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Binance Tried to Hire SEC Chair Gary Gensler to Be an Adviser: WSJ

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According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Binance, which is among the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges globally, created a strategy to prevent the risk of prosecution by U.S. regulators by launching a U.S. subsidiary in 2019. As part of the plan, Binance tried to hire Gary Gensler as an advisor.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed messages and documents from 2018 to 2020 and interviewed former Binance employees, then found Binance tried to hire Gary Gensler in 2018 for closer ties with U.S. regulators before he became Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

WSJ has seen messages from Binance's executives that suggest Ella Zhang, who was then in charge of Binance's venture investing division, and Harry Zhou, the co-founder of Koi Trading, a firm invested in by Binance, met with Gensler in October 2018. Following Gensler's rejection of the advisory role, Zhou stated in the chat that "I observe that while Gensler declined advisor-ship, he was generous in sharing license strategies." A Binance employee indicated that Gensler would probably return to a regulatory position if the Democrats won the 2020 election.

From 2018 to 2021, Gary Gensler was approached by several private companies, including Binance, to act as an advisor, which he turned down. The person also said that Mr. Gensler met with Binance's founder in Tokyo in March 2019 and conducted a video interview during the following summer for a cryptocurrency course at MIT. Mr. Gensler assumed the role of SEC chair in April 2021.

In previous reports, the SEC has been investigating the connection between Binance.US and two trading firms, namely Merit Peak Ltd. and Sigma Chain AG, which have links to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

Two days ago, an SEC official said he hold the view that Binance.US is conducting an unregistered securities exchange in the United States, and that the sale of VGX tokens by Voyager Digital contravened federal securities laws.

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