Internal Binance messages released by the SEC show Binance.US officials were aware the platform risked allowing wash trading from the beginning. A senior employee told the then-CEO of Binance.US, Catherine Coley, that the engine that matches trades could allow a user to trade with themselves.
“If some US compliance or regulation says we must prevent this, we will. Otherwise we will not,” the employee wrote to Coley in August 2019. A lawyer for Coley didn’t reply to requests for comment.
More than a year later, another Binance.US executive told Coley that “[a]pparently we have nothing in place to prevent wash trading? Just tested myself, sold market order into my own bid.”
Another Binance.US employee responded, “Yikes.”
Source: Some Binance.US Crypto Trading Was a Mirage, the SEC Alleges – WSJ
