In the past few months, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have brought aggressive enforcement actions against crypto exchanges. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Tron founder Justin Sun and Terra founder Do Kwon have all been either charged or sued by one of these two agencies. Meanwhile, the SEC has put Coinbase on notice that a suit is forthcoming.
As the SEC will freely admit, the best cases are built on inside information from whistleblowers, and the need is all the more critical when the companies in question thrive on secrecy, obscurity and deception—attributes that apply to much of the crypto landscape. Frankly, law enforcement doesn’t stand a chance of stopping crypto frauds without whistleblowers.
