Crypto Twitter went into a storm after The Block released an article suggesting that Chinese police had raided Binance, one of the world’s leading exchanges, Shanghai office.
The article said Binance had been raided by police with staff members forced to relocate. Could this spell the end for Binance and more pressure between the cryptocurrency space and Chinese authorities?
However, the situation took a dramatic change after Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO of Binance, discredited the article in a tweet, saying: “Binance hasn't had an office in Shanghai for more than two years.”
The Binance CEO didn’t stop there, claiming many exchanges were out to get Binance and were consistently releasing negative stories on the exchange. He later turned his attention towards The Block, also tweeting, “We will be suing”.
The Block replied to CZ in a statement on Twitter::
“In spite of other outlets uncritically reporting Binance's official line on the matter, The Block stands by our sources and reporting that Binance’s Shanghai office was shut down. In the name of transparency, we've unpaywalled the article.” Many people were behind this Tweet and voiced their support.
The social media spat took yet another dramatic turn as OkEx’s Jay Hao went on a Twitter tirade against CZ and Twitter user @truthurtm. The Twitter user had voiced their support for Binance and claimed OkEx was behind much of the negative stories surrounding Binance of late. Something which CZ retweeted.
Hao, CEO of OKEx, hit back, accusing the CZ of paying people to write FUD and then in later posts he began listing the mounting evidence that Binance does have an office in Shanghai.
One tweet illustrated a CoinDesk article that mentions an office in Shanghai in the article. It said: “the new outpost will join Binance’s current mainland China office in Shanghai.”
Hao also tweeted one article cited from Caijing.com. The article had photos of the Shanghai office, and people in Binance hoodies on October 29th, but later when the reporter visited the office again, it was empty.
Local Shanghai TV also
reported on the Binance office closure. They said instead of having Binance as the owners, BABI Finance, an outsourced company related to Binance was on the documents.
Hao also pointed out that Binance is the real FUD exchange, using the example of the Alipay and Wechat drama. For those who don’t remember, CZ had said both mobile payment giants could use crypto after an apparent Binance partnership. This was sternly refuted by Alibaba, in a PR disaster for Binance.
So, what do you guys think? Is there an office in Shanghai? Who is telling the truth? Let us know below.
