According to the Wall Street Journal, Bitcoin exchange giant Binance sought to hire Gary Gensler as a consultant years before he became head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Interesting claim: Bitcoin exchange wanted to incorporate Gensler!
Allegedly, Binance, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, wanted to recruit Gary Gensler, the current Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018 and 2019. The crypto exchange asked Gensler to serve as an advisor, but the offer was turned down. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal. However, the current SEC Chair has shared some ‘licensing strategies’ with Ella Zhang, former head of Binance Labs, and Binance employee Harry Zhou.
As you follow on Kriptokoin.com, the crypto exchange previously claimed that Harry Zhou was never employed in the company in a lawsuit filed against the Forbes ‘Tai Chi’ document report. However, the case was dropped a few months later. Additionally, Gensler held a meeting with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in Tokyo in March 2019. The president also arranged a video interview with CZ for a course on crypto at MIT.
Nested relationship between Binance and Binance.US
The Wall Street Journal report claims that Binance and Binance.US are ‘much more intertwined than the companies reveal’. According to interviews and messages reviewed by the WSJ, the world’s largest crypto exchange and its US subsidiary had a mixed staff and financial situation. Further, the report claims that the global crypto exchange likely has access to Binance.US’ customer data. This was because the global exchange team kept the code that supports the crypto wallets of Binance.US customers.
The link between both platforms was seen when an employee based in Shanghai started trading services for Binance.US ahead of launch time. The incident reportedly occurred in September 2019. The WSJ news also claims that the global crypto exchange is looking for ways to allow US clients to continue trading in derivatives. This came despite Binance’s announcement that it would cease its services for US-based traders.
In June 2019, former Chief Compliance Samuel Lim recommended allowing users to ‘be creative and VPN’. And Binance Academy in particular has published a now-deleted guide to VPN usage in 2020. Also, the report claims that Catherine Coley, the first CEO of Binance.US, asked her employees to submit weekly reports. This was to pass them on to CZ and former Chief Financial Officer Wei Zhou. Specifically, Coley, who has not been active in the crypto space since April 2021, stated:
Everyone please post your weekly releases before 19:00 est / 16:00 pst tonight. So we can see Wei’s grace. Saturday for Weekly Updates! Send me 2-5 items that we think CZ/Wei should know about your work last week.
Coley also directed his staff to ask about business issues from Shanghai that required access, answers and funding. This instruction was given just prior to the withdrawal of personnel from both firms to South Korea in January 2020. In addition, WSJ alleges that Binance overlooked parts of the American subsidiary’s budget based on Telegram messages.
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