According to sources on June 6, Bitcoin is trading at a $2,000 premium on Binance US, an exchange the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claims is controlled by Changpeng Zhao and Binance Global.

According to screenshots widely circulated on Twitter, BTC, at one point, was reportedly trading at $28,505, a price level that was roughly $2,000 higher than the global BTC average of around $26,500 at the time.

Bitcoin Trading At A $2,000 Premium on Binance US

From price charts, Bitcoin remains volatile even at spot rates. Less than 24 hours after slumping to as low as $25,900 on June 5, the coin reversed losses on June 6. 

Yesterday, the price of BTC surged, reaching levels as high as $27,000. This upward movement contradicted the bearish forecasts that analysts had previously made for June 5. Additionally, this positive price movement helped alleviate concerns that the SEC lawsuit against Binance would hurt the value of BTC.

Tumbling Bitcoin and crypto prices on June 5 coincided with accusations from the US regulator. The SEC listed 13 charges against Binance, including that together with the Binance US, the exchange allegedly enabled US citizens to illegally trade a wide range of cryptocurrencies.

Moreover, the SEC pressed that Binance and Binance US were unregistered trading platforms that continue to offer “multiple unregistered offers and investment schemes” aimed at “defrauding equity, retail, and institutional investors about purported surveillance and controls over manipulative trading.”

In response to the SEC’s lawsuit, on-chain data from Nansen shows that investors have continued to pull billions worth of crypto assets from Binance Global and Binance US. 

The analytics platform observes that over $3 billion of assets from multiple chains have been withdrawn from Binance. Out of this, over $1.3 billion was from Ethereum. 

Intervention Fueling Bitcoin’s Demand

Meanwhile, Binance.US has suspended its over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform and reduced the number of supported trading pairs. 

The announcement of Binance US’ changes affects roughly 90 pairs of the USDT, BTC, and BUSD pairs. It is also unclear when Binance US will resume its OTC trading services.

Furthermore, Binance US has reduced the trade and convert options to USDC, USDT, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and some of the top crypto assets, including Cardano’s ADA.

However, while there is a limitation on which assets existing clients can convert to, Binance US has placed caps on the maximum buy, sell, and convert options to USD at $10,000. 

The suspension of the Binance US OTC platform and caps on USD conversion and assets could explain why Bitcoin is a highly sought asset and trading at a $2k premium in the United States for clients who used Binance US. 

SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have previously stated that Bitcoin is a commodity.

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Filed under: Bitcoin - @ June 8, 2023 3:00 am