The NEXT TO FALL? Investor Claims Binance Has No CFO

In the wake of the FTX collapse, fear, uncertainty, and doubt have gripped investors when it comes to centralized exchanges.

Many firms rushed to conduct audits and prove their reserves to the public, including the world’s largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange—Binance.

The platform conducted the audit via Mazars—which later pulled the audit from its website and paused auditing for the entire cryptocurrency industry—citing a poor understanding of how the public understood the audits…

This triggered a panic among investors and rumors began to flood the market as to the financial soundness of Binance.

In response to this, Changpeng Zhao attempted to quell the fear and reassure both investors and clients that Binance is financially strong and there need not be any worry.

Despite the reassurances, investors are still not buying it, as whispers of Binance’s potential insolvency continue to grow.

Investor Mike Alfred recently claimed via Twitter:

serve as a "decentralized CFO" according to the company.

2. Binance is an active discussions with potential new "Keystone" investors, including Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, about an equity round that would provide support and credibility to the company.

— Mike Alfred (@mikealfred) December 22, 2022

One other point I forgot to share.

Binance DID raise VC funding at the beginning. The earliest round was $15m in equity. That equity was converted to BNB at some point so there are in fact no outside equity investors at this moment, according to the company.

— Mike Alfred (@mikealfred) December 22, 2022

Others claim that while Binance had a CFO, that individual was not privy to the full accounting records of the company— potentially making him a CFO in name only:

Binance's former CFO did not have access to the company's full accounting records during his 3 years there ??? 😲

That seems odds. Why would CZ be designing his business so that even his Chief Financial Officer cannot see everything? pic.twitter.com/bEQZm5LYQ0

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) December 19, 2022

Finbold had more of Mike Alfred’s claims:

Furthermore, according to Alfred, CZ’s company has also been having discussions “with a tier 1 auditor for a month,” and it invested $500 million in Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), as it burned $547 million of BNB in the last quarter of 2022.

FUD is a make believe smokescreen.

You have no corporate parent, no CFO, no domicile, no internal controls, no board of directors, no auditor, and no audited financials.

You are the least transparent organization of your size in human history.

That is the truth.

— Mike Alfred (@mikealfred) December 17, 2022

On December 19th, 2022 Reuters reported:

Yet a Reuters analysis of Binance’s corporate filings shows that the core of the business – the giant Binance.com exchange that has processed trades worth over $22 trillion this year – remains mostly hidden from public view.

Binance declines to say where Binance.com is based. It doesn’t disclose basic financial information such as revenue, profit and cash reserves. The company has its own crypto coin, but doesn’t reveal what role it plays on its balance sheet.

It lends customers money against their crypto assets and lets them trade on margin, with borrowed funds. But it doesn’t detail how big those bets are, how exposed Binance is to that risk, or the full extent of its reserves to finance withdrawals.

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