According to a report by Reuters in the last few hours, it would appear that the crypto exchange Binance has been injecting customer funds into the company's real revenue over time. According to Reuters, which cited former anonymous Binance employees as a source, the funds ran into billions of dollars.
The mingling, in this sense, took place almost daily, and took place in the accounts that Binance had at Silvergate Bank, which went bankrupt in recent months and was the protagonist of the latest American banking crisis.
The exchange, according to the report, would also have been able to access and transfer funds belonging to Binance US to a Silvergate account, and at least no rebuttal has been forthcoming on this point. The funds in question, according to further communications from the exchange, would ultimately relate to Binance corporate accounts and the sale of the BUSD stablecoin.
Reuters accuses Binance! The report is sensational, is it fraudulent?
The accusation of mixing client funds with those of the company is no small matter, and has shaken the exchange not a little also by virtue of the past events relating to the collapse of FTX, which had spread fears of a widespread practice throughout the sector.
Binance, in a response to Reuters, said the outlet had found no evidence that customer funds were lost or taken. According to Binance, the funds described by Reuters, on the other hand, would indicate a lack of internal controls to ensure that client funds are clearly identifiable and separate from the company's revenues.
And to sign it are three former US regulators quoted in the article, who said the mixing would have obscured where they were. Patrick Hillmann, chief communications officer of Binance, explained: “Let me explain how desperate a Reuters reporter is to publish such a story.
We keep our users' and our companies' funds on completely separate ledgers. We know who their sources are, and the masthead will be embarrassed when these go public." Hillmann rather underlined how the issue has already been addressed on several occasions, accusing Reuters of xenophobia for having mentioned the ethnicity of the founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, of Chinese origin, but Canadian since the age of 12.