An individual investor has sued BAM Trading Services Inc. (“Binance U.S.”), a crypto-asset exchange platform where customers trade digital assets, and its CEO Brian Shroder, in a class action lawsuit in the US. Utah resident Jeffrey Lockhart filed his case on June 13 in Federal court in Northern California, bringing claims on behalf of “all persons or entities who transacted in UST on Binance U.S.” during the relevant time period. As discussed before, UST is a collapsed “stablecoin” that was said to be algorithmically linked to Luna.
The complaint brings several causes of action based on the notion that UST was a “security” under the Federal and California securities acts, and as such, Binance allegedly violated multiple requirements under those acts, such as selling UST without having first registered it. In this regard, the case advances the SEC’s position that crypto—at least when used as an investment vehicle—is subject the same Federal securities laws as stocks and bonds. The complaint also alleges that Binance U.S. falsely advertised that UST was a “safe” investment, and was “fiat-backed.”