![]() The Binance.US trading platform was launched by its operating firm, BAM Trading, in mid-2019 under then Chief Executive Catherine Coley. The SEC, in its complaint on Monday against Zhao and Binance, also accused them of commingling billions of dollars in customer funds in Merit Peak's account. Binance denied mixing customer deposits and company funds, saying that users who sent money to the account were not making deposits but rather buying Binance’s bespoke dollar-linked crypto token. financial rules that require client money to be kept separate. Reuters also reported on May 23 that Binance commingled its customers’ funds with its corporate revenues in Merit Peak’s Silvergate account, in breach of U.S. Juvvadi said an investigation Binance.US conducted into Reuters’ previous findings found they were “simply not true.” Binance.US has said the trading firm, Merit Peak, was withdrawing its own funds, money that derived from its trading activity on the exchange. Reuters has previously reported that a deputy of Chen’s had access to one Binance.US Silvergate account and that the account transferred more than $400 million in 2021 to a trading firm controlled by Zhao. Zhao called the civil charges an “incomplete recitation of facts.” The CFTC had no comment for this article. regulations designed to protect investors. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in March charged Binance and Zhao with willful evasion of commodities laws by “intentionally structuring entities” to avoid U.S. ![]() By secretly retaining control over Binance.US’s finances, Zhao ensured he could direct the company’s expansion in the American crypto market – one of the world’s biggest – while keeping it apart from his global exchange that was under scrutiny from U.S. operations are facing ever-closer attention in Washington. Binance said on Monday it would "defend our platform vigorously" from the SEC's allegations.īinance’s U.S. In response to questions for this article, however, a Binance.US spokesperson, Christian Hertenstein, said that since the company’s current chief executive, Brian Shroder, took over in late 2021, “no one other than Binance.US officials have had control or access to Binance.US accounts.” Hertenstein did not explain the discrepancy in the time periods given by him and Juvvadi.īinance and Silvergate, which collapsed in March and is winding down operations, did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Its head of legal, Krishna Juvvadi, told Reuters in April that employees of Binance.US’s operator, BAM Trading, had “exclusive control” since its founding in 2019. laws and said that until at least December 2020, Binance.US staff "did not have any ability to control" the company's bank accounts.īinance.US has denied that Binance ever operated its bank accounts. The agency accused Zhao of secretly controlling Binance.US as part of a "web of deception" to evade U.S. ![]() Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint against Binance after a years-long inquiry into the company. business’s finances extended across its bank accounts at Silvergate and detail how this secret access was granted.Īfter this story was published, the U.S. The previously unreported bank records and messages show that Binance’s management over the U.S. The new findings offer further detail into how Binance exercised tight control over Binance.US, despite both firms maintaining that they have always operated independently. Employees at the affiliate, Binance.US, had to ask Chen’s team to process payments, even to cover the firm’s payroll, company messages show. This allowed Chen and her deputies to move funds held in the bank accounts. lender Silvergate Bank authorized the executive, Guangying Chen, a close associate of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, to operate the accounts in 20, according to records from those years. affiliate, including an account that held American customers’ funds, bank records show. LONDON, June 5 (Reuters) - A senior Binance executive was the main operator for five bank accounts belonging to the giant cryptocurrency exchange’s purportedly independent U.S.
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