Financial Times: Binance verborg links naar China

• Binance zou VPN-diensten hebben gebruikt om zijn aanwezigheid in China te maskeren.
• Binance-medewerkers in China werden streng gewaarschuwd om zich niet publiekelijk te identificeren met de beurs.
• Binance is vaak aangeprezen als een crypto-uitwisseling in staatseigendom. Het bedrijf ontkent echter elke betrokkenheid bij de Chinese overheid.

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een nieuwe rapport by the Financial Times claims that crypto exchange Binance hid its deep ties with China for several years. Citing internal documents, the Financial Times claimed that the company’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, and other top individuals within the exchange repeatedly gave orders to staff members to cover up Binance’s Chinese presence. The exchange also tried to hide details of a Chinese bank used to pay employees’ salaries as well as an office address used until 2019.

Zhao reportedly messaged Binance employees in 2017 saying, “We no longer publish our office addresses . People in China can directly say that our office is not in China.”

The new discovery is a huge contradiction to Binance’s claims that it left China after the industry-wide raid in 2017. Zhao, at the time, claimed most of Binance’s employees had left China other than “a small number of customer service agents.” But the documents reveal how hard Binance tried to keep its operations under wraps.

Binance has also denied being registered or incorporated in China. The crypto exchange wrote in a message that “the original founding team members that were based in Shanghai left China just two months after the company was organized, before the company was even incorporated, following crackdowns on the crypto industry in China.”

Binance heeft, net als de rest van de cryptowereld, meer aandacht gekregen. Amerikaanse toezichthouders klaagden de beurs maandag aan en beweerden dat het illegaal diensten verleende aan inwoners van de VS. De Commodity Futures Trading Commission beweerde dat Binance, geleid door zijn CO, Zhao, opzettelijk probeerde regulering te omzeilen en zijn activiteiten niet openbaar maakte.

Zhao has publicly denied Binance being a Chinese company. As per the Financial Times, a Binance spokesperson was quoted saying, “It is unfortunate that anonymous sources are citing ancient history (in crypto terms) and dramatically mischaracterizing events. This is not an accurate picture of Binance’s operations.”

The news of Binance’s ties with China will undoubtedly be a huge blow to Binance.US’s proposed $1 billion purchase of assets belonging to Voyager Digital. A former employee of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius) has expressed concerns with any “deal that traces back to China.”

In defense of its ties with China, Binance explained that “the Chinese government, like any other government, has no access to Binance data except where we are responding to lawful and legitimate law enforcement requests.”

Binance zou ook VPN-diensten hebben gebruikt om zijn locatie in China te verbergen. Verrassend genoeg, de CFTC’s lawsuit beschuldigde Binance van een soortgelijke daad. De crypto-uitwisseling staat voor een zware taak om zichzelf te vestigen als een bedrijf van integriteit.

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