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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched legal action against Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its chief executive. The commission believes Binance has violated more than 10 laws, including using customer assets to inflate trading volumes.

This is Kim Hak-hui.

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its chief executive officer, Changpeng Zhao, for violating securities laws.

In its complaint, the SEC alleges that "Binance and CEO Zhao benefited from billions of dollars of customer assets, but exposed them to significant risk."

According to the SEC, Binance secretly transferred customer assets to a separate cryptocurrency-related entity and then allowed them to invest in cryptocurrencies traded on Binance.

In this way, Binance's cryptocurrency trading volume has had the effect of inflating it to make it appear as if it is much higher than it actually is.

At the same time, Binance has been accused of providing some big-money investors with a way to trade without scrutiny from the authorities, when American crypto investors are prohibited from investing directly on foreign exchanges.

The SEC has filed 13 charges of violation of the law against Binance and CEO Zhao.

Binance was also sued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in March for violating rules on derivatives and other issues, and is currently being investigated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for violating its money laundering obligations.

In the SEC filing, Binance claimed that "the goal of this lawsuit is to unilaterally define the structure of the cryptocurrency market" and that it would "work with industry partners to protect critical technology from wrongful litigation."

(Video editing: Kim Ho-jin)