Binance US entities get judge's sign off to invest customer assets in US Treasury bills

Binance's U.S. entities have received a judge's sign-off to invest certain customers' assets in U.S. Treasury bills as part of an order setting conditions for the crypto exchange.

As part of that order signed by Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, Binance has to work with third-party investment advisers to invest BAM Trading Services Inc. and BAM Management US Holdings Inc.'s — collectively, BAM's assets. Both of those entities are in the U.S.

Binance also has to transfer crypto to a third-party custodian not affiliated with the exchange. BAM is allowed to invest certain customer fiat funds that are custodied at BitGo in U.S. Treasury bills that "will mature on a rolling four-week basis" as long as no Binance entities are involved in the investment and that BAM has enough dollars on its platform for customer withdrawal requests, among other requirements, according to the order .

Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Judge Jackson has been overseeing the case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Binance. The SEC sued Binance and its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, last year, accusing the crypto exchange of lying to customers, failing to restrict U.S. investors from accessing Binance.com, misdirecting capital to separated investment funds owned by Zhao, and operating as an unregistered exchange. Zhao is currently serving jail time for his charges from the Department of Justice.

Last month, Jackson mostly rejected Binance's push to dismiss its case with the SEC but did dismiss some of the SEC's points, including that secondary sales of BNB were securities.