Binance Cooperation With Mazars Accounting Firm For Their Bitcoin Reserve Audit

CEO Changpeng CZ Zhao, with the President of Georgia. (photo: twitter @cz_binance)

Binance's cryptocurrency exchange works with accounting firm Mazars as part of a proof-of-reserve (PoR) audit triggered by the fall of FTX. This news first emerged from the Wall Street Journal on November 30,

Mazars, accounting firm working for former US President Donald Trump, was appointed as the official auditor to carry out "third-party financial verification" as part of the Binance PoR update,

This accounting firm has reportedly reviewed all publicly shared information by Binance on Bitcoin PoR and will also verify future updates and tokens. The first verification update for BTC will be completed this week, a Binance spokesperson said.

Mazars is an international accounting firm headquartered in Paris. His division in the United States, Mazars USA, is the old accounting firm for Trump and has been involved in controversy with the DPR's Supervisory and Reform Committee's request for several Trump financial records since 2019.

The company reportedly finally cut ties with Trump and his family in 2022.

The news comes amid Binance's efforts to move large amounts of cryptocurrencies as part of its PoR audit. On November 28, Binance sent 127,351 BTC, or about $2 billion, to an unknown wallet, when Changpeng CEO CZ Zhao later announced that the transaction was part of the ongoing PoR process.

The move has sparked some concern in society. But CZ argues that it is bad news when the exchange has to move large amounts of crypto to prove their wallet address.

As previously reported, Binance launched a process and mechanism of PoR in response to the crash and bankruptcy of the FTX crypto exchange. On November 25, the company also published evidence of a Merkle Tree-backed fund for Bitcoin, which is one of Binance's many actions to prove transparency.

Binance is not alone in making great efforts to maintain its customers' trust after the collapse of FTX, when many other exchanges such as OKX and KuCoin rushed to release their PoR reports as well.

Meanwhile, some industry watchers believe that existing PoR processes through exchange are largely useless unless they also provide a very difficult obligation to falsify.

Binance itself did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Cointelegraph.