A plaintiff in a case against Binance claims that they have looked diligently for Binance executives Changpeng Zhao, Ted Lin, Catherine Coley, and Yi He. But, they have come up empty-handed, dubbing them international ghosts.
He even tried to reach out to Binance executives via Twitter to express his dissatisfaction. A judged deemed that service. Binance executives have made it harder to sue them by pretending to have no headquarters. They also avoid questions about their location.
For years, Zhao has refused to set foot on American territory. Zhao uncomfortably characterized his location as “Asia” during the last minutes of a 2018 interview with Laura Shin. In addition, he routinely cancels invites to US conferences.
Process servers and federal authorities can serve court documents once they enter the United States. Although foreign service is conceivable, it would need a judge’s approval before a US case may be filed.
On airport tarmacs, they have served and detained several multinational businesspeople. On September 13, 2021, plaintiff Ryan Cox filed a class action complaint in Arizona District Court.
CoinMarketCap and Binance
CoinMarketCap, according to Cox, reduced the reported value of the infamous ‘Ponzinomics’ coin HEX in favor of Binance’s own Binance Coin (BNB). A Binance subsidiary acquired CoinMarketCap in 2020.
According to the lawsuit, CoinMarketCap has kept HEX at #201 in terms of market capitalization. And, has refused to alter it based on HEX’s performance in comparison to other cryptocurrencies.
CoinGecko shows data and charts for HEX but does not rank it against other cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization. Both moves effectively eliminate HEX from appearing on either site’s home page.
HEX currently has a market capitalization of $66 billion. It is the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency behind Solana, Tether, Binance Coin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin. HEX encourages bitcoin holders to hold their coins for a long time. Per the duration of commitment scales the benefits, paid in HEX.
Beyond token-denominated staking rewards, the project and its native token produce no value. As more investors lock their tokens away, investors expect scarcity to grow. Then, the price will rise as more people buy in. These perks, according to one analyst, are HEX’s way of tricking users into thinking inflation is a pay-out rather than a tax.
The apparent success of the initiative is a mystery. The price of HEX has increased by over 4,000 per cent in the last year. It reached a high of over 9,000 per cent in September, greatly outpacing Bitcoin and Binance Coin.
Heart Defends HEX
Richard Heart, the project’s ringleader, transformed into a walking, talking, watch-wearing altar for FOMO, or “Fear of Missing Out.”
Heart frequently refutes accusations that HEX is a Ponzi scheme. He uses clever strawman arguments that imply practically everything else in the world is a Ponzi scheme as well.
Heart indicated there’s a conspiracy afoot in a direct message, referring to HEX’s permanent ranking of #201 on CoinMarketCap. He went on to say that he finds it amusing because the price and market cap continue to rise. But, the rank does not.
The action references a piece by industry insider Nic Carter that explains the under-reported underbelly of the relationship between exchanges, coin ranking sites, and retail investors, as ClassAction.org pointed out.
The class action depicts a collusive effort by Binance, CoinMarketCap, and their owners that allows for the abuse of cryptocurrency investors.
Defendants include Binance directors namely, Changpeng Zhao, Catherine Coley, Yi He, and Ted Lin, as well as CoinMarketCap OpCo LLC, Binance Capital Management Company Limited, BAM Trading Services, and Binance executives Changpeng Zhao, Catherine Coley, Yi He, and Ted Lin.
It’s really simple to multiply price times supply, according to Heart. They have no qualms about doing so for a variety of frauds that have come and gone, robbing everyone.
However, there are doubts about the effectiveness of the claimed HEX-suppression plot. The average stake duration is now 5.7 years, up from 4.8 years in 2020, according to Heart. In any case, process servers and private investigators have been unsuccessful in locating Binance executives mentioned in the lawsuit, leaving the class action in limbo.
Cox Blocked by US Judge
Cox’s intention to serve documents through Twitter was blocked by US Judge Susan M. Brnovich on the grounds that it would violate international law.
She stated in the judgement that the accused had not provided the court with sufficient information to determine the country in which they reside.
This made determining whether or not serving papers via social media was legal problematic. Brnovich did admit that locating the Binance executives was extremely difficult. Zhao has been adamant about not revealing the location of Binance’s headquarters, hinting that company does not have any permanent premises.
He told a web conference audience at the Ethereal Summit that the Binance office will be wherever he sits. The Binance office will be where he needs someone whenever he wants it.
Binance’s Location
Binance’s transitory headquarters should not be confused with Binance.US, the company’s US affiliate based in San Francisco. Binance.US only offers a subset of Binance’s global, flagship exchange’s digital assets and derivatives, which has reportedly decentralized so far that it has surpassed mortal ideas of jurisdictions.
With all that in mind, Zhao’s choice of residence could reveal information about Binance’s headquarters’ movements. After leaving China’s OKCoin, he launched Binance Holdings in 2017.
Zhao later stated that he was fleeing China because of regulatory concerns. Binance has offices in Shanghai, San Francisco, Seoul, Kampala, George Town, Saint Helier, Vaduz, and Tokyo, among other cities.
Zhao recently announced that he had purchased an apartment in Dubai, despite his reluctance to reveal his location. Pro-crypto, he describes his new home. During an interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, he expressed interest in going to the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates offers lenient restrictions for enterprises dealing in digital assets.
Singapore has been Zhao’s principal residence and, by Zhao’s logic, Binance’s de facto headquarters for the past couple of years (Binance has however opted for Hong Kong to govern its terms of service).
Binance has been forced to stop most of its operations in Singapore by Singaporean authorities, while Zhao has stated that he will not depart the nation entirely.
Binance.sg, Binance’s Singaporean Dollar-to-Crypto exchange, will close on February 13, 2022 as a result. Only eight cryptocurrencies are supported by Binance.sg for spot trading.
Earlier this week, Binance asked for a license to create an office and crypto exchange in Indonesia.
