On December 7, 2022, South African auditor Mazars gave the confirmation that cryptocurrency exchange Binance gained control over 575,742.42 Bitcoin of its customers, worth $9.7 billion during the publication’s writing, as reported by Cointelegraph.
According to Cointelegraph, Mazars mentioned that “Binance was 101% collateralised.” It is believed that the range of inquiry included customers’ spot, options, margin, futures, funding, loan and earn accounts for Bitcoin and wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC). Reportedly, BTC wrapped on Ethereum, BNB Chain and BNB Smart Chain were also included in the inquiry.
“We make no representation regarding the appropriateness of the AUP. This AUP engagement is not an assurance engagement. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion or an assurance conclusion. Had we performed additional procedures, other matters might have come to our attention that would have been reported,” Mazars stated.
On the basis of information by Cointelegraph, Mazars independently secured the nominal value of Binance customers’ assets through testing of a variety of wallet addresses authorised by the exchange. Reports have shown that Binance was asked by auditors to transfer assets to designated addresses and back in order to ensure proof-of-ownership. Further, the firm utilised its software to aggregate client data it obtained and computed the Merkle Root Hash. It permitted Binance’s clients to provide independent verification of Merkle Leaf and cryptographically as being part of the Merkle Root.
(With insights from Cointelegraph)
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