Binance is in cross hairs

Source

Turbulence in the ecosystem is clearly worsening as a devastating collapse appears imminent. Many supposed giants have already fallen in the past few months due to unscrupulous practices and mismanagement. These incidents have shaken the confidence of many in the future of cryptocurrencies.

Unfortunately, it appears that another collapse may be in the works as the multi-billion dollar centralized exchange is currently sailing in troubled waters and the captain of the ship is failing to do proper damage control to see the ship through the storm.

What started with accusations of Binance harboring a role in the collapse of the FTX exchange has now turned into an exchange that has come under a barrage of more serious allegations from various quarters.

I came across an infographic that outlined the travails of Binance between December 9th and 16th, which gives cause for great concern especially for those who trade or store their assets (which is not the best in the first place) on the exchange.

The worst affected by this development are those who have a substantial part of their assets in BNB, whose value has fallen significantly in recent days, with some speculating that its value may go as low as $150. I'll highlight key points in the infographic and provide additional information below where possible.

It has been a cat and mouse game between Binance and US authorities for some time now. US authorities have had Binance on their radar for some time, with Binance adopting various tactics to avoid a real confrontation with them. However, it appears that Binance can now deploy a variety of tactics to avoid confrontation with US authorities, with the Department of Justice poised to intervene at any time. The criminal charges against Binance include fraudulent activity such as money laundering for criminal entities.

Mazars, which recently audited Binance, has stopped proof of reserve activity for all crypto clients

What's really worrying is that the firm didn't stop at doing audits, it also removed the evidence or reserve audit it did for Binance from its website. This suggests that things didn't add up with the audit he did, and he may be covering his own tracks to avoid being responsible for any fallout that might come from a bogus or falsified audit. You'll recall that many people in the crypto space criticized Binance for taking an unconventional approach to proving reserves in an audit that didn't provide a true picture of its true financial health.

$8 billion worth of withdrawals per week

BNB spot loan freeze

Stop ERC-20 USDC Withdrawals

Large unexplained BNB wallet balances as well as activity on the Binance beacon chain

Abnormal activity in Binance perpetuals indicates manipulation

Kevin O'Leary accuses Binance of causing FTX's collapse while appearing before the US Congress

Binance users account has been hacked by third party 3 Commas

Binance Refuses to Return $50M BNB to Mithril After Delisting Citing Past Terms of Service Violations

$3 billion worth of on-chain swaps from TRC USDT to ERC USDT over the same period, suggesting an asset or liability mismatch. Closely related to this are allegations that Justin Sun, Jump and WinterMute are facilitating the conversion of BUSD to USDC to enable customer withdrawals

Some also noted that in his recent media appearances, CZ didn't seem like his usual confident self, but rather looked nervous similar to SBF before the fall of FTX. This assessment of the appearance of CZ may be subjective, but it is better to take appropriate countermeasures in view of the other events mentioned above that happened in such a short time interval.

slogan:

"not your keys, not your crypto"

is relevant now more than ever considering what happened to user funds when FTX collapsed. If Binance were to suffer the same fate, the consequences and losses would be catastrophic, the likes of which we have not seen before considering the high volume of trades on Binance.