Binance Claps Back at Journalists Who Accused Them of Laundering

Today, the CEO of Binance, CZ, shared an article from the Binance blog on Twitter. The post read: Crypto and Money Laundering: An Inconvenient Truth. He also added, “Spoiler: the overwhelming majority of all money laundered goes through the traditional banking system, not crypto.”

The blog post entitled “Crypto and Money Laundering: An Inconvenient Truth” appears to be in response to the Reuters investigative piece published earlier this year. The detailed report had delved deep into Binance’s questionable mode of operations and its hand in money laundering.

“It’s clear that this journalist simply doesn’t understand the data nor how blockchain works,” claims Binance. The retaliation piece goes on to say that Crypto is unsuitable for money laundering. Some of the reasons the exchange uses to back up this statement are KYCs being stringent in the industry, difficulty in moving large sums of money into crypto without people noticing, and its trackability. 

Moreover, Binance vehemently argues that it has the world’s most sophisticated anti-money laundering systems and employs the most experienced anti-money laundering investigators.

Addressing the allegations around Lazarus, a cybercrime group run in North Korea, Binance claims that it has proactively shared intelligence with law enforcement to map out North Korea’s modus operandi globally. Furthermore, they insist that they block all North Korean funds that attempt to reach their platform. 

Binance also threw light on the Hydra issue. Hydra is a Russian darknet marketplace that was shut down. “Some in the media would have you believe that Binance was the key crypto exchange that facilitated Hydra. Nothing could be further from the truth,” declares Binance.

The crypto exchange ends the article on a deflective note. “It’s an inconvenient truth for those that are anti-crypto that the overwhelming majority of all money laundered goes through the traditional banking system, not crypto.”