Bitcoin Falls Below $17,000; Mazars pauses work for Binance
The Bitcoin price has once again fallen below the $17,000 mark after it became known that the audit firm Mazars will put its work with Binance on hold. Already in the last few days, the rumors and FUD about Binance have intensified.
As NewsBTC reported, investors are concerned that Binance does not keep enough reserves on hand for all of its client funds. The impetus for the outcry was evidence of reserves carried out by Mazars that raised a number of new questions rather than answering the old ones.
Notably, the audit firm worked not only with Binance, but also with other cryptocurrency exchanges such as Crypto.com and KuCoin to verify proof of reserves.
An email to Binance now indicates that Mazars is ceasing all work for crypto clients. “Unfortunately, this means we will not be able to work with Mazars at this time,” a Binance spokesperson said.
Binance rumors drag down market sentiment
The crypto market is not settling down after the collapse of FTX. Rumors of insufficient support for client funds from Binance, Tether (USDT) and Digital Currency Group’s problems as a result of Genesis Trading’s liquidity problems hang over the crypto market like a sword of Damocles.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao had tried to quell the unrest several times in recent days. Thus, he took questions from the community in an AMA and appeared in an interview on CNBC.
When asked if Binance would be able to pay out $2.1 billion if this amount falls due. CZ said: “We are doing well financially. We are financially strong.” The Binance CEO was also asked why the company has not yet disclosed its commitments and whether the exchange plans to do so. CZ said:
We work with the audit companies to audit the financial obligations. [..] Inspection shows no problem.
CNBC anchors interrupted CZ and made the claim that an audit of one of the Big Four could put all the rumors to rest. “When you say some of them don’t want to work with you, it raises questions! They won’t work with you because you don’t have the documentation and data that will make them feel comfortable”, they said.
CZ, for its part, refuted this statement and claimed that “in fact, many of them don’t know how to audit crypto exchanges.”
Binance CEO CZ on CNBC:
Many big four firms do not know how to audit crypto exchanges. pic.twitter.com/r3C15cMwbK
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) 15 December 2022
Bitcoin price plunges below $17,000
The interview has in no way helped to calm the crypto market, especially since CZ was also unable to give a satisfactory response via Twitter afterwards. CZ just retweeted the following and tired in his latest tweet that “Blockchains are public, permanent records. It is the most verifiable ledger.”
The break in the collaboration with Mazars also puts the interview in a bad light. Mazars has not yet communicated why it has stopped working with Binance and the other crypto exchanges, other than that the term “audit” will be used incorrectly.
Bitcoin investors have taken the interview overwhelmingly bearish. Over the past six hours, the Bitcoin price has lost about $500 and was at $17,004 at press time.
