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Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

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Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#371

Post by koreanguy »

jefftk wrote: post #354
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prager Metis and Armanino worked with FTX, but I can’t find anything showing they completed an audit. (Far from blameless. Both seem riddled with issues [1].) [1] https://www.ibtimes.com/crypto-auditors-under-fire-ftx-meltd...

" CoinDesk obtained the audited financial statements of West Realm Shires, also known as FTX US, and FTX Trading Ltd., the combined offshore Bahamas-based entity that includes an exchange catering to non-U.S. customers and Alameda, the proprietary trading operation. It’s not clear why FTX commissioned two different audit firms to audit its 2020 and 2021 financial statements. The reports by Armanino LLP, which signed…

No post body was provided.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#372

Post by ninethirty »

echelon wrote: post #336
dicomdan wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whataboutists have arrived to protect China-owned Binance

Even though I'm crypto agnostic, I'm diversified. I have some funds in Coinbase, but I don't really want to go to the trouble of maintaining a hardware wallet. I'm way more likely to lose a wallet or mismanage it than not. As an anecdote, I had several million dogecoin from 2014 or so as a joke, which I think amounted to several hundred thousand dollars just a few years back. I couldn't find, figure out, or be bother…

You could split between Gemini and Coinbase if you are dead-set against a hw wallet.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#373

Post by dicomdan »

taejavu wrote: post #358
dicomdan wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Binance is China-owned so there's no problems, all criminal allegations are false, company is in great shape, and customer's assets are safe. What about Coinbase?

Is this sarcasm?

Yes

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#375

Post by oblio »

janakalin wrote: post #5

FTX was also audited by a top firm, Armanino!Changed nothing... In the article says: Following the collapse of FTX, Paul MacIntosh, EY’s US financial services crypto co-leader, said on LinkedIn that proof of reserves reports do not assess companies’ internal controls, “which ultimately was the downfall of FTX”.

> FTX was also audited by a top firm, Armanino!Changed nothing...

I've never heard of this Armanino company. They're not even top 10 worldwide, they claim to be top 25 in the US, they don't have a Wikipedia page, even.

Plus, was that audit even finished and an opinion given? Anything else is worthless.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#376

Post by munificent »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #268
chx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so close All current crypto"currencies" which use transaction fees (which is practically all of them) are negative sum games and thus are scams. This is so simple and people waste billions on not understanding it.

Money in general has transaction costs - even cash decays every time it changes hands. Is it all a negative sum game? It seems that in order to make that claim, you need to make some comparison between the value produced and the costs incurred. IMO, crypto is pretty scammy but there is some value (note that crypto is most popular in countries with unstable economies and corrupt governments). A crypto that’s optimized…

> note that crypto is most popular in countries with unstable economies and corrupt governments

"Possibly marginally less bad than an unstable fiat currency propped up by a corrupt regime" is not high praise.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#378

Post by danaris »

jacquesm wrote: post #128
polygamous_bat wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... with Coinbase it is the investors funds at risk, not the customers funds Oh boy are you in for a surprise: "In its quarterly report, Coinbase added a risk disclosure: if the company were to file for bankruptcy, the court might treat customer assets that the exchange is custodian for -- their Bitcoin, Dogecoin or whatever -- as Coinbase’s assets. And they’d be at the back of the line for repayment, forcing norma…

Ouch. Thanks for that. I wonder why the normal customer funds segregation rules do not apply to crypto assets.

Basically, because cryptocurrencies aren't considered "money", and what they are is still kind of up in the air...and because, as so many of its proponents are so proud of (despite it being extremely obviously a temporary state of affairs), cryptocurrency is not yet subject to very many laws and regulations.

You can't have the protections of "money" without the regulations of "money". As long as everything was going fine and government was still dragging its feet catching up to technology, the people who got in early got to pretend there was something special about cryptocurrency that made it possible to have their cake and eat it too.

Now, they're starting to find out why that's not the case.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#379

Post by crtified »

funstuff007 wrote: post #227

If they're in such dire straights, how is it $BNB is hanging there? Is Binance defending their own magic bean? What is the cost of doing so? https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BNB-USD/

One manipulation mechanism is leverage.

Binance and other crypto exchanges offer leveraged trading to all members, and it's fair to say [1] that there's a huge uptake of those services due to their open-door nature, crypto's volatility, and the illusion of fast money. And human psychology, of course.

This means that at any given time, a dominant exchange (i.e. Binance) can run an order books VS leverage liquidations system, where it can be continually (and exclusively) evaluating the cost/profit of using their internal market makers to shift the price of any given asset counter to the leverage trend. Which they, as the exchange holding ALL the data, have full insight into.

When we're talking about an asset that's near-exclusively controlled by a particular exchange - e.g. FTT, BNB, ... - this becomes an even simpler manipulation for the exchange.

This gives them options.

They can allow a "natural" price trend to play out, OR, they can buy out the order books in the opposite direction, and liquidate/take all the money of every leverage trader who tried to leap onboard the trend. The harder the market movement, the more gamblers try to leap onboard, giving the exchange proportional fuel to do as they please.

Until a point.

[1] https://www.cryptometer.io/open-interest

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#380

Post by throw_pm23 »

epolanski wrote: post #110
throw_pm23 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good insight -- not just for non-accredited, but for everyone. The persistent low-interest era meant lack of investment opportunities for a decade which explains much of the crypto boom and many other phenomena.

> The persistent low-interest era meant lack of investment opportunities Is that true? Just putting your money on an index fund like S&P would've yielded you an average 14.5% per year in the last decade or an almost 400 % return in a decade. Stock market more than doubled in the last 5 years and it highly outperformed crypto markets. There has been no shortage of investment opportunities, but you people sound simply.…

Paradoxically, the booming of S&P was due to the same: a lot of money lying around, lacking a sound growth opportunity, flowing into stocks and real estate.
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