cryptos last man standing takes on a hostile world

[ad_1]

In a plea for a more crypto-friendly UK watchdog, he added: Binance has just announced its European headquarters in Paris for heaven’s sake. He also spoke at the private club Crypto Club Global. Hancock said he doesn’t own any cryptocurrencies and turned them down when offered.

Binance is an institutional member of the lobby group CryptoUK, which costs up to 20,000, according to a brochure. CryptoUK helps run the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Crypto and Digital Assets, which it has funded to the tune of 46,000 this year.

And his efforts are not limited to the UK. In the United States, the independent American division of Binances has launched a political action committee. These groups are typically used to fund legislation or make donations to politicians.

In the EU, transparency disclosures show it has stepped up its lobbying efforts. Last year he spent more than half a million euros wooing Brussels before the EU introduced a new law to regulate digital coins.

Binance’s UK advisers include PR firm Hawthorn, which previously represented Chinese tech giant Huawei as it fought a UK 5G ban. He hired heavily in Britain to bring in legal and regulatory experts. In April, he hired Steven McWhirter, a former FCA enforcer.

Binance’s Hillmann insists the company has no intention of spending lavishly on political donations. Bankman-Fried, the disgraced boss of FTX, is now known to have donated more than $40 million to US Democrats in an effort to woo them.

Despite its efforts to assuage concerns, Binance has come under heavy criticism from UK regulators. The FCA has issued three statements warning against its activities. In June 2021, he banned Binance from launching a UK division.

The FCA said the company refused to disclose which company was behind its Binance.com website. The regulator issued new warnings in February about a deal between Binance and a UK payments company, and in March about a potential acquisition.

Since being blocked, the crypto company has again applied for a UK license. He told MPs he had been in talks with regulators for more than a year.

Some MPs have raised questions about Binances’ role in FTX’s demise. Days before his collapse, Zhao said he planned to sell $500 million of FTX-developed tokens. Its price has dropped. He also backed out of plans to take over FTX.

Harriett Baldwin, MP on the Treasury Committee, said: It must have been obvious when this decision was made that it was likely to cause FTX to collapse. Binance denied this.

FTX’s failure exposed a web of apparent fraudulent activity, including the misuse of customer deposits, although Bankman-Fried denies wrongdoing.

Either way, the demise of its biggest rival will only make authorities even more cautious about allowing another access to the offshore exchange for UK consumers.

It sets the industry back a few years, Daniel Trinder, the firm’s London-based public policy officer, admitted to MPs last month.

Alexander Carter-Silk, attorney at Keystone Law, said: Crypto exchanges now face a huge challenge in allaying concerns from regulators as confidence in the market has declined significantly.

Binance has been less than clear in a number of instances regarding their management and who actually controls. This has undoubtedly raised concerns among regulators. Binance says the company is restructuring and streamlining its business.

Hillmann, however, says the UK could be left behind on cryptocurrency if it moves too slowly to regulate digital coins. It would be a historic miscalculation to allow crypto to continue to proliferate in mainland Europe without it having some sort of footprint in the UK, he says.

The latest challenges for Binance include possible criminal charges in the United States. Hillmann says the company cannot prejudge the outcome of the investigations, but adds: Regulators in the United States have a wide range of industry investigations. We are the biggest, so obviously we will be part of some surveys.

This week, Zhao was evasive when asked if he would be heading to the United States soon. I’m quite busy, he says, I’m not against traveling to the United States.

Andrew Thurman, cryptocurrency analyst at Nansen, said this has caused concern among retail and institutional users.

Zhao played down the outflow of funds, insisting that the company’s deposits are individually backed, unlike FTX which wasted client funds on high-risk investments.

FTX’s failure was described last week as an old-fashioned embezzlement by John Ray, the man tasked with restructuring the failed exchange run by incompetent and inexperienced kids. Leaders spent lavishly on penthouses and boats before his demise.

Zhao is now trying to portray Binance as the mature face of crypto.

Binance runs a very different kind of business, says Hillmann. There are no yachts at Binance.

[ad_2]