By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 19th, 2024
If there is any crackdown on exchanges in China, Huobi and OKex will be axed first. Binance, with team members all around the world, were built from the early days to be immune to this.
Recently we wrote about how there were some media rumors about Binance having shutdown its Shanghai following a police raid. It was then reported that Binance has relocated its 100-member Shanghai team to other offices in Singapore.
However, shortly after, we reported of Binance spokesperson refuting all the claims and media reports saying that any police raid on Binance’s Shanghai office actually did not happen.
Nevertheless, the story needs its closure, but also, an explanation, at least if it’s to believe crypto Twitter. A user known only as Truthseeker gave on Sunday a thorough thesis about what happened,
https://twitter.com/truthurtm/status/1198623616377556992?s=19
He started by explaining that China promotes blockchain technology, and not cryptocurrency. Shanghai headquarters of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) stated last week that the blockchain technology fixes problems of imbalance in the trade finance sector and resolves the issues of providing trade authenticity. However, the People’s Bank of China does plan to release its own cryptocurrency dubbed DCEP. Still, China also does not allow crypto exchanges to operate in the country. Truthseeker says that the definition of “in the country” has never been clearly defined.
Furthermore, he claims no police raid of a Binance office in Shanghai was ever done.
“That is just a lie. TheBlock screwed up. They probably listened to a source paid by Okex, and now unwilling to admit it.”
Truthseeker calls “Black media” a very common and very well understood practice in China, “or more literally translated as “black drafts”. Huobi and Okex are constantly at each other with it, but recently they turned to Binance.”
He emphasizes that Binance probably did have its offices, vendors and partners in China in the past, but claims the company isn’t present in China anymore. He calls Binance “by far the most decentralized team in crypto.” On the other hand, Truthseeker wrote, both of the crypto exchanges Okex and Huobi have their offices in China and also, their teams, senior management and 90% of their users are located in China.
Also, the founders of those exchanges are in China, and not allowed to get out because of the border control. However, he claims, both companies’ servers are located outside of China. Truthseeker states that, if anything would happen considering the crypto exchange status in China, Huobi and OKex would be the first ones to go. Binance, on the other hand, is built to be immune to such events.
He noted that China is pro-blockchain, but doesn’t let any cryptocurrency trading. Both Huobi and Okex has already paused all new listings, and are likely to start with mass delistings. Binance will not have this pressure, claims Truthseeker adding that Binance Launchpad blocked Chinese citizens from participating in most of the projects. He also analyzes that China is against renminbi OTC, to prevent capital flight.
He speaks about the psychological effect those companies have on their users.
He wrote:
“China is very sensitive to mass protests, angry mobs, etc. Okex and Huobi had many user-organized protests demanding refund due to losing large amounts of money. Okex even had users threaten to jump off its office building. Binance had none of these issues.”
Finally, he concludes that Binance will most certainly come out as a winner of this round of China crackdowns and Huobi and Okex will be the biggest losers this time.