Binance obscured links to China for years: Financial Times

Quick Take

  • Binance hid links to China for multiple years, according to a report by the Financial Times, citing internal documents.
  • Top executives, including CEO Changpeng Zhao, were among those who instructed employees to hide its presence in the country, the report added.

Exchange giant Binance hid its links to China, despite claims it had removed its business from the country in late 2017, according to a Financial Times report which cites internal company documents.

China banned crypto exchanges in 2017. Top executives, including CEO Changpeng Zhao, were among those who instructed employees to hide its presence in the country, the report said, adding that the company used a Chinese bank to pay some employees' salaries as well as an office which was in use until the end of 2019.

"It is unfortunate that anonymous sources are citing ancient history (in crypto terms) and dramatically mischaracterizing events. This is not an accurate picture of Binance’s operations," a Binance spokesperson said in an emailed statement to the FT, adding that the exchange does not operate in China or have any of its servers based in the country. 

"To be clear, the Chinese government, like any other government, has no access to Binance data except where we are responding to lawful and legitimate law enforcement requests," they continued. The spokesperson added that the company has a customer service call center based in China to service global Mandarin speakers.

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The report comes as question marks have been raised by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the company's business operations. On Monday, it was revealed that the regulator is suing the exchange for unregistered trading activity in the U.S., among other allegations. 

Since the announcement, Binance has seen $2.2 billion of cryptocurrency flow out of the exchange over a period of around 45 hours, according to data collected by The Block Research. Part of this was caused by an initial flurry of small withdrawals in the first hour following the news. During the same time period, $1.3 billion of cryptocurrency was sent to the exchange — meaning a net outflow of $900 million.


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Lucy is an editor focusing on NFTs, gaming and the metaverse. Prior to joining she worked as a freelancer, with bylines in Wired, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Follow her on Twitter: @LHM1.

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