Mazars’ US division has long served as the accounting firm for former US President Donald Trump’s company.
Binance is collaborating with accounting firm Mazars as part of its proof-of-reserve (PoR) audits, which have been triggered by the fall of FTX.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mazars, the accounting firm that worked for former US President Donald Trump’s company, has been appointed as an official auditor to conduct a “third party financial verification” as part of Binance’s PoR updates.
According to a spokesperson for Binance, the accounting firm is already reviewing all of Binance’s publicly shared information on Bitcoin BTC tickers down $16,986 PoR and will also be verifying future updates and tokens. “The first BTC verification update will be completed this week,” said the representative.
Mazars is a Paris-based international accounting firm. Mazars USA, Trump’s longtime accounting firm, had been embroiled in a dispute with the House Oversight and Reform Committee over a request for some of Trump’s financial records since 2019. According to reports, the firm will cut ties with Trump and his family in 2022.
The announcement comes as Binance conducts PoR audits on large amounts of cryptocurrency. Binance sent 127,351 BTC, or approximately $2 billion, to an unknown wallet on November 28, with CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao later announcing that the transaction was part of the ongoing PoR process.
The action has raised some eyebrows in the community, as CZ previously stated that it is bad news when exchanges must move large amounts of cryptocurrency to prove their wallet address.
As previously reported, Binance launched a PoR process and mechanism in response to the FTX crypto exchange’s crash and bankruptcy. On November 25, the company also released Merkle Tree-backed proof of funds for Bitcoin.
Binance is not alone in making significant efforts to maintain customer trust in the aftermath of the FTX collapse, with many other exchanges, including OKX and KuCoin, rushing to release their PoR reports as well. Meanwhile, some industry observers believe that the current PoR process used by exchanges is largely ineffective unless they also provide liabilities that are difficult to forge.
