Last week, three U.S lawmakers raised concerns that Binance, the world’s largest crypto-exchange, has reportedly facilitated theft, money laundering and terrorist financing. In response, Binance deflected but did not directly refute the lawmakers’ concerns.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) requested financial information, including balance sheets since 2017. Also, any documents related to a reported 2018 plan to distract regulators with feigned interest in compliance. According to the Senators,
“What little information about Binance’s finances is available to the public suggests that the exchange is a hotbed of illegal financial activity that has facilitated over $10 billion in payments to criminals and sanctions evaders.”
In fact, the Senators also compared Binance’s actions with those of crippled rival exchange FTX.
The letter was addressed to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and Brian Shroder, head of the American subsidiary Binance.US.
“We’re protecting our users, we’re protecting our customers, we’re doing everything that everyone preaches,” responded Zhao in a Twitter Spaces session held last week.
Additionally, according to a recent Forbes report, Binance, like FTX, transferred $1.8 billion in collateral to back customers’ stablecoins. In doing so, the exchange also distributed the funds to several large investors, Forbes added. Zhao, for his part however, refuted the claim.
At the time, an anonymous Binance.US spokesperson told Forbes that the company is confident in the strength of its operations. This, including compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) rules. Additionally, the company maintains 1:1 reserves and never trades or lends out customer funds, the
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