CZ: Binance traders find ‘intelligent’ ways to circumvent US block

Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, says he needs to do more to block “intelligent” US traders from illegally accessing his global exchange. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, CZ said his exchange needs to be “smarter about the way we block” US traders from gaining access to the platform. He said:

“Basically, we do continually try to improve our blocking. There are sometimes a few guys who want to circumvent our blocking and still use the platform and we have to come up with a smarter way to protect that and when we do, we block them.”

Binance, which is the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, stopped serving US traders in Sept 2019 over regulatory risks. The exchange would later launch Binance.US in partnership with BAM Trading Services, which is approved by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to serve American customers.

CZ reiterated to Bloomberg on Friday that Binance.US is a separate entity that licenses technology from Binance and receives branding support from the Malta-based exchange.

Trade volumes on Binance.US are said to be only a tiny fraction of the daily turnover on the main Binance exchange. However, reported volumes are often inflated and do not represent actual trading activity. As Cointelegraph has reported, large exchanges continue to publicize fake volumes.

Several crypto exchanges have struggled to gain a foothold in the United States over the country’s inconsistent legal approach to digital assets. Just last month, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, filed a civil enforcement action against derivatives exchange BitMEX for operating an unregistered brokerage.

At the same time, the Justice Department is seeking criminal punishment for BitMEX's executive team over the exchange's facilitation of money laundering to and from the U.S.

In response, the exchange has announced new AML and trade surveillance measures to weed out bad actors.

Binance representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.