Financial Times: Binance ukrył linki do Chin
- Binance rzekomo wykorzystywał usługi VPN do maskowania swojej obecności w Chinach.
- Pracownicy Binance w Chinach zostali surowo ostrzeżeni przed publicznym utożsamianiem się z giełdą.
- Binance był często reklamowany jako państwowa giełda kryptograficzna. Firma jednak zaprzeczyła jakiemukolwiek związkowi z chińskim rządem.
Nowy raport 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, podobnie jak reszta świata kryptograficznego, została poddana wzmożonej kontroli. Amerykańskie organy regulacyjne pozwały giełdę w poniedziałek, twierdząc, że nielegalnie świadczyła usługi mieszkańcom USA. Commodity Futures Trading Commission stwierdziła, że Binance, kierowany przez swojego CO, Zhao, celowo próbował uniknąć regulacji i nie ujawnił swoich operacji.
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.”
Mówi się również, że Binance korzystał z usług VPN, aby ukryć swoją lokalizację w Chinach. Niespodziewanie, CFTC’s lawsuit oskarżył Binance o podobny czyn. Giełda kryptowalut stoi przed trudnym zadaniem, aby stać się firmą uczciwą.