Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed 13 charges against Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its CEO Changpeng Zhao. The charges relate to a series of offences including unlawfully soliciting investors and customers, misrepresenting the degree of trading on the platform and misleading the public.

Binance also has a number of customers in Estonia.

"Binance is focused on popularizing Web3 and blockchain technologies and providing the best service to our customers. Both in Estonia and in the rest of the world," Polina Brottier, Binance's representative in Estonia, told ERR.

The company is reluctant to disclose how many customers Binance has in Estonia, but according to Brottier, Binance is the most popular platform among Estonian crypto enthusiasts.

Brottier added, that the allegations in the U.S. have no impact on Binance's operations in Estonia.

"Binance.US and Binance.com are different entities, operating in different jurisdictions. The activities and assets of these entities, as well as the assets of their customers, are completely segregated from each other," Brottier said.

Binance is also not supervised by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, whose head of communications Eva Vahur, said this is due to it being a trading platform and not an Estonian company.

"Crypto exchanges in general are not subject to our supervision, even they are Estonian platforms," Vahur added.

Õnne Mets of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) said the FIU only supervises companies, which are licensed in Estonia. Mets added, that the FIU has already been working to clean up the market for virtual currency providers.

"We have withdrawn the licenses of suspicious operators and, to date, there are 89 valid licenses," Mets said.

A day after Binance was charged, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also took out a law suit against Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S. The SEC accused Coinbase of trading crypto assets that were in fact securities and therefore should have been registered with the relevant authorities before being issued.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had already charged Binance in March for violating trading regulations. 

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