The frontman of Binance, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, firmly dismissed swirling claims that the cryptocurrency exchange had clandestinely offloaded Bitcoin (BTC) to artificially prop up its BNB token. The murmurs, mostly from crypto market observers such as Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten and analyst Dylan LeClair, accused Binance of deliberately skewing the market to inflate BNB's value.
As these rumors gained momentum, CZ set the record straight on June 13, taking to Twitter to assure his followers that Binance hadn't unloaded any BTC or BNB. He noted that the crypto exchange continues to hold a substantial share of FTX Token (FTT), the native currency of the now-defunct FTX exchange. He expressed bewilderment at the critics' ability to determine specific sellers based solely on the price chart encompassing millions of traders, dismissing the claims as fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).
Interestingly, CZ's tweet was a response to a June 14 post from Skew, a technical analysis platform. Skew had exposed accusations that Binance was distorting market trends through a series of transactions involving BTC, USDT, and BNB. Backing Skew's claim, Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair denounced BNB as a "falsified market" with lower realized volume compared to BTC.
These allegations centered on wash trading, an underhanded practice where an investor simultaneously sells and then purchases an asset to create the illusion of high trading activity or falsely increase its demand. Additionally, Joe Consorti of The Bitcoin Layer highlighted the peculiar behavior of BNB's price around the $220 level, speculating that it might be a liquidation threshold for a BNB-guaranteed loan. He urged Binance to release an audited statement confirming the absence of BNB-guaranteed obligations to dispel the spreading FUD.
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