DOJ CRACKING DOWN ON BITZLATO

There was a small correction in the crypto market last week and it was caused by the sudden announcement that the United State Department of Justice (DOJ) would be announcing International crypto enforcement action in a few hours. Crypto tweeter immediately started to speculate which crypto company the DOJ was after. Many suspect Binance or Tether because in past has faced scrutiny from US authorities before and because SBF may be sharing sensitive information about both with authorities.

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The speculation turned to Tether when Binance CEO CZ Twitted the number 4. As you know, early this month CZ tweeted a list of things people should focus on, and number 4 was Ignored the FUD. Naturally, crypto tweets assume CZ was confirming that Binance was about to get hit. The crypto market immediately started to crash until the DOJ revealed that the crypto company was cracking down on a random Russian exchange called Bitzlato. Bitzlato allegedly laundered hundreds of millions of dollars using cryptocurrency and yet even crypto GOs didn't know the exchange existed.

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The crypto market immediately moves away from the FUD and continued to climb but it seem like the crypto trader had been paying enough attention to the headlines. As reported by Cointelegraph and others, Binance was one of Bitzlato's counterparties according to US authorities. This doesn't mean that Binance was involved in or even aware of what Bitzlato was up to. Indeed, Binance may be instrumental in providing the information required for the FED to take down Bitzlato. This tells us that crypto companies and exchanges have been facing extreme scrutiny ever since FTX and Alameda collapsed and more enforcement actions could be coming.

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You should know that this scrutiny does not only apply to centralized crypto companies either. The SEC recently claim that the mango market, its Defi governance token is a security and that means it needs a lot of regulation. While this claim was made in a multi-million dollar lawsuit again the Mango Market exploiter, it nevertheless suggests that the SEC has its eyes set on crypto projects, as well as companies. The SEC is likely not to make a move again any large crypto company until its lawsuit against Ripple has been resolved.

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