Binance proof-of-reserves removed from the auditor's site
Crypto exchange Binance has seen its proof-of-reserve (PoR) audits removed from the auditor Mazars’ website.
Mazars’ official website shows they fully discontinued Mazars Veritas, a section dedicated to cryptocurrency exchange audits. The tool was developed by Mazars in order to bring “trust and transparency to the digital asset sector,” using Silver Sixpence Merkle Tree Generating tool to complement PoR reports.
The news comes amid Bloomberg reporting that Mazars stopped doing PoR for cryptocurrency companies. Some other auditing firms like FTX’s auditor Armanino have also reportedly stopped working with crypto exchanges like OKX and Gate.io.
Mazars is widely known as the accounting firm of former United States President Donald Trump’s company. The auditing firm was appointed as an official auditor Binance’s PoR updates in late November.
A number of rival crypto exchanges, including KuCoin and Crypto.com, have followed Binance’s lead in cooperating with Mazars as part of their PoR reports.
The news comes shortly after Mazars confirmed on Dec. 7 that Binance possessed control over 575,742 Bitcoin (BTC) of its customers, worth around $9.7 billion at the time of writing. The report has since been also removed from Mazars' website.
Related: Crypto community members discuss bank run on Binance
Some financial specialists subsequently have seen some red flags in the PoR report of Binance, however. One former Financial Accounting Standards Board member argued that the Mazars-released report lacked data on the quality of internal controls and how Binance's systems liquidate assets to cover margin loans.
Mazars and Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
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