Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has been found to have hidden substantial links to China for several years, according to internal company documents seen by the Financial Times.
This contradicts executives’ claims that Binance had left the country after the Chinese government cracked down on the crypto industry in late 2017. The documents reveal that CEO Changpeng Zhao and other senior officials instructed Binance employees to conceal the company’s Chinese presence, including the use of an office until at least the end of 2019 and a Chinese bank used to pay some employee salaries.
The documents highlight the extent to which Binance has sought to obscure the location and extent of its operations as regulators scrutinize crypto-related activity. The exchange was sued by US regulators on Monday over allegations that it had illegally served American clients. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also alleged that Binance intentionally did not disclose the location of its executive offices, and that statements that its headquarters were wherever Zhao was located reflected “a deliberate approach to attempt to avoid regulation.”
Binance has repeatedly denied that it is a Chinese company, but the internal documents suggest that China was still important to Binance even after the crackdown in 2017. In 2018, employees were told that wages would be paid through a bank in Shanghai, and a year later, employees on payroll in China were asked to attend a tax session in an office located
