Bitrabo Editorial
The lawsuits filed by the US SEC against Coinbase and Binance.US continue to be the talk of the crypto industry. While the market is shocked, Binance’s legal team drops a bombshell that implicates SEC Chairman, Gary Gensler.
According to a recent CNBC report, Binance’s lawyers have evidence that Gensler offered to serve as an advisor to Binance’s parent company in March of 2019. This is surprising given the current lawsuit and Gensler’s tough stance on the crypto industry over the past few months. At the time, Gensler was still teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management. In 2021, he was appointed by US President Biden to head the SEC.
It has been reported that Gensler had attempted to befriend the company before he initiated action against the crypto exchange. However, new documents filed by Gibson Dunn and Latham & Watkins, two of Binance’s law firms, suggest that Gensler’s bid to become an advisor was rejected.
The filing also claims that Gensler met with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao for a conversation concerning cryptocurrencies. Zhao also received a copy of Gensler’s planned testimony before he went to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in 2019. Neither Zhao nor Gensler has yet responded to these new accusations.
Binance’s legal team has called for Gensler’s removal from any rulings made concerning their case. There has not been any confirmation from the SEC regarding this request. In a statement to CNBC, an SEC spokesperson said that “the chairman is very familiar with and fully complies with his ethical obligations, including the debarment obligation.”
The SEC’s investigation into Binance began in 2020, long after Gensler’s alleged association with Zhao. It is unlikely that these previous ties would become an issue for Gensler unless more entanglements come to light.
However, journalist Eleanor Terrett, who reports for Fox Business, believes that Gensler might have assisted Binance in obtaining a license in 2018. The head of Binance’s venture investment department at the time, Ella Zhang, and Harry Zhou, met with Gensler in October 2018. According to a chat dated that month, Zhou wrote: “I note that while Gensler declined to play an advisory role, he generously shared licensing strategies. So one question might be: Did Gensler help Binance.US get licensed in the US?”
At press time, Binance Coin’s (BNB) price was at $263.2.
Featured image from Twitter, chart from TradingView.com