Binance France has recently undergone a significant change in its ownership structure, with new shareholders now holding an equal 100% stake in the company. This move was prompted by a warning issued by the country’s Financial Markets Authority (AMF) to Binance France in December.
According to a blog post, the AMF notified Binance France that action needed to be taken due to the complications that had arisen between the original beneficial owner and various US authorities, including the Justice Department, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Consequently, the former CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, was no longer able to retain ownership of the company.
The blog post revealed that Zhao had already stepped away from the company and had pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him by the US authorities in November. As a result, he has been sentenced to four months in prison in the United States, although he is yet to commence his prison term.
Although Binance France did not disclose the identities of the new beneficiaries, it did mention that they were both members of Binance’s founding team. According to the Pappers information service, these individuals are Lihua He and Yulong Yan. However, there is limited information available about both of them.
Yan is presumed to be Allan Yan, who is identified in the Binance white paper as the first product director. He was also one of the co-founders of Bijie Tech, a company established by Zhao prior to Binance, which provided software for cryptocurrency exchanges. However, Bijie Tech was shut down in 2017. On the other hand, there is no mention of Lihua He in the white paper.
Under the regulations of Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), a company that holds a license in one European Union country can extend that license to all 27 member states. Binance reportedly obtained approval from the AMF in May 2022, following its illegal operations in France since 2020. The company was also supposedly under investigation for Anti-Money Laundering violations prior to Zhao’s legal issues in the US.
Binance France encountered difficulties in finding a banking partner in France after the CFTC filed a lawsuit against the company in March 2023. In October 2023, Stéphanie Cabossioras, the executive director of Binance France, joined a group of executives who departed from the company.
Furthermore, Binance faced additional setbacks, as it was denied a virtual asset service provider license in the Netherlands in June, and its operations in Belgium were later closed by regulators in the same month.
In light of these developments, questions have been raised about the trustworthiness of crypto exchanges following the collapse of FTX.