Last Updated on 2 hours by John Piper
Binance is working to increase transparency in its reserve funds. However, The Wall Street Journal reports that Binance has also revealed itself and other “red flags” in its finances.
Binance’s “proof-of-reserve” report does not address the effectiveness of internal financial controls. It doesn’t offer an opinion, assurance conclusion or vouch for numbers. For 18+ years, I was employed by SEC Enforcement. This is how I define “red Flag.” https://t.co/6oEqmArjS9
— John Reed Stark (@JohnReedStark), December 11, 2022
The report was compiled by financial experts from The WSJ. It notes that there is no information on the exchange’s financial controls and also about Binance’s ability to liquidate assets to pay margin loans. The structure of Binance is also not clear enough. The report reveals that Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief strategy officer, could not identify Binance’s parent company.
There were also discrepancies in total Bitcoin liabilities on the crypto exchange. The proof of reserves shows that 97% of the collateralised assets are held by the exchange, so the 1:1 ratio of reserve cannot be sustained. According to the report:
We found Binance to be 97% secured without considering the Out-Of–Scope Assets pledged customers as collateral for In-Scope Assets lent through the margin or loans service offering. This resulted in negative balances on our Customer Liability Report. We found Binance to be 101% secured em> by including In-Scope assets lent to customers via margin loans and loans that are overcollateralized with Out-OfScope.
Binance provided the proof of reserve system following the FTX crash to give users more confidence in its systems. However, this effort was criticized as futile by some who saw the insufficient information provided by Binance. Jesse Powell, CEO at crypto exchange Kraken, tweeted his response:
Sorry, but no. This is not PoR. This could be ignorance or intentional misrepresentation.
Without an auditor, the merkle tree is nothing but a hand-waving bullshit. Without liabilities, the statement of assets is meaningless. https://t.co/b5KSr2XKLB
— Jesse Powell (@jespow) November 25, 2022
Coin Insider’s first article, Binance proof of reserve “ignorance”, or “misrepresentation”, appeared first.
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