After a judge declined to give the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unfettered access to Binance.US software at a hearing on Sept. 18, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) took to X (formerly Twitter) to make a statement about one point of contention with the SEC.
“For the record. Binance US does not use, and have NEVER used Ceffu or Binance Custody. You can’t just make this stuff up.” CZ said in a Sept. 19 post. CZ’s statements did not make the record any clearer.
For the record. Binance US does not use, and have NEVER used Ceffu or Binance Custody.
The role Ceffu played in the Binance.US ecosystem has been a concern for the SEC because Binance.US has agreed to the SEC’s June 17 consent order, which stated:
“For the avoidance of doubt, U.S.-based personnel for BAM Trading and BAM Management will have complete control over Customer Fiat Assets and Customer Crypto Assets.”
BAM is the Binance.US holding company. Bloomberg reported in May, citing a 2022 corporate filing, that the company that runs Ceffu was owned by CZ, who is not U.S.-based.
Ceffu posted a statement on its website on Sept. 15 disputing an SEC claim in a Sept. 14 court filing that linked it to Binance.US. Ceffu stated that it provides services “in select jurisdictions, excluding the United States, among others.”
However, a Binance.US document titled “Binance.US Digital Asset & Custody Operations Policy” that was marked “Confidential” and submitted to the court on Sept. 15, in a section titled “Systems. Overview,” it stated:
“We license wallet custody software and support services from Ceffu (previously Binance Holdings Limited). […] The Ceffu solution makes up a majority of our wallet technology.”
Binance launched Binance Custody in 2021. Ceffu was later rebranded from Binance Custody. In March, a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph that Ceffu was its “independent institutional custody partner.”
So @cz_binance trying to claim Binance US never used “Ceffu” because at the time the agreement was signed, Ceffu was called “BHL Wallet Solution” & the entity was Binance Holdings Limited, which later became Ceffu.
In its Sept. 18 court filing, the SEC referred to Ceffu as a “mysterious Binance-related entity” and pointed out that Binance.US has been inconsistent in its descriptions of its relationship with Ceffu in its dealings with the agency. “It is more than likely that BAM still doesn’t understand what Ceffu is,” the SEC stated.
A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.
Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The group of investors allege damages as the result of violations of US securites laws and a lack of transparency surrounding its agreement with clients: Webull and Bank of America (BoA).
April 2 complaint against Bakkt and its executives. Source: PACER
The loss of Bank of America and Webull will result “in a 73% loss in top line revenue” due to the two firms making up a significant percentage of its services revenue, the investor group alleges in the lawsuit. The filing stated Webull made up 74% of Bakkt’s crypto services revenue through most of 2023 and 2024, and Bank of America made up 17% of its loyalty services revenue from January to September 2024.
Bakkt disclosed on March 17 that Bank of America and Webull did not intend to renew their agreements with the firm ending in 2025. The announcement likely contributed to the company’s share price falling more than 27% in the following 24 hours. The investors allege Bakkt “misrepresented the stability and/or diversity of its crypto services revenue” and failed to disclose that this revenue was “substantially dependent” on Webull’s contract.
“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” said the suit.
Other law offices said they were investigating Bakkt for securities law violations, suggesting additional class-action lawsuits may be in the works. Cointelegraph contacted Bakkt for a comment on the lawsuit but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.
While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.
The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.