A new report alleges that Binance engaged in a practice “eerily” similar to that of now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX last year by commingling different investors’ funds. This was done by moving $1.8 billion of collateral set to back its customers’ stablecoins late last year and putting the assets to other undisclosed uses.
According to the report, holders of more than $1 billion of B-peg USDC tokens, which are digital replicas of USDC that exist on Binance’s proprietary Binance Smart Chain, were left with no collateral from August 17 to early December despite Binance claiming such instruments are 100% backed by whichever token they were pegged to.
More specifically, Binance sent $1.1 billion of that funds to Chicago-based high frequency trading firm Cumberland/DRW. The report speculated that Binance could have used the funds to swell its own stablecoin BUSD. Furthermore, other hundreds of millions of shifted collateral from Binance was funneled to Amber Group, Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, and Justin Sun’s Tron, Forbes said, citing blockchain data for Binance digital wallets.
Binance’s chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann claimed that the movement of funds is part of the exchange’s normal business conduct and refuted claims that there was a commingling of funds. However, a key factor contributing to the collapse of FTX was the commingling of funds between the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange and its trading arm Alameda Research, allowing the loan to fly under the radar of investors, employees, and auditors.
In response to the allegations, a Binance spokesperson said that the on-chain transactions identified relate to internal wallet management and that at no time was the collateralization of user assets affected. New York’s chief financial regulator also announced plans to release new guidance that will mandate companies to separate their own crypto assets from that of customers’ earlier this year.