Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
Binance is under scrutiny yet again
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been accused of firing its own investigators after discovering that its VIP client, props trading firm DWF Labs, engaged in alleged acts of market manipulation.
A May 9 Wall Street Journal report claimed that DWF Labs engaged in market manipulation, wash trading, and inflated trading volumes amounting to $300 million through deals with crypto projects. After the exchange’s surveillance team recommended offboarding the client, Binance allegedly sided with DWF Labs and fired the investigator, arguing insufficient evidence for the claim.
DWF Labs co-founder Andrei Grachev. (X)
Binance has denied involvement. “We affirm our strict market surveillance program. We do not tolerate market abuse,” said the exchange in a tweet. “Market maker competition is fierce and our investigation team’s job is to be neutral and look at the evidence without any bias, including bias that might come from market-making firms’ claims against their competitors.”
According to the exchange, its staff has offboarded 355,000 users with a transaction volume of $2.5 trillion for violating its terms of use in the past three years.
DWF Labs, too, has denied the allegations. “We want to clarify that many recent allegations reported in the press are unfounded and distort the facts,” they said. “DWF Labs operates with the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and ethics, and we remain committed to supporting you and our over 700 partners across the crypto ecosystem.”
Binance’s co-founder and spouse of its co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, penned a response dripping in irony, writing:
“I am very grateful to the WSJ for their consistent and long-term devotion to Binance, which has greatly increased our exposure and saved us a lot of marketing budget. However, I have noticed an interesting…
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