Binance CEO speaks about market manipulation and wash trading

During an interview with Unchained, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO, and Founder of Binance, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange platform, spoke about ShapeShift’s introduction of AML/ KYC and the platform being accused of wash trading and manipulation.

On the topic of ShapeShift’s AML/ KYC, the CEO stated that determining the platforms decision from the outside without knowing the internal factors which were taken into consideration. Nonetheless, CZ believes that there was a business reason for the platform to make the decision.

CZ further spoke about the exchange platform’s internal policies and procedures concerning insider trading. He said that there are a set of rules and guidelines which are laid down in order to prevent such practices from taking place. The CEO stated that he wants his employees to hold cryptocurrencies. However, when an employee buys cryptocurrency they are required to hold the coin for 30 days before they sell the coin.

He continued to say:

“So this is a like a policy we learn from the banks are back in the banking days,that’s kind of our internal policy. We don’t, we don’t we don’t let our employees day trade and not a productive thing to do anyway, for most of them.”

Furthermore, the Founder spoke about Binance being accused of wash trading and market manipulation because of its high trade volume of “obscure” coins within a short period of time, without having any correlation with the news. CZ stated that out of the market research conducted by independent community members, Binance is the one among the exchanges in which they were unable to find any signs of trading and manipulation.

CZ stated that it is “tricky” to define manipulation and wash trading and determine the stage a trade becomes manipulation. He further added that wash trading is similar to market manipulation. He said:

“So like, let’s say Bitcoins like… 6300 US dollars on my exchange. Some guy just want to buy it all the way on Binance to all the way to $7000. The guy has lots of money and just wants to buy. So is that manipulation or is that not? It is hard to define”

He further added:

“… So it’s really hard to tell and at what stage does that become manipulation. Is it a warning, is it a price percentage difference from other exchanges. What about a point I want to trade only on one market so there’s a lot of money. So like conceptually yes, if Bitcoin is $6300 on other exchanges right now and it is trading at $7000 on other exchange then mostly likely there is some type of manipulation but how do you define that, how do you prevent that?”