Binance moved $400M from Binance.US account to firm tied to CZ: Report

An investigative report has suggested that major cryptocurrency exchange Binance was behind transferring roughly $400 million in funds from a Binance.US account to a trading firm managed by Changpeng Zhao.

According to a Feb. 16 Reuters report, an investigation of Binance’s banking records and company messages showed more than $400 million was sent in a series of transactions starting in 2020 from an account controlled by Binance.US to trading firm Merit Peak. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly launched a probe into potential connections between Binance.US and the same trading firm in February 2022.

Reuters reported that a Binance.US spokesperson said Merit Peak was “neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform" and only the exchange’s employees had access to its bank accounts. Funds were stored by Binance.US doing business as BAM Trading Services at Silvergate Bank.

The report dropped amid Binance publishing a blog post on ‘Building Trust in the Crypto Ecosystem’, in which the exchange said customer assets “should only be used in the ways that the customers have explicitly authorized.” Binance pushed back against a similar Reuters report from June 2022 alleging the exchange facilitated billions of dollars worth of money laundering, claiming the news outlet was spreading disinformation.

This story is developing and will be updated.