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Binance addresses 7 instances of recent FUD via Chinese blog post

December 23, 2022 Coin Telegraph

audits

Binance is fighting back against the tsunami of FUD it has faced in recent weeks.

The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, has been dealing with a torrent of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) since the downfall of FTX. The firm is now fighting back with its latest blog post.

On Dec. 22, Binance published a blog post in Chinese to address seven key issues the company wanted to clear up. At the time of writing, there was no English language version available.

The first of which was the temporary suspension of USDC withdrawals earlier this month. It explained that this was done during a “token swap” conversion period, with the exchange consolidating its stablecoin reserves into BUSD.

The next thing it addressed was the availability of sufficient reserves for withdrawals. It confirmed that “all users’ assets in Binance are supported 1:1,” and that its financial status was very healthy since it makes ample profit on transaction fees. On Dec. 16, CryptoQuant verified Binance's reserves, reporting that there was no “FTX-like” behavior.

“Binance will not embezzle users’ funds for any transactions or investments, nor does it have any debts, nor is it on the list of creditors of any company that has recently gone bankrupt.”

Regarding Mazars and the “Big Four” auditing firms refusing to work with crypto companies, it said that encrypted on-chain verification was a new field that these companies may not have the capacity to carry out.

It noted that these audits are typically aimed at the financial situation of the listed company, not verifying reserve assets.

Mazars has since removed Binance's audit reports from its website. Binance also stated that it did not need to disclose financial information because it was a private company, not a listed one.

“In many jurisdictions where we operate, we have shared or are sharing operational and financial information as required by local regulators.”

Regarding a Reuters report claiming that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating the company, Binance stated that mainstream media has been targeting the company with salacious reporting for quite a while now. It added that it had the most compliance licenses in the world and spent the most fighting crypto crime.

Finally, the blog post reiterated CEO Changpeng Zhao’s comments that Binance did not destroy FTX; FTX did that itself. Binance does not regard other exchanges as competitors, it said, adding tha“we are more focused on continuously promoting and expanding industry adoption.”

So there you have it. The FUD has been refuted but that hasn’t prevented an exodus from the exchange in recent weeks as investors moved to self-custody their crypto assets.

Court in China Recognizes NFTs as Virtual Property Protected by Law

December 6, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Chinese court says NFTs are virtual property protected by law

December 5, 2022 Coin Telegraph

China

The court said NFTs are “unique digital assets” that “belong to the category of virtual property” in a case where it had to confirm the legal attributes of NFTs.

A Chinese court in the city of Hangzhou has said nonfungible token (NFT) collections are online virtual property that should be protected under Chinese law.

A Nov. 29 article posted by the Hangzhou Internet Court — a specialist internet court — shared by crypto blogger Wu Blockchain on Dec. 5 reveals the favorable language for NFTs after the country began to crack down on cryptocurrencies in 2021, leaving NFTs in a legal grey area.

Translated, the article says NFTs “have the object characteristics of property rights such as value, scarcity, controllability, and tradability” and “belong to network virtual property” that “should be protected by the laws of our country.”

The court decided it necessary to “confirm the legal attributes of the NFT digital collection” for a case, and admitted “Chinese laws currently do not clearly stipulate” the “legal attributes of NFT digital collections.”

The decree by the court was brought forward in a case where the user of a technology platform, both unnamed, sued the company for refusing to complete a sale and canceling their purchase of an NFT from a “flash sale” because the user provided a name and phone number that allegedly didn’t match their information.

“NFTs condense the creator's original expression of art and have the value of related intellectual property rights,” the court said. It added NFTs are “unique digital assets formed on the blockchain based on the trust and consensus mechanism between blockchain nodes.”

Due to this reason, the court said “NFT digital collections belong to the category of virtual property” and the transaction in the legal case is seen as the “selling of digital goods through [the] internet” which would be treated as an e-commerce business and “regulated by the ‘E-commerce Law’”.

It comes after the Shanghai High People’s Court issued a document in May that stated Bitcoin (BTC) is similarly subject to property rights laws and regulations despite the country’s ban on crypto.

With its crypto ban, China has worked to separate NFTs from crypto with a government-backed blockchain project to support the deployment of non-crypto NFTs paid for with fiat money.

The government is still vigilant to ensure its population resists “NFT speculation” as described in an April joint statement between the China Banking Association, the China Internet Finance Association and the Securities Association of China that warned the public about the “hidden risks” of investing in NFTs.

China isn’t the only jurisdiction to place NFTs under property laws. A Singaporean High Court judge drew on existing property laws in an October case likening NFTs to physical property such as luxury watches or fine wine saying “NFTs have emerged as a highly sought-after collectors’ item.”