Binance’s Chief Executive Officer Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has responded to claims over being a Chinese firm. CZ penned down a detailed post offering a rebuttal to the allegations. The top executive criticized the media’s efforts to malign its reputation by portraying it as a company with connections to China.
One of the many strengths that our employees at Binance must possess is thick skin. After all, this industry is the subject of a lot of negative sentiment (much of it is unwarranted, but it’s the reality right now). In recent months, our thick skin has been tested by a noticeable increase in attacks on our company’s reputation.
He lamented that people would still insist on calling it a “Chinese company,” despite establishing itself as a global firm with diverse employee profiles similar to that of FTX, and Crypto.com.
Zhao also took a critical note of the negative campaigns orchestrated by crypto exchanges and projects to target competitors and said these types of attacks are becoming more sophisticated.
“And while it is tempting to launch counter-attacks on the industry’s bad actors who engage in these activities, we will not debase ourselves nor abandon our values,” he added.
It is worth recalling that a self-proclaimed whistleblower CryptoLeaks recently published a report alleging Avalanche labs for exploiting litigation to cast doubt on rival blockchain projects. Binance too was served a legal notice at the behest of Ava labs, the report alleged.
“Binance Was Never Incorporated In China”
While Binance has at times shifted its corporate headquarters around the globe, CZ has maintained that the exchange was never incorporated in China.
He also stated that the firm has subsidiaries spread across the globe, including France, Spain, Italy, UAE, and Bahrain [to name a few].
“But we don’t have any legal entities in China, and we do not have plans to.”
According to CZ, it is incorrect to presume that the exchange is “secretly in the pocket of the Chinese government” simply because he is of Chinese ancestry and there are other ethnically Chinese employees.
He referred to Binance as a simple target for Western governments, as well as oppositional media and special interest groups.