Binance responds to US senators without addressing financials

Crypto exchange Binance responded to criticism from U.S. senators without addressing financials, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing a 14-page letter.

In the letter, Binance's chief strategy officer, Patrick Hillmann, reportedly described the company's compliance efforts but offered few details of its finances. The response failed to provide much of the information senators had asked for in a March 1 letter, according to the report.

Three senators on the Senate Banking Committee — Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Chris van Hollen, D-Md., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. — wrote to Binance and Binance.US about their operations. The bipartisan trio said, "Binance and its related entities have purposefully evaded regulators, moved assets to criminals and sanctions evaders, and hidden basic financial information from its customers and the public."

The senators also asked for information about the relationship between Binance and Binance U.S. and any communications about alleged efforts by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to limit compliance. The senators asked for a response by March 16.

Binance's response, dated March 16, didn't provide much of that information, according to the Bloomberg report. The response emphasized that Binance and its U.S. arms "are separate entities — contrary to suggestions in public reporting."

Commenting on the exchange's compliance efforts, the response noted that Binance has a team of about 750 core and supporting compliance staffers, including various former regulatory and law-enforcement officials.

"Binance leverages both internal tools and tools from established third-party vendors to scan user transactions and profiles in real time," Hillmann's letter said. "Indeed, as a point of reference, between August 2021 and November 2022, Binance stopped over 54,000 transactions as a result of transaction monitoring alerts."