Investors withdrew US$1.6-billion of cryptocurrency from Binance since it was sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday, blockchain data tracker Nansen said on Wednesday.
The 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 programme.
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/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 13 December, when investors pulled $3-billion from Binance as they grew nervous about the status of Binance’s reserves. — Elizabeth Howcroft, (c) 2023 Reuters