaching securities laws.
- The SEC also named several altcoins as securities, including BNB, the native token of Binance, and therefore requiring appropriate registration.
- Binance’s French unit has also come under scrutiny after being accused of illegally operating in the country, despite the crypto exchange being registered as a digital asset service provider with France’s markets regulator since May 2022.
See related article: Why the US is waging war on Binance, Coinbase