The chief executive officer of leading crypto exchange Binance has once again pushed back on the notion that his company is affiliated with China.
In a recent blog post, Binance Co-Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (better known as “CZ”) likened attempts to associate the exchange with China and the Chinese government to attacks on the company’s reputation.
CZ wrote,
Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of corporate law or how companies work will understand this: Binance was never incorporated in China. Nor do we operate like a Chinese company culturally.
While Binance has at times mysterious moved its corporate headquarters around the globe, CZ has long maintained that the exchange is not a strictly Chinese company.
The Binance CEO noted that the exchange has subsidiaries in many countries, including France, Spain, Italy and the United Arab Emirates, while also highlighting that Biannce does not have “any legal entities in China” or plans to do so in the future. He claimed that one of Binance’s greatest challenges is its designation as a criminal entity in China, alongside all other offshore crypto exchanges.
CZ pointed out that his accusers were using his ethnicity and that of other ethnically Chinese employees at Binance to assume that the exchange is “secretly in the pocket of the Chinese government.” He called Binance an easy target for special interest groups and media opposition in the West, including policymakers.
He went on to highlight the explosive growth and success of Binance since launching in 2017, which has at times necessitated a less conventional business plan.
He claimed to be focused on continuing to scale Binance to match the growth of the crypto industry, writing,
Like every other crypto exchange, growing and upscaling our staff and maturing our systems to match the growth of the industry has been the greatest challenge of my career. This is something that I have embraced and invested heavily in thus far.”
