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- Binance.US regains access to dollars, Nigeria demands $81.5B
Binance’s U.S.-based digital asset exchange has resumed U.S. dollar-based transactions while the dot-com mothership has been hit with an $81.5 billion—yes, with a ‘b’—damages claim by Nigeria’s government.
- Binance.US ends dollar-deprived drama
- Nigeria wants all the money Binance has, and it wants it now
- Gambaryan v. Nigeria gov’t war of words
- Binance loses bid to quash U.S. class action
- CZ dislikes memecoins but promotes memecoins
On February 19, Binance.US announced that “USD services are back,” meaning customers can both deposit from/withdraw to their bank accounts, buy tokens via bank transfer (ACH) and trade using a limited (for the moment) number of USD pairs, including BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE and (naturally) Binance’s in-house BNB token.
Binance.US suspended USD deposits in June 2023 and became a fully ‘crypto-only’ exchange the following month. The unwanted transition followed a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil complaint against Binance.com, Binance.US and their founder, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao. Among other charges, the SEC alleged that the accused had sold unregistered securities to the public and failed to restrict U.S. customers from accessing Binance.com.
The SEC suit remains active, but the agency’s new leadership sought and was granted a 60-day ‘pause’ of the proceedings last week. With former chair Gary Gensler gone, the new crypto-friendly SEC told the court that an “early resolution” of the suit appeared likely—despite many observers concluding that the SEC was poised for a slam-dunk victory given the overwhelming evidence of Binance’s guilt.
Legally speaking, Binance.US may not yet be completely in the clear but the dollar restart suggests it’s eager to test its new boundaries. The exchange has yet to reveal which U.S. banks agreed to handle its business, although the crypto-friendly fintech outfit Plaid appears to be acting as an intermediary.
Having survived a 19-month banishment to the ‘crypto-only’ desert, Binance.US interim CEO Norman Reed claimed to be “thrilled to restore fiat rails as we accelerate with increased momentum in the new year.”
Binance CEO Richard Teng—who replaced CZ in November 2023 following the company’s $4.3 billion legal settlement with U.S. authorities and CZ’s four-month incarceration in federal prison—said this week that “we have a fresh reset and a fresh restart” in America thanks to Donald Trump winning the White House and the resulting 180° switch in how all things blockchain are perceived in Washington. However, Teng qualified that he was waiting to see how much ‘regulatory clarity’—aka dismantling of guardrails—was coming before making any major decisions.
You owe us eleventy-kajillion dollars
Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan may have been freed from his Nigerian prison cell, but the country isn’t done messing with the company. On February 19, Reuters reported that Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has sued Binance for $81.5 billion, of which $79.5 billion represents alleged financial damages to the economy and the other $2 billion is for back taxes owed.
The suit accuses Binance of evading its local tax obligations, violating foreign exchange rules and contributing to the devaluation of the local naira currency. While Binance has never registered in Nigeria, the government nonetheless claims that its economic activities in the country were sufficiently significant for it to be subject to corporate income tax.
Nigeria’s slap fight with Binance began a year ago when the government accused the exchange of perpetrating a “sophisticated heist” by allowing its customers to manipulate the value of the naira via stablecoin-based forex trades. The tiff found a new gear when Nigeria arrested two Binance execs, including the aforementioned Gambaryan (a U.S. citizen), who’d come to Nigeria to try and negotiate some resolution.
Gambaryan and regional manager Nadeem Anjarwalla (a British national) were charged with tax fraud and money laundering. After Anjarwalla skipped bail and fled the country, Gambaryan spent eight months in custody. His release was secured last October following negotiations with U.S. federal representatives.
While the tax fraud charges were later dropped, Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) revived its money laundering charges against Binance and Anjarwalla last November. A hearing in the case is scheduled for this coming Monday (24).
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No Supreme Court reprieve and still no HQ
Back in the States, last month, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Binance’s appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed a class action suit to proceed. The class action was brought by some U.S-based customers who accused the exchange of selling unregistered securities in the form of Ethereum-based tokens launched during the initial coin offering frenzy of 2017-18.
The Supreme Court doesn’t offer explanations when it rejects hearing appeals, but Binance previously claimed that U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction, since the company officially had no presence in the country at the time. The lower court ruled that, since the token purchases were finalized on Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) servers based in the U.S., the complainants were on solid ground with regard to jurisdictional issues.
Binance famously lacks a corporate headquarters, a legacy of the ‘bad old days’ when the company found it legally advantageous to claim it wasn’t based anywhere and thus no jurisdiction had any right to claim injury (or know where to serve legal papers).
Last April, CEO Teng said the company was “speaking to a few jurisdictions” about possibly putting down roots. However, the matter remained unresolved as of December, when Teng told DL News that “we will let you know” when Binance makes a decision. However, Teng hinted that the United Arab Emirates was a “very attractive” candidate.
This week, Teng was still hedging his bets, saying several possible locales were under “careful consideration” and hopes were high of Binance actually pulling that trigger “very soon.”
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