Binance Exchange’s CEO, Richard Teng argued that his company only froze accounts related to unlawful activities. The two are further complicated by the ever-persisting geopolitical tensions and the more intricate issue of tracing cryptocurrency usage in terrorism. Recently on social media, several people accused Binance of freezing all the Palestine accounts based on the orders of the Israeli authorities. However, the CEO, Richard Teng, refuted these allegations, as Coindesk reported.
Teng condemned these statements as fear, uncertainty, and doubt, “FUD,” stating that the allegations are false and that Binance merely put the block on accounts involved in criminality at most. It was also reported that the outbreak over the issue was occasioned by a tweet made by Ray Youssef, the CEO of NoOnes that Binance had pulled out money from all Palestinian clients. Youssef was able to back up the assertions with a letter from the National Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing of Israel.
This letter, November 2023, dismissed an appeal against a seizure order of funds in the Dubai Exchange in Gaza which is on the list of terror organizations. However, the letter failed to reveal the identity of the account which was to be affected. In response, Teng said that the restrictions only affected a small number of reports — those associated with suspicious activities.
Binance like most other companies is under international guidelines required in combating Anti Money Laundering better referred to as AML policies and instrumentalities when in interaction with unlawful financial activities.
Teng was keen to point out that such action was normal and that not all Palestinian accounts had been frozen. The confusion arises, during its time amidst geopolitical rivalries and somewhat, the utilization of cryptocurrencies by different actors, including terrorists.
The Israeli government said that since 2021, it has frozen $190 million in Binance accounts suspected to have links to terrorism. Also, through the years, the United States of America has blocked the activities of some companies that have banking relations with Hamas and this made the context of such allegations clouded. Internationally, regulators have especially shifted attention to the use of cryptocurrencies in terror financing.
Despite the above, both Singapore and India have recorded increased such activities while there is strong evidence of traditional methods in India. The problem of proving ownership of an individual’s wallet raises additional issues for exchanges such as Binance.
In the last month, the Binance exchange indicated that it was in the process of selling a controlling stake in Indonesia-based Gopax. As stated in the exchange, for instance, Gopax is one of the leading five won exchanges in Korea that is highly prone to delisting if challenges relating to governance continue to accumulate.
