Documents: Binance used secret access to Binance.US' Silvergate bank account to move $400M+ in Q1 2021 to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao's trading firm Merit Peak
Reuters
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported account access follows earlier coverage that Binance executives sought to insulate Binance from US and UK scrutiny through the Binance.US structure, while the SEC was already examining disclosures around the US arm's ties to founder-linked market makers and its ties to market makers. The banking records put a concrete control-and-funds-flow question behind that separation.
Later reporting that a Binance executive operated multiple Silvergate accounts for the purportedly independent US affiliate extended the account-control concerns, while the SEC's subsequent allegations placed related transfers at a far larger scale.
First-order effects
The documents directly challenge Binance.US's operational separation from Binance by identifying Binance's access to an account held in the US affiliate's name.
Merit Peak and Changpeng Zhao become central to an evidentiary trail connecting Binance.US banking access with a founder-linked trading firm.
Second-order effects
The SEC's earlier disclosure inquiry gains a more specific line of scrutiny: whether Binance.US's stated relationships and controls matched how its bank accounts were operated.
Silvergate's role becomes part of the record regulators and counterparties assess when evaluating whether nominally separate crypto entities had independent financial controls.
Third-order effects
If similar account-control arrangements are established across crypto affiliates, legal separation will be judged less by branding or incorporation than by who can direct bank accounts and affiliated trading firms.
The episode fits a broader regulatory shift toward testing whether exchange affiliates have substantive governance independence from founders and parent platforms.
The trend: Crypto regulation is increasingly focused on the practical control of customer-facing affiliates, bank accounts, and related trading entities rather than their formal corporate separation.
🚨BINANCE US TRANSFERRED $400 MILLION TO CZ'S TRADING FIRM MERIT PEAK IN EARLY 2021. GUESS THIS IS JUST MORE “MARKET MAKING?” 🤣☠️ https://www.reuters.com/...
FTX deja vu. BinanceUS secretly moved $400M from its Silvergate account to Merit Peak Ltd., a possible alter-ego of Binance CEO CZ. Transaction done via BinanceUS's covert “black-box” software. No Oversight. Crypto-Financial Anarchy. A Glaring Red Flag. https://www.reuters.com/..…
https://binance.us/'s executives, including then CEO Catherine Coley, were concerned by the outflows because the transfers were taking place without their knowledge, according to messages we reviewed. “Where are those funds coming from?” Coley asked a Binance executive
This matches what is already known about the relationship between Binance US and Binance. Recently we showed over $1 billion in transfers between the two exchanges using only one pair of addresses and PROVED commingling of customer assets with overseas Binance funds: https://twit…
(Reuters) - Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance had secret access to a bank account belonging to its purportedly independent U.S. partner and transferred large sums of money from the account to a trading firm managed by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao .. https://www.reuters.com/...
NEW: Binance had secret access to a Silvergate bank account belonging to the crypto giant's purportedly independent U.S. partner. During a three-month period, Binance transferred $400 mln from the account to a trading firm managed by CZ, we found: https://www.reuters.com/...
Ugh ummm... lol as I was saying and saying. If y'all thought SBF/FTX was bad, you haven't seen anything yet 🫠 https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Binance US send funds to Merit Peak (CZ's market-making firm), Prime Trust send funds to Nance US then MP send the funds to Key Vision (The entity used to handle Binance USD deposits) Probably smth to do with MP market making on Binance US but idk how Prime Trust fits into this h…
This suspiciously looks like bad news that was being front ran by insiders. Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance had secret access to a bank account belonging to its purportedly independent U.S. partner and transferred large sums of money. FTX 2.0. https://www.reuters.com/...
It would explain quite a bunch if Binance Yolo'ed a bunch of customer money in early 2021 into crypto, but unlike FTX they made a boat load, then took it out of the market and that's where all this wealth he throws around came from https://twitter.com/...