America’s treatment of Binance and Mr. Zhao is “unreasonable”: former BitMEX CEO claims | CoinDesk JAPAN

Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, are being treated this way in the US by the crypto exchange and other central Arthur Hayes, former CEO of exchange BitMEX, said in a new post on his Substack account that centralized exchanges pose a threat to the traditional American-led global financial system. argued in the essay.

Last week, Binance and its founder were criminally charged with violating sanctions and money transfer laws, agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine, and Zhao resigned as CEO. I decided to do it. Zhao has been deemed a flight risk by a court and must remain in the United States until his sentencing early next year.

Compared to penalties imposed on traditional large financial institutions, the penalties imposed on Binance and Mr. Zhao are “unreasonable” and highlight the “arbitrary nature of punishment at the hands of the state.” Hayes wrote.

“Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that under his management, Goldman had been linked to former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and financier Joe I wonder if we received the same treatment when we let Jho Loh steal over $10 billion,” Hayes wrote, referring to the 1Malaysia Development Bank (1MDB) scandal that broke in 2015. Goldman Sachs was ultimately fined $2.9 billion in 2020.

“No, Mr. Lloyd was able to retire with his stock options and Goldman was not held criminally responsible,” he continued, noting that no major bank CEO was prosecuted during the 2008 financial crisis. .

Hayes argues that the treatment of Zhao and Binance shows resistance to decentralization and the blockchain revolution.

“The state has centralized power, and cooperation is achieved through violent threats,” he writes. “The problem for the financial and political establishment was that the intermediaries that facilitated the flow in and out of the industrial revolution, known as blockchain, were not run by members of their own class.”

Mr. Hayes himself is facing state charges. In February 2022, he pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act for willfully failing to implement an anti-money laundering (AML) program at an exchange and was sentenced to two years’ probation.

｜Translation: CoinDesk JAPAN
｜Edited by: Toshihiko Inoue
｜Image: Arthur Hayes (CoinDesk)
｜Original text: US Treatment of CZ, Binance Is ‘Absurd:’ Arthur Hayes