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The SEC has formally dropped its lawsuit against Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao, bringing an end to one of the last remaining crypto enforcement actions brought by the agency.
In a Thursday filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, lawyers for the SEC and Binance jointly moved to dismiss the case, which was first brought in June 2023.
The original complaint accused the crypto exchange of violations including illegally serving U.S. users, inflating trading volumes, and commingling customer funds. The agency also claimed that Binance unlawfully enabled trading in crypto assets it viewed as unregistered securities, an argument that was also used against Coinbase, Kraken, and others under prior SEC leadership.
The dismissal marks a symbolic end to one of the most aggressive crypto crackdowns in U.S. history, and comes as the Trump administration makes a concerted effort to prove that it’s an ally to the industry. The Justice Department has already shut down its crypto enforcement team, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now set to be led by a venture capitalist with close ties to crypto.
Binance is the largest digital assets exchange in the world by volume. It recently forged ties with World Liberty Financial, a project that aspires to be a crypto bank and funnels 75% of profits to entities linked to the Trump family. Binance is taking a $2 billion investment from the Emirati state fund MGX entirely in USD1, a stablecoin newly launched by the World Liberty team.
Binance and World Liberty are also deepening their footprint in Pakistan, where WLF co-founder Zack Witkoff, the son of U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, recently struck a deal with the government. Around the same time, Zhao was appointed as an adviser to Pakistan’s newly formed Crypto Council, a state-backed body tasked with shaping national digital asset policy.
The SEC was the last major regulator still pursuing Binance after a $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. government last year that saw Zhao plead guilty and step down as CEO, while avoiding jail time and retaining much of his wealth.
The agency’s motion to dismiss was granted with prejudice, meaning the SEC can’t refile the same claims.
Commissioner Hester Peirce, speaking with CNBC in Las Vegas, said the move reflects a shift toward clearer rulemaking after years of ambiguity.
“What we’re trying to do with the enforcement cases is look at them on a facts and circumstances basis,” said Peirce. “We didn’t have a clear set of rules. There were a lot of questions about how this particular activity in the crypto space intersected with our existing securities laws.”
The commissioner added, “We’re trying to take a step back, use our regulatory tools to write those rules, and then enforce those rules.”
But Peirce made clear that loosening enforcement doesn’t mean open season for scammers. “It is not time for people to think, ‘I have a free pass to go rip people off in the name of crypto.’ That is not the case.”
Under the SEC’s new leadership, the agency has shifted away from enforcement and toward engagement and regulatory rollback. It’s held a series of roundtables led by Peirce and newly appointed Chair Paul Atkins.
The SEC has also begun dismantling key rules that once kept Wall Street on the sidelines. In January, it scrapped Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 — a controversial directive issued under former Chair Gary Gensler that forced banks to count crypto holdings as liabilities on their balance sheets. Peirce celebrated the reversal on X, posting, “Bye, bye SAB 121! It’s not been fun.”
In February, the agency followed up with new guidance indicating that it doesn’t view most meme coins as securities under federal law, providing a boon to the Trump family.
President Trump and several of his family members are closely tied to crypto ventures, including the $TRUMP token, which launched just before his January inauguration. The coin currently boasts a market cap of about $2.4 billion, with its website claiming that 80% of the supply is held by the Trump Organization and affiliated entities.
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