According to Reuters, between January to March, 2021, more than $400m was transferred from Binance US account at Silvergate Bank to a market making firm called Merit Peak, which is managed by Binance CEO CZ. Binance US has responded to the report, saying that only Binance US employees have access to the company's bank account.
Reuters said it couldn't determine the reason for the transfers or whether any of the money belonged to Binance US customers. According to the exchange's public terms of use at the time, customer funds were held at Silvergate and Prime Trust, a custodian firm.
The media outlet also claimed that the transfers were made without Catherine Coley's knowledge, who was Binance US CEO at the time. She left the company in the same year in June.
Reuters mentioned in the report that SBF used to secretly divert billions of dollars in customer funds to his trading firm, Alameda Research, which functioned as a market maker on FTX.
In response to the report, Binance US said on Twitter, "there have been many attempts to draw parallels between Binance US and fraudulent exchanges that have gone bankrupt. The real facts speak for themselves: there is no comparison. Our leadership team is staffed with former DOJ, SEC, FBI, and NYFed employees who are committed to operating a platform that is safe and abides by US laws and regulations."
"Only Binance US employees have access to Binance US bank accounts," the exchange added, "while there was a market making firm named Merit Peak that operated on the Binance US platform, it stopped all activity on the platform in 2021."
In addition, the exchange said, "Binance US has never -and will never - trade nor lend out customer funds."
Binance
