INFORME ESPECIAL-El gigante de las criptomonedas Binance mezcló los fondos de los clientes y los ingresos de la empresa, dicen antiguos expertos

23 mayo (Reuters) – El mayor intercambio de criptomonedas del mundo, Binance, mezcló los fondos de los clientes con los ingresos de la compañía en 2020 y 2021, en violación de las reglas financieras de EE. UU. que requieren que el dinero de los clientes se mantenga separado, dijeron a Reuters tres fuentes familiarizadas con el asunto.

Una de las fuentes, una persona con conocimiento directo de las finanzas del grupo de Binance, dijo que las sumas ascendían a miles de millones de dólares y que se mezclaban casi a diario en las cuentas que la bolsa tenía en el prestamista estadounidense Silvergate Bank. Reuters no pudo verificar de forma independiente las cifras o la frecuencia. Pero la agencia de noticias revisó un registro bancario que muestra que el 10 de febrero de 2021, Binance mezcló $20 millones de una cuenta corporativa con $15 millones de una cuenta que recibió dinero de un cliente.

Los flujos de dinero en Binance descritos por Reuters indican una falta de controles internos para garantizar que los fondos de los clientes fueran claramente identificables y separados de los ingresos de la empresa, dijeron tres ex reguladores estadounidenses. Dijeron que la mezcla de estos fondos ponía en riesgo los activos de los clientes al ocultar su paradero. Los clientes de Binance no deberían “necesitar un contador forense para encontrar dónde está su dinero”, dijo John Reed Stark, exjefe de la Oficina de Cumplimiento de Internet de la Comisión de Bolsa y Valores.

Reuters no encontró evidencia de que el dinero de los clientes de Binance se haya perdido o tomado.

El presidente de la SEC, Gary Gensler, ha dicho que muchos intercambios de criptomonedas que ofrecen valores a clientes de EE. UU. no cumplen con las leyes que exigen que los corredores de bolsa registrados protejan el dinero de los clientes separándolo de los activos corporativos. “Sus modelos comerciales tienden a basarse en la toma de fondos de los clientes, mezclándolos”, dijo en un evento en mayo. La SEC ha lanzado este año una ofensiva contra una serie de criptoempresas, pero no ha apuntado a Binance con ninguna acción de aplicación directa.

Binance permitió a los clientes de EE. UU. comerciar en su plataforma desde 2019 hasta este año a pesar de afirmar públicamente que restringía el acceso a los estadounidenses, alegó la Comisión de Comercio de Futuros de Productos Básicos de EE. UU. en una queja contra el intercambio en marzo. Binance respondió en un blog que bloquea a los usuarios estadounidenses.

En una declaración a Reuters, Binance negó haber mezclado los depósitos de los clientes y los fondos de la empresa. “Estas cuentas no se usaban para aceptar depósitos de usuarios; se utilizaron para facilitar las compras de los usuarios” de criptografía, dijo el portavoz Brad Jaffe. “No hubo mezcla en ningún momento porque se trata de fondos 100% corporativos”. Cuando los usuarios enviaban dinero a la cuenta, dijo, no estaban depositando fondos sino comprando el token criptográfico vinculado al dólar a medida del intercambio, BUSD. Este proceso fue “exactamente lo mismo que comprar un producto de Amazon”, dijo Jaffe.

Los ex reguladores de EE. UU. dijeron a Reuters que la explicación de Binance se vio socavada por las representaciones previas del propio intercambio a los clientes de que las transferencias eran depósitos. Desde finales de 2020 y durante todo 2021, el sitio web de Binance les dijo a los clientes que sus transferencias en dólares eran “depósitos” que se “acreditarían” en sus cuentas comerciales en forma de BUSD. A los clientes se les dijo que podían “retirar” sus depósitos en dólares. Estas representaciones crearon la expectativa de que los fondos de los clientes estarían protegidos de la misma manera que los depósitos en efectivo tradicionales, dijeron los ex reguladores.

“Estas representaciones tienen que ser muy claras en todo momento”, dijo Stark, exfuncionario de la SEC.

Reuters preguntó a Binance si alguna vez les dijo a los usuarios que consideraba que sus depósitos en dólares constituían “compras”. Binance no proporcionó ninguna evidencia de esto y dijo que “el término ‘depósito’ es un término de comunicación, no es una indicación del tratamiento técnico de los fondos”.

La combinación de fondos corporativos y de clientes puede ser un precursor de grandes pérdidas para los clientes de las firmas financieras. En diciembre, la SEC y la CFTC alegaron que el fundador del criptointercambio FTX colapsado, Sam Bankman-Fried, durante años había mezclado los fondos de los clientes en su firma comercial y los utilizó para financiar inversiones de capital de riesgo, donaciones políticas y compras de bienes raíces. Bankman-Fried se declaró inocente de los cargos de fraude y dijo que no mezcló ningún fondo a sabiendas.

BANQUERO DE BINANCE

Bank and company records for 2019-2021, seen by Reuters, and interviews with former insiders show that Binance used Silvergate Bank, the U.S. lender that collapsed in March, as the lynchpin of its financial operations. Silvergate, which is in the process of winding down operations, did not comment for this article.

Company revenues entered the Silvergate account of the exchange’s Cayman Islands holding firm, Binance Holdings, according to the sources and bank records. Customer dollars flowed into the Silvergate account of a firm in the Seychelles called Key Vision Development that was controlled by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

One of the sources and a fourth person with direct knowledge of this account said Binance told Silvergate the Key Vision account’s purpose was to receive dollar deposits from non-U.S. customers. Jaffe, the Binance spokesperson, said this was inaccurate, without providing further details.

According to the sources and the February 2021 bank record seen by Reuters, Binance mixed customer money and company revenues in a third Silvergate account, belonging to a Zhao-controlled Cayman firm. Binance converted money from this third account into the dollar-linked token BUSD, according to the person with knowledge of Binance’s group finances and company messages. Blockchain records show Binance bought at least $18 billion of BUSD between January 2020 and December 2021.

The former regulators told Reuters that moving money between accounts and into crypto could have enabled Binance to shield funds from tax authorities in countries where it operates. The person with group-level knowledge of Binance said there was also another motivation: Zhao distrusted banks, once telling an interviewer of his concern that they could freeze his company’s accounts. So Binance turned cash into crypto, commingling customer funds and revenues in the process.

The new insights into Binance’s financial operations come as the company is facing civil charges from the CFTC of willful evasion of U.S. commodities laws by “intentionally structuring entities and transactions” to avoid U.S. regulations. The CFTC also alleged, without elaborating, that some of Binance’s corporate entities, including the Cayman holding firm, “have commingled funds.” Zhao called the charges “disappointing” and an “incomplete recitation of facts.” Binance is also under investigation by the Justice Department for suspected money laundering and sanctions violations, according to people familiar with the probe.

The CFTC declined to comment for this article, citing pending litigation, as did the SEC. The DOJ had no comment.

Binance has grown into a juggernaut in recent years, accounting for as much as 70% of world trading in cryptocurrencies. The company initially did business solely in crypto, enabling it to avoid the global banking system. But as Binance attracted more customers and hired more employees, its need for conventional bank accounts grew – to deposit the dollars it received from clients, to pay wages and other expenses, and to finance investments.

Silvergate, which specialised in serving the crypto industry, made this possible – until early March of this year, when the bank announced its closure after customers pulled deposits amid a wave of turmoil. The same month, New York’s chief financial regulator took over another crypto-friendly bank, Signature Bank, where Binance was also a client.

A medida que se aceleran las medidas enérgicas de EE. UU. contra el sector de las criptomonedas, no está claro qué banco se convertirá en el próximo eje de las operaciones de Binance. Zhao ha dicho en Twitter que estaba buscando nuevos socios bancarios. “Cuando una puerta se cierra, otras se abren”, escribió el 27 de marzo. Reuters no pudo determinar quién actúa ahora como el banquero principal de Binance.

UNA RED INTRICADA

Cinco meses después de lanzar el intercambio en Shanghái en julio de 2017, Zhao le dijo al medio de noticias Tech in Asia que Binance no tenía socios bancarios porque los clientes depositaban fondos únicamente en criptomonedas. “Cuanto más trates con dinero fiduciario, más (las autoridades) podrán controlarte”, dijo Zhao, en referencia a las monedas tradicionales. Usó su tarjeta de crédito personal para pagar las facturas de la empresa, dijeron exempleados.

But the situation changed in 2018 when Binance sought to launch several local exchanges where customers could buy crypto with traditional currencies. Zhao dispatched his deputies to find banks and payment firms willing to accept Binance as a client. Chief among these deputies was Guangying Chen, the head of Binance’s back office. Chinese-born Chen was one of the few employees Zhao trusted with Binance’s finances, former executives said. Chen did not respond to questions about her role.

Binance had limited success obtaining bank accounts for its small local units, however. Most major banks turned the exchange down due to compliance concerns over crypto companies’ source of funds, according to company messages and former executives.

Then Silvergate came to the rescue. In recent years, the small San Diego-based bank had shifted its focus from local real-estate lending to servicing crypto companies. It quickly became a leading provider of banking services to the crypto sector.

By 2019, Binance had opened a Silvergate account for its Cayman-based holding company, Binance Holdings Limited, to receive revenues earned by the exchange. The account was handled by Chen and a finance executive who reported to her, Susan Li, company records show. Li didn’t comment for this article.

Binance then opened two further Silvergate accounts: for Seychelles firm Key Vision Development and Cayman Islands-based Merit Peak, both incorporated on Jan. 15, 2019 and controlled by Zhao, according to filings and bank records. Binance’s online platform began instructing customers to “deposit” their dollars into the Key Vision account. After users transferred funds to Key Vision, they received an email from Binance telling them they had “successfully deposited” their dollars, according to screenshots posted online by traders. Users could also “withdraw” their deposits via Binance’s platform, which said it would wire the dollars to their bank accounts.

Binance Holdings, Key Vision and Merit Peak formed the core of the global crypto exchange’s financial network. But inside Binance, few employees had full visibility over their roles. Access to information about the Binance group’s overall finances and its bank accounts was tightly managed by Chen, a half-dozen former executives said. Chen’s team also had access to a Silvergate account belonging to Binance’s purportedly independent U.S. partner, Binance.US, which Zhao in fact controls, as Reuters has previously reported. Binance.US told Reuters that only Binance.US executives have access to its bank accounts.

Binance’s then-chief compliance officer, Samuel Lim, was concerned by the exchange’s dependence on Silvergate due to requirements that U.S. banks closely monitor clients’ transactions, company messages show. Lim told executives in a 2020 message seen by Reuters that “the long term fix is to reduce reliance on US bank.” The CFTC complaint in March charged Lim with aiding and abetting Binance in violating U.S. laws “through intentional conduct that undermined Binance’s compliance program.” Lim has not publicly responded to the charge and did not comment for this article.

The person with direct knowledge of Binance’s group finances said Zhao shared Lim’s distrust of banks and instructed the finance team to keep dollar balances in the Silvergate accounts as low as possible. Dollars in the Binance Holdings account and Key Vision customer funds account that were surplus to immediate business needs were transferred to the Merit Peak account, where they were commingled, the source said. Money from the Merit Peak account was then used to purchase Binance’s BUSD token, according to the source and company messages. BUSD and other “stablecoins” are backed by dollars and designed to hold a steady value.

Reuters couldn’t determine the value of BUSD tokens purchased in this way. But blockchain data show that between January 2020 and December 2021, BUSD’s issuer, New York-based Paxos Trust, transferred at least $18 billion of BUSD to Binance. Binance received the BUSD in at least two wallets that it has previously identified as its own, without saying whether they contain company or customer funds. A Paxos spokesperson said that between late 2019 and early 2023 Binance sent Paxos dollars in return for BUSD “for it and its customers.”

The money flow between Binance and Paxos also could be reversed, according to the person with group-level knowledge and company messages. When Key Vision needed dollars to meet customer withdrawals, for instance, Binance would redeem BUSD at Paxos, which in return would send dollars to Merit Peak’s Silvergate account. Merit Peak would then distribute the dollars to other accounts as needed.

The value of BUSD tokens in circulation peaked at over $23 billion last November, with Binance-controlled crypto wallets holding as much as 90% of the total, according to crypto data firm Nansen. But in February, New York regulators ordered Paxos to stop issuing BUSD, citing Paxos’ failures in risk assessments and due diligence checks.

The Paxos spokesperson said the company “voluntarily announced its intention to end its relationship with Binance and has been successfully winding down all business relationships with Binance since.”

Since Paxos stopped issuing BUSD, Binance has reduced its holdings of the coin to around $3 billion, according to Nansen. Reuters could not determine why Binance reduced these holdings or how it converted them.

Money from other sources also entered Merit Peak’s account, including hundreds of millions of dollars from a Binance.US account, Reuters has previously reported. Bank records show the Binance.US account was operated by Chen. Binance.US told Reuters Merit Peak “was withdrawing funds from its own account.” It didn’t respond to follow up questions.

Silvergate informó a Binance que cerraría la cuenta de Key Vision a mediados de 2021, según dos personas con conocimiento directo. Silvergate tomó la decisión sobre la base de que Key Vision había realizado transacciones que no eran adecuadas para una cuenta bancaria de custodia, dijo una de las personas, sin dar más detalles. Ese junio, Binance envió un correo electrónico a los usuarios para decirles que los “depósitos en USD” a través de Silvergate serían “descontinuados”. Binance luego comenzó a usar una cuenta de Key Vision en Signature Bank para recibir fondos de clientes, según las fuentes y capturas de pantalla de las transacciones de los usuarios. Signature Bank no hizo comentarios para este artículo.

El portavoz de Binance, Jaffe, dijo que este informe sobre las cuentas de Key Vision era inexacto, pero no proporcionó más detalles.

UNA BASE BÁLTICA

Binance’s financial network also required a reliable euro bank account, former executives said. The exchange found a solution in Lithuania which provided a European Union base and a straightforward registration process. In May 2020, Binance set up the Lithuanian company, initially called Binance UAB, with Zhao as its sole shareholder and Chen as a board member. Binance later unveiled the firm, renamed as Bifinity, as its “official fiat-to-crypto payments provider.” Zhao installed Helen Hai, Binance’s China-born head of fiat operations, as president. Hai didn’t comment for this article.

In 2021, Bifinity had revenue of 680 million euros, according to its financial report, and paid over 420 million euros to a single unnamed related party. The person with direct knowledge of Binance’s group finances identified the unnamed party as Binance Holdings. Bifinity did not respond to questions from Reuters.

One consequence of Binance’s financial manoeuvring, four former Binance executives said, was to protect the exchange’s profits from tax authorities. Binance has never disclosed where its Binance.com trading platform is based nor what corporate taxes it pays and where.

To assess how much tax Binance pays, Reuters reviewed the exchange’s public filings since 2018 in countries where it has said it has significant operations. In France and Dubai, where Binance established hubs last year, local units have not detailed tax payments. France’s finance ministry declined to comment and Dubai didn’t comment. In Malta, where Binance said it was based for several years, its main local unit reported losses each year, so it paid no tax. Maltese authorities didn’t comment. The only significant tax payments Reuters found were in Lithuania, where in 2022 Bifinity paid 42.5 million euros, data from Lithuania’s tax authority show.

With the growth in Bifinity’s business came a higher profile. In July 2021, Lithuania’s central bank said it had warned Binance not to provide unlicensed investment services. Six months later the exchange appointed Saulius Galatiltis, who previously ran the central bank’s investment management department, as chief executive of Bifinity.

When Lithuania’s parliament debated a new bill to toughen rules for the country’s crypto companies last year, Galatiltis urged a parliamentary committee to avoid stricter legislation. He emphasised Bifinity’s tax payments, which last year made it one of Lithuania’s largest corporate taxpayers. “This business is global, in many countries all over the world,” Galatiltis told the committee, discussing Bifinity. “I think a business which acts globally and pays tax locally must be attractive to any country,” he said. Galatiltis didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article.

El parlamento finalmente votó a través de un conjunto diluido de reglas. El Ministerio de Finanzas de Lituania dijo a Reuters que Bifinity participó en el proceso formal de “proporcionar comentarios y sugerencias” sobre el proyecto de ley junto con otras instituciones y participantes del mercado. “Nunca basamos nuestras decisiones de política regulatoria en una sola entidad”.