Binance and Zhao allegedly undermined the company's own compliance, courted U.S. investors and traded against its customers using market-making companies.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto exchange Binance, the operating company for Binance.US and Binance founder and CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao on allegations of violating federal securities laws on Monday.

The SEC is suing Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao. The WSJ reported the lawsuit accuses the world's biggest crypto exchange of operating an illegal exchange. Zhao tweeted Monday morning that the company had yet to see the complaint.

The world's largest crypto exchange Binance and its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday for failing to restrict U.S. customers from its platform and misleading investors about its market surveillance controls,

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao are accused of misusing investor funds, operating as an unregistered exchange and violating a slew of U.S. securities laws in a lawsuit filed by the SEC.

The Commission also maintains that Binance and Zhao mixed and diverted customers' assets at will, including with the Zhao-owned Sigma Chain. The company and its US affiliate are further accused of running unregistered exchanges,

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Binance news every morning. The US securities market watchdog has sued Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, accusing it of violations including mixing billions of dollars of customer cash with a separate trading firm owned by its chief executive.