Crypto giant Binance official controlled five bank accounts connected to the cryptocurrency exchange’s ostensibly autonomous U.S. branch, including one that held funds belonging to American consumers, as per bank records.
According to data from those years, American lender Silvergate Bank gave the executive, Guangying Chen, a close friend of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, permission to manage the accounts. This made it possible for Chen and her deputies to transfer money from the bank accounts.
Employees at the affiliate, Binance.US, had to ask Chen’s team to process payments, even to cover the firm’s payroll, company messages show.
The new findings offer further detail into how Crypto giant Binance exercised tight control over Binance. US, despite both firms maintaining that they have always operated independently.
The previously unreported bank records and messages show that Binance’s management over the U.S. business’s finances extended across its bank accounts at Silvergate and detail how this secret access was granted. Binance.US has denied that Binance ever operated its bank accounts. Its head of legal, Krishna Juvvadi, told Reuters in April that employees of Binance.US’s operator, BAM Trading, had “exclusive control” since its founding in 2019.
In response to questions for this article, however, a Binance.US spokesperson, Christian Hertenstein, said that since the company’s current chief executive, Brian Shroder, took over in late 2021, “no one other than Binance.US officials have had control or access to Binance.US accounts.” Hertenstein did not explain the discrepancy in the time periods given by him and Juvvadi.
