US regulators are investigating whether Binance Holdings broke securities rules in the country when launching the BNB cryptocurrency.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has turned its attention to the world’s fifth-largest cryptocurrency, reports Bloomberg.
The token was launched in July 2017 during the height of the ‘ICO boom’. Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange, having begun operations a few days after BNB was created.
It is the latest case to be brought against a cryptocurrency by the SEC, which believes at least one American citizen took part in the BNB ICO – hence why the case has been created.
Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (pictured) – known as ‘CZ’ – has admitted that wording was changed on the BNB whitepaper in 2019 because the “potential for being misunderstood as a security is higher in certain regions”.
That was the year Binance’s American arm, Binance.US, was created.