Binance says Deloitte, E&Y, KPMG, and PwC are “currently unwilling” to conduct audits on private crypto companies, after Mazars stopped providing such audits
known to be Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers — are “currently unwilling” to sell yellow banana clown shoes with jingle bells, a Binance spokesperson told Blockworks. https://twitter.com/... Adam Cochran / @adamscochran : Big four audit firms have always been willing enough to work with Coinbase and Kraken. Accountants are usually more than happy to be paid for their overpriced services, so it says something when they won't work with you even if you've got a blank check. https://twitter.com/... Frances ‘Cassandra’ Coppola / @frances_coppola : That's because what crypto firms call “proof of reserves” proves precisely nothing. It is a device for misleading customers into believing their assets are safe. No reputable audit firm would put their name to such a thing. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The assurance story around crypto exchanges has been collapsing in sequence: after FTX, US auditors began designating crypto clients as high risk, stretching audits and raising fees, and then Mazars — the firm behind Binance's proof-of-reserves report — paused all crypto work and deleted Binance's report entirely. Binance's disclosure that all four Big Four firms are unwilling to take on private crypto clients closes off the obvious next stop.
That leaves the largest private exchanges with no conventional audit path at all, and it sharpens the distinction commentators like Adam Cochran drew in the coverage: firms such as Coinbase and Kraken retain Big Four relationships, while private crypto companies are being priced out of legitimacy regardless of budget.
First-order effects
- Binance and other private crypto companies have no Big Four audit option, and with Mazars gone their only public assurance artifact — the proof-of-reserves report — has been retracted, leaving them with weaker transparency claims than listed rivals like Coinbase and Kraken.
Second-order effects
- Exchanges will lean harder on self-published proof-of-reserves attestations, which the SEC's Paul Munter later warned could expose accounting firms to liability for misleading client statements — raising the legal cost of the remaining assurance channels.
- The audit gap becomes a competitive differentiator: public companies with Big Four audits can market verified financials against private rivals relying on unaudited attestations, pressuring the private exchanges' institutional and retail credibility.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, crypto assurance bifurcates: public firms keep full audits while private ones operate on attenuated disclosures until regulation forces the issue — though the path isn't strictly one-way, as KPMG later completed a full audit of Tether's financial statements, showing individual engagements can still clear the bar.
- The SEC's liability warnings point toward a regime where auditors, not just exchanges, bear regulatory risk for crypto assurance — making full audits the only durable form of credibility the industry can buy.
The trend: Crypto exchange assurance is migrating from voluntary proof-of-reserves attestations toward liability-driven full audits, with the Big Four's willingness setting the pace of the industry's legitimacy.