Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance is once again in hot waters as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) exposed the origin of Binance U.S., and how the exchange tried to evade the U.S. authorities.
According to messages, and documents from 2018 to 2020 retrieved by WSJ, Binance embarked on a plot to neutralize U.S. authorities to evade prosecution.
Binance even contacted Gary Gensler in 2018 and 2019 while he was a professor at MIT. Gensler reportedly met Ella Zhang, then-head of Binance’s venture investing division, and Harry Zhou in October 2018.
Gensler declined the advisor post, and Zhou noted in the Telegram chat: “I observe that while Gensler declined advisor-ship, he was generous in sharing license strategies.”
The second meeting between Gensler and Binance CEO CZ took place in Tokyo in March 2019. While at MIT, Gensler was approached by many private corporations who wanted to hire him as an advisor, but he turned down each offer.
The WSJ exclusive notes that Binance discussed plans to create Binance.US, which would use its technology and brand, but otherwise appear to be completely independent of Binance.com.
“It would shield from U.S. regulators’ scrutiny the larger Binance.com exchange, which would exclude U.S. users,” the report noted.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Justice Department (DoJ) have been allegedly looking into the connection between Binance and Binance.US at least since 2020.
Binance is already under a lot of scrutiny by multiple nations. Recently, Bipartisan US Senators called Binance- “Hotbed” of illegal activity for purposefully evading regulators, and hiding basic financial information from its customers and the public.
