Binance, SEC agrees to allow only US employees to access client funds

June 17 (Reuters) – Binance, Binance.US and the US securities regulator have entered into an agreement to ensure that only US Binance employees will be allowed access to customer funds in the short term, according to court documents.

Under the agreement, which still needs to be approved by the federal judge overseeing the case, Binance will take steps to ensure that no Binance Holdings official can access the private keys of its various wallets, hardware wallets, or root access to Binance. The files showed the US Amazon Web Services tools.

The proposed agreement comes after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Binance, CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao and US operator Binance.US last week, in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown on the industry by US regulators. The SEC also sued Coinbase (COIN.O) on the major US exchange after that.

Binance.US and the SEC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

US subsidiary Binance Corp suspended dollar deposits last week and gave customers until June 13 to withdraw their dollar funds, after the SEC asked the court to freeze its assets.

Other provisions of the proposed agreement would see Binance create new cryptocurrency wallets that are not accessible to global exchange employees, submit additional information to the SEC, and agree to an accelerated discovery schedule.

Reporting by Paranjot Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates and Louise Heavens

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