Binance Withdrawals Surge During CFTC Indictment

Hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto was withdrawn from Binance shortly after the exchange was slapped with civil charges by US regulators on Monday, on-chain data shows. 

According to Nansen, the exchange has experienced $400 million in net outflows over the past 24 hours alone.

• By comparison, Binance has undergone over $2 billion in outflows over the last seven days, meaning Monday was above average. 
• Meanwhile, entities Nansen calls “smart money” traders withdrew at least $9 million from the firm within 24 hours. 
• Data from Thanefield capital indicated that there were large exchange stablecoin outflows totaling $1.5 billion in 12 hours just prior to the indictment. 
• $850 million worth came from Binance specifically, with an additional $240 million in outflows from the exchange an hour after the charges were laid. 
• Nansen’s data shows that Binance holds  $63.7 billion in crypto, based on wallets that the firm has publicly tagged as its own. Glassnode data shows this includes over $2 billion worth of USDT, $17 billion worth of Bitcoin, and $8.1 billion worth of Ether. 
• Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), were sued by the CFTC for violating various consumer protection laws, including flouting KYC obligations and lacking proper registrations. 
• The country’s other top exchanges are being targeted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with Kraken having paid a $30 million fine for failing to register its staking service, and Coinbase receiving a Wells Notice from the agency last week. 
• Binance experienced billions of dollars in outflows roughly one month after the collapse of rival exchange FTX. At the time, CZ the event ‘business as usual.’