Investors pull $1.6 billion from Binance after CFTC lawsuit

By Elizabeth Howcroft

LONDON (Reuters) – Investors withdrew $1.6 billion of cryptocurrency from crypto exchange Binance since it was sued by the U.S. CFTC on Monday, blockchain data tracker Nansen said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance – the world’s biggest crypto exchange – along with its CEO and former top compliance executive, alleging that they were operating an “illegal” exchange and a “sham” compliance program.

Since the lawsuit, Binance has seen $1.6 billion of overall withdrawals and $852 million in the last 24 hours, Nansen said, in a step up from the average of $385 million per day over the last two weeks.

Martin Lee, research analyst at Nansen, said that the outflows were higher than usual, but still not as high as Dec. 13, when investors pulled $3 billion from Binance as they grew nervous about the status of Binance’s reserves.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft, Editing by Louise Heavens)