CZ Pushed To Shut Down Binance.US This Year, But Was Stopped By Its CEO: Report

Key Points:

• Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao attempted to shut down Binance.US earlier this year to protect the company’s overall interests.
• Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder is the only one who opposes this decision in customers’ interests.
• The US subsidiary was valued at $4.5 billion by investors last year, but it is running into legal troubles with regulators in the country.

According to The Information, the Binance.US board of directors voted on whether to liquidate the company under the push of Changpeng Zhao (CZ) but could not come to a final decision.

According to The Information, citing two people familiar with the matter, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao attempted to shut down Binance.US earlier this year to protect Binance’s mutual interests.

The board of directors of Binance.US, which includes Changpeng Zhao as chairman, voted on whether to liquidate the company but failed to reach a unanimous consensus.

Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder was the only one opposed to the decision as he feared that the sudden shutdown of the exchange could harm customers by forcing them to transfer or liquidate their cryptocurrency quickly.

If this is true, it would lead one to speculate that in the future, the US branch of Binance might gradually downsize its operations towards closing.

The company was valued at $4.5 billion by investors last year, but it’s been struggling lately. Binance US has faced many difficulties recently, from the fact that Binance US was sued by the SEC, having to stop trading crypto with USD, and the price of trading pairs on Binance US is different from reality.

The 13 charges, including operating a “scam website” and “calculated circumvention,” have put more pressure on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. At the same time, the SEC also accused Binance of violating securities regulations for many years, disregarding local laws and evading regulatory scrutiny.

These adverse factors have caused the market share of Binance.US to be said to have plummeted to a record. According to a report from Kaiko, the market share of Binance US dropped more than 20% to around 0.9% at the end of June 26.

It can be seen that although Binance has taken quick actions to deny the allegations to reassure investors, in the face of a strong opponent like the SEC, the exchange will still have to bear the loss, not small at all.

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