The Binance crypto platform would have transferred the non-negligible sum of 400 million dollars to an American trading platform owned by… its CEO Changpeng Zhao. A revelation which, if it were to prove correct, would fall at the worst time for the exchange.
400 million problems for Binance
D’information revealed in the evening by Reuters, which we will recall that the hostility for Binance is not new, the world’s leading crypto exchange would have made an astonishing transfer of 400 million dollars at the end of 2020 for the benefit of the American trading company Merit Peak.
Problem, said company which has been abounded, still according to Reuters, on several occasions would belong to none other than Chanpeng Zhao, stainless CEO of Binance. The funds came from Binance US.
Asked, a Binance spokesperson indicates, without denying the facts, that “Merit Peak did not trade or provide any type of service on the Binance.US platform and only employees of the exchange had access to its bank accounts. The funds were stored by Binance.US as BAM Trading Services at Silvergate Bank”. Silvergate Bank, itself in turmoil these days on FTX drama fundsas we know.
At the heart of the matter, a fundamentally simple question: did these funds come from customer deposits? And if so, were they aware of their destination and use?
Note that the SEC has been investigating the Binance-Merit Peak connection since at least February 2022.
Ironically, the information falls the same evening that Binance communicates on its new campaign around “transparency in crypto”. An all but innocent temporality which demonstrates to what extent thebackstage atmosphere industry must be deleterious.
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