The U.S. affiliate of cryptocurrency giant Binance, Binance.US, is facing a wave of high-level departures amidst increasing regulatory pressure. Key legal and risk executives, Krishna Juvvadi, head of legal, and Sidney Majalya, chief risk officer, are leaving the company, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
This follows the recent departure of CEO Brian Shroder earlier this week. Alongside these executive exits, Binance.US announced it would cut more than 100 jobs – approximately a third of its workforce. Norman Reed, the firm's general counsel, will succeed Shroder as CEO.
These developments come at a time when Binance.US is under scrutiny from U.S. regulators. In June, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint against Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao. The SEC accused them of creating Binance.US as part of a “web of deception” to evade securities laws aimed at protecting U.S. investors.
In addition to these allegations, the SEC lawsuit accuses Binance of artificially inflating its trading volumes, diverting customer funds, failing to restrict U.S. customers from its platform, and misleading investors about its market surveillance controls.
Binance.US has responded to these accusations by calling the SEC's actions “extremely aggressive”. In an attempt to protect itself, it no longer accepts U.S. dollar deposits and restricts customers from withdrawing dollars from the exchange.
Despite these challenges, Binance.US continues to operate as a crypto-only exchange and recently partnered with payment startup MoonPay to provide an alternative way for users to convert dollars to cryptocurrency.
Binance has also seen several other executive exits this year. Its global head of product, Mayur Kamat resigned earlier this month and its chief strategy officer, Patrick Hillmann left in July. Senior Director of Investigations Matthew Price and senior vice president for compliance Steven Christie, among others, have also left the company this year.
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