When top Biden administration officials gathered last month at the Justice Department to announce a $4.3 billion legal resolution with Binance, one powerful regulator was absent, the Wall Street Journal reported. Attorney General Merrick Garland was there. So was Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. But Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler wasn’t, even though he has his own legal beef with Binance. The SEC sued the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in June and wasn’t involved in the monthslong settlement talks that led Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, to plead guilty and settle Treasury’s civil charges. Even before the SEC sued Zhao, Binance and its U.S. affiliate, the parties couldn’t come close to agreeing on settlement terms. Before suing Binance, regulators wanted the company to accept an injunction that would stop Binance.US from offering trading in many of the crypto assets on its platform, people familiar with the matter said. “That would sort of be the end of Binance.US,” said Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow in economics at Duke University. Another hurdle: The SEC alleged that Binance violated investor-protection laws by selling BNB, its own crypto token, in 2017. Settling that claim would make it nearly impossible to trade BNB in the U.S. and could hurt its value around the world.
