Binance has recently attracted regulator attention around the world. While Binance.US is a separate legal entity from the main Binance platform, it is 90% owned by Changpeng Zhao, who started and controls Binance.com, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The NYT said it was regulatory attention in the U.S. over money laundering and tax issues combined with the common ownership that concerned potential investors. GreatPoint Ventures confirmed to the NYT it considered investing and declined.
— Meanwhile, Rover, the pet care site sometimes referred to along with its competitor Wag as the Uber of dog walking, has retained Mercury Public Affairs as its first outside lobbying firm. Mercury’s Mike McSherry, an alum of the RNC, Republican Governors’ Association and Labor Department, will lobby for Rover on tax and labor classification issues — a development that comes as the Biden administration has pledged to recognize workers dispatched by apps as employees rather than contractors. Gig companies are also facing new tax reporting requirements beginning next year, thanks to the coronavirus stimulus bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in March.

Although Binance.US is growing fast and is now considered to be one of the top exchanges in the United States, it doesn’t measure up to its parent company, Binance.
Yet tales of meme-coin holders becoming millionaires have attracted new waves of retail investors to crypto -- along with a growing number of nefarious players. In May, the Federal Trade Commission tallied a record number of crypto investment scams, with Americans’ losses totaling around $80 million since October.