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Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has dismissed as “poorly conceived” claims that it has seen $12 billion withdrawn in 60 days and $360 million withdrawn last Friday alone.
A spokesman responded to a Forbes article that said it had seen a quarter of its assets withdrawn in 60 days, saying: “Outflows are not accelerating. Ultimately, our users want to know that their funds are secure and that our business is financially strong.
“The Forbes analysis is poorly conceived and the numbers at which they arrive are off by billions,” a spokesman for Binance, told Zawya adding that three research groups had published reports indicating that its standing remains strong and well-positioned for the long term.
“Finally, we continue to hold assets 1:1 and can fund withdrawals at any time, even at the large, albeit overstated, numbers in this article,” the Binance statement concluded.
Binance’s capital structure is debt free and also recently demonstrated its financial robustness by fulfilling $6 billion of net withdrawals between 12-14 December without breaking stride, it said.
In its article, Forbes highlighted the performance of Binance Coin (BNB) and Binance USD (BUSD), saying BNB lost 29% of its value in months with the number of BUSD stablecoins at the firm sinking by 40%.
Forbes cited data from crypto data firms Nansen and Nomics which showed the BNB token was down by 37% from 12 months ago, and that a decision to stop charging fees for spot bitcoin trading as the market faltered cost $3 billion in lost revenue.
Amdist all the withdrawals, Binance's high profile CEO Changpeng Zhao has been reassuring depositors that its reserves were sound.
(Reporting by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Seban Scaria)
