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Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

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Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#271

South African affiliate - oh dear - let's just the accounting profession in South Africa is generally found to be wanting after several scandals they missed out on or were complicit in.

https://gizmodo.com/binance-crypto-ftx-withdrawals-stablecoi...

So much for preventing this.

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#272
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the time being? Keeping your funds on an exchange (or in a bank) means they are, quite literally, not your funds. If you don't want the risk of loss, don't give your money to second parties .

That's true for an exchange, but is absolutely not true for a bank (in a well-run modern state). At least if you don't have millions+ of dollars in the bank, the state ensures that even if the bank were fraudulent, your money is still your money.

Your statement is commonly believed, but is completely false. Money held in banks, at least in the USA, can be frozen or taken indefinitely by the state with no evidence of wrongdoing or even probable cause.

There is a blog post on my website called "Your Money Isn't Yours" about the time Chase and the state of Indiana conspired to steal all of the money I had in the world without any basis or reason.

Many people misunderstand this about property in the USA. Civil asset forfeiture among several other mechanisms means that property is guilty until proven innocent and can be stripped from you at any time without any evidence whatsoever.

Money held in the bank in your account is literally not your money. It's the bank's money with a corresponding liability to you. They prove this quite plainly by loaning it out to other parties.

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#273
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true for an exchange, but is absolutely not true for a bank (in a well-run modern state). At least if you don't have millions+ of dollars in the bank, the state ensures that even if the bank were fraudulent, your money is still your money.

Your statement is commonly believed, but is completely false. Money held in banks, at least in the USA, can be frozen or taken indefinitely by the state with no evidence of wrongdoing or even probable cause. There is a blog post on my website called "Your Money Isn't Yours" about the time Chase and the state of Indiana conspired to steal all of the money I had in the world without any basis or reason. Many people mis…

The government can also seize your house, your cash, or your gun using civil assets forfeiture.

So either there is no private property in the USA, or your money is your money, even if it's in a bank.

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#274
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement is commonly believed, but is completely false. Money held in banks, at least in the USA, can be frozen or taken indefinitely by the state with no evidence of wrongdoing or even probable cause. There is a blog post on my website called "Your Money Isn't Yours" about the time Chase and the state of Indiana conspired to steal all of the money I had in the world without any basis or reason. Many people mis…

The government can also seize your house, your cash, or your gun using civil assets forfeiture. So either there is no private property in the USA, or your money is your money, even if it's in a bank.

I don't think property being subject to confiscation at any time is exactly the same thing as "no private property".

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#275
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fraud for sure .. but it doesn't mean he intended to take the money or anything. He was just too naive to understand how dangerous mixing the funds would be during an inevitable period of pressure and (I'm guessing) felt like keeping the mondy separate is the kind of control that an overly bureaucratic bank would need, not a nimble startup like FTX :-/ Don't get me wrong, he should still go to prison.

The MIT educated, son of two Stanford teachers, professors of law and business, brother to a Wall Street trader, Jane Street employee, extremely well connected kid was simply too naive :( Sorry, but you're just giving in too much in his bullshit. Especially when FTX terms of service explicitly said that your funds would never be given to FTX Trading, and that they would be kept apart. It's not an accident. Separating…

I think the education, Jane St, etc... is what allowed him to be naive. He never had to do the grunt work of running ops at Goldman Sachs to earn his stripes. He just skipped to the fun part of mansions and TED talks.

Anyway, it's clearly fraud and he should go to prison. And in some ways maybe the callous disregard for bureaucracy and controls (we don't need these, it's a waste) is worse than if he had malicious intent (I'm going to take all this money and run). For the person with malicious intent, there's not much to do other than build rules to constrain future people like that since they won't learn from the punishment of others. For the person with disdain for mechanistic controls and regulation however, we do need to show that it's just not acceptable to bypass that stuff and that society will punish you severely.

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#276
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since the Trump stuff, I don't think Mazar's gets alot of trust anymore: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/nyregion/mazars-trump-org...

Fair point but I am pretty sure so many accounting firms messed up quite often. Without slowing their business much. I remember this one for example that was probably missed by most people. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58671915 Trump was a loaded client and any firm doing business with any politicians should be extra-careful

These scandals can have an impact on the business, but it's true that it's not always that bad and companies can continue to be bad actors:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/africa/mckinsey-cor... https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/anderseneffect.asp

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#277

The Binance bank run has already started within my crypto circle.

There are three ways to make a living in this business - be first, be smarter, or cheat. Now I don't cheat. And although I like to think we have some pretty smart people in this building, it sure is a hell of lot easier to just be first.

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#278
post #19

I’m waiting for Binance and Tether to collapse, and then we will know with certainty crypto’s best days are behind it, down to zero it goes. If you have assets on Binance I would not be complacent. Get them out.

Binance and Tether collapsing would mean the opposite, that crypto's worst days are behind it.

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#279
post #141
post #122

Binance is a scam. They make it extremely hard to withdraw money, with errors, fake limits, unresponsive customer support.

> They make it extremely hard to withdraw money, with errors, fake limits, unresponsive customer support. What is the reason you say so? Meaning, is that your personal experience? What amount of money are we talking about, and why was the limit "fake"?

personal experience, few bucks fortunately, lost and I’m giving up on it

Re: Binance is trying to calm investors, but its finances remain a mystery

#280
post #122

Binance is a scam. They make it extremely hard to withdraw money, with errors, fake limits, unresponsive customer support.

Interesting, did this change recently? I remember cashing out almost 6 figures EUR around the peak last year without any problem. Since then I stayed away from the crypto market.

I moved away too, this happened while I was closing all my wallets across multiple plats
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