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Comment by seydor | Hacker News Reader

> The Reuters analysis

The "investigative" part is public data that any of us can view. If there was something remarkable there, crypto bros would have found it without waiting for reuters to "review" things.

Obviously since binance is not based in the US or EU, its users don't expect the same level of transparency that banks have. If reuters wanted more transparency maybe it should ask some country to allow it to base itself there. But given that they have been effectively on the run for most of their existence, it's not strange that they are keeping their secrets to themselves. I think reuters is trying to be sensational but none of the news it reports are.

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> If reuters wanted more transparency maybe it should ask some country to allow it to base itself there.

They are welcome to base themselves in any jurisdiction however they would rather not because they have no interest in complying with the kinds of financial regulations that underpin a modern and functional economy.

Why on earth would we want to compromise on these regulations and onshore these bucket shops? Just look what happens when you let them do as they will.

> They are welcome

Are they? They are not unless they transform to another boring bank which defeats the purpose of the exchange. Banking is not why their users joined

> Are they? They are not unless they transform to another boring bank which defeats the purpose of the exchange. Banking is not why their users joined

Sure, but if their users joined to participate in an unlawful offshore casino then my point remains. They can comply with regulations, or not. It's not the responsibility of the states to bow down to binance and allow this silliness, but on binance to conform to a state regulatory framework.

> but on binance to conform to a state regulatory framework.

Which is not something they want. That was my comment about actually, Reuters article implies that binance must comply with some state.

If binance wants to sell their services in a particular market they must comply with the rules that are in place in that market. Is that controversial?

Afaik they do already, binance.us exists

Reuters article is implying that Binance's unwillingness to show what many regulations would require is because it is a fraud.

How is it the responsibility of an offshore company to conform to some states regulatory framework - and which states anyways?

If people want these products and they are regulated out of the market, offshore is where these companies will go to provide them.

If US people want these products and Binance wants to sell these products to US people, Binance should conform to the US regulatory framework. Otherwise it is on Binance to ensure they do not sell their products to US customers.

It is US customers who are circumventing the technical measures set in place to prevent them from trading on these platforms with VPNs and fake PII.

That line of reasoning worked so well for BetonSports.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BetonSports

And hey, what's 33 months in prison?

> since binance is not based in the US or EU, its users don't expect the same level of transparency that banks have

I am not a Binance user. My tax dollars will be used to clean up this mess once it implodes. I am also not too keen on it playing piggy bank to Iran and North Korea.

> My tax dollars will be used to clean up this mess once it implodes

Really? have they been used to clean up the mess of some other offshore company imploding?

> have they been used to clean up the mess of some other offshore company imploding?

Investigating FTX, extraditing SBF and putting people in jail isn't free.

That's because sbf was a US citizen. And presumably this is all paid by the recovered money, not the taxpayer. Otherwise, why even bother

Binance is already being investigated by US law enforcement; American taxpayers are already incurring these costs.

The FBI isn't gonna get the recovered money from FTX (what's left of it). That'll go to the bankrupt entity's creditors.

Why does the US spend all that money instead of banning it for US citizens.

Because they can’t do that without proving wrongdoing?

of course they can ban them without any reason whatsover

Which power granted to the Feds by the Constitution gives them the power to shut down companies arbitrarily without wrongdoing?

Without due process, no. But the Congress defines wrongdoing under U.S. law.

>That's because sbf was a US citizen.

Nope, that's incidental. If he were foreign, and had committed the fraud he did against the US, he would likely also be extradited to here to stand trial, the same as, e.g., these three Nigerian nationals [1] or this Jamaican [2] (or, if you search for a moment, hundreds of other cases).

>And presumably this is all paid by the recovered money, not the taxpayer.

It's paid by the taxpayer, through the budgets of the DOJ, the same way things like Enron, Madoff, and other massive frauds are not paid out of recovered money, which is used to pay off creditors.

You can check the line item in the federal budget that pays the DOJ, so that's not a question that taxpayers pay for these legal enforcements. If you want to claim "presumably" please show the valid source where this entire criminal cost will be paid for by the recovered money.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-nigerian-nationals-extr...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jamaican-national-extradited-...

Why would the US gov pay money in case binance.com goes down since afaik US citizens are not allowed to use it. Why even spend for investigating

https://www.binance.us/

i know about .us hence why i mentioned .com

(it is a different entity)

Which is silly, as they’re concerned with Binance, the organization, not the TLD.

That's a pretty naive view. Him being a US citizen makes a bunch of stuff easier and some other things harder but none of those would ultimately stand in the way of him going to trial. And even if you hide in a place where there is no extradition you are still going to be tried but in absentia. And good luck moving around after that.

The US government gets a bulk discount.

The government has seized billions of dollars of crypto in other cases, net they probably more than break even when you account for the complexity it adds to investigations.

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