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The SEC complaint against Binance.US includes excerpts from testimony given to regulators by two of the company’s former CEOs, one of whom has been on the radio since stepping down in 2021. continues to be silent.
The filing contains some of the following testimony: Catherine Corey and Brian Brooks About his experience leading Binance.US and the main hurdles he faced in the job.
The testimony also touches on the influence of Binance Holdings, which operates the international Binance.com platform, on Binance.US and its operations, as well as the sharing of technology and resources between the two companies.
First CEO of Binance.US
Catherine Coley is the first CEO of Binance.US, a role she held from 2019 to 2021, overseeing the company’s initial launch in the US.
Her abrupt resignation and subsequent silence prompted many to speculate about what happened during her tenure as CEO and why she resigned. Excerpts from her testimony in SEC filings shed light on her experience.
Corey told the SEC that Binance.US relied heavily on Binance.com’s resources and staff for its launch, with all of the platform’s code written by Shanghai-based engineers.
She said that many of the codebases were written in Chinese, which was a “huge pain point” in eventually making Binance.US independent from its international counterparts. She added that despite her bilingual proficiency, it was difficult to bring in US and Western engineers to work on the code.
That’s why he said he focused on areas where he could quickly become independent, such as customer support.
The excerpt did not include the reason for her departure or her current whereabouts.
matching engine
Corey also pointed out that Binance.US was using the same matching engine as Binance.com during his stay, and that the 1st of 2020, months after it began opening accounts for US users in September 2019. He also admitted that he did not remember signing a service level agreement with Binance.US until March. .
Brooks told the SEC that Binance.US has a team of around 50 engineers based in Shanghai. He said they were originally part of Binance.com but were “hidden” by Binance.US after their separation in 2019. They operate in China under an entity called Boran, which, like him, was effectively a division of Binance.US in China. I figured it out.
Brooks said Binance.US uses the matching engine under license and Binance.com does not directly control the platform through this technology.
CZ was an economic counterparty
Brooks took over as CEO after Corey stepped down, a position he held for about four months. He resigned in August 2021, citing “differences over strategic directions” as the reason.
Brooks joined the company, but after many of the changes he proposed to fix the Binance.US issue were suddenly “rejected” after months of work, he quickly declared himself no longer CEO. He said he noticed no.
He said:
“At some point it became clear that CZ was the CEO of BAM Trading and not me.”
Brooks also said CZ provided $10 million in initial funding for Binance.US’s launch, as companies cannot start without money. Brooks likened it to Hewlett and Packard funding itself in its garage days, but the existence of the money was “a problem,” Brooks said.
He said:
“It suggests that the company actually relied heavily on CZ, not just as a controlling entity, but also as an economic partner.”
