Mazars’ US division was long the accounting firm for former US President Donald Trump’s company.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is working with accounting firm Mazars as part of its proof of reserves (PoR) audits triggered by the FTX crash.
Mazars, the accounting firm that worked for former US President Donald Trump’s company, has been appointed as the official auditor to perform a “third-party financial verification” as part of Binance’s PoR updates, Wall Street reported. Journal on November 30.
The accounting firm would already be reviewing all the information publicly shared by Binance about the PoR of Bitcoin (BTC) and will also verify future updates and tokens., as reported by a Binance spokesperson. “The first verification update for BTC will be completed this week,” the representative added.
Mazars is an international accounting firm headquartered in Paris. His US division, Mazars USA, was Trump’s longtime accounting firm and had been embroiled in controversy with a House Reform and Oversight Committee request for some of Trump’s financial records dating back to 2019. The firm reportedly finally cut ties with Trump and his family in 2022.
The news comes in the middle of Binance moving large amounts of cryptocurrency as part of its PoR audits. On Nov. 28, Binance sent 127,351 BTC, or about $2 billion, to an unknown wallet, with CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao later announcing that the transaction was part of the ongoing PoR process.
The action has triggered some concerns in the community, as previously, CZ argued that it is bad news when exchanges have to move large amounts of cryptocurrency to prove their wallet address.
As previously reported, Binance launched a PoR process and mechanism in response to the crash and bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. On Nov. 25, the firm also published the Merkle Tree-backed proof of funds for Bitcoin, which was just one of many moves by Binance to demonstrate its transparency.
Binance isn’t the only one that has gone to great lengths to maintain client trust following the FTX crash, with many other exchanges like OKX and KuCoin rushing to publish their PoR reports as well.. Meanwhile, some industry observers believe that the existing PoR process by exchanges is largely useless unless they also provide accountability, which is very hard to fake.
Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
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