Binance.US Enters Consent Order With SEC to Keep Customer Funds Onshore

The proposed measures include creating new crypto wallets that only Binance.US personnel will be able to access.

Binance.US and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have come to a temporary agreement that addresses the regulator’s request for a temporary restraining order on the crypto exchange.

The deal was approved by Judge Amy Berman Jackson early Saturday morning at the District Court for the District of Columbia. The order calls for Binance.US to maintain possession of all its customers’ fiat and crypto assets and hold them onshore at all times.

The crypto exchange will have to ensure that none of its non-U.S. employees has access to private keys or wallets or even root access to its Amazon Web Services tools. In the next two weeks, Binance.US will have to set up new wallets with new private keys to be used exclusively by the U.S. exchange’s employees. 

The exchange will be allowed to transfer its customers’ crypto assets to custodians like BitGo or Aegis so long as no Binance entities outside of the U.S. have access or control over these funds. 

In the next 20 days, Binance.US will have to provide the SEC with details of all its customers’ accounts and wallets and details of KYC U.S. users who transacted on Binance.com between 2019 and 2022.

“Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please, as we have alleged, these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a press release. 

In a tweet addressing the deal, Binance.US said that the fight with the SEC had damaged its business and reputation, but the exchange remains committed to defending itself against the agency’s “regulation by enforcement” tactics.