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> In one instance, the Binance chief compliance officer messaged a colleague that, “[w]e are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.

• jeroenhd 3y ago
  I get why you would say something like that in astonishment. By why would you ever send that out over a medium that'll leave a paper trail? Thank goodness that criminals aren't very smart. Their idiocy is doing society a huge favor.
  • mytailorisrich 3y ago
    It's a global phenomenon. People can't abstain from posting online and from sharing on messaging platforms these days. It's even been noticed by contemporary philosophers: https://youtube.com/shorts/Blw2dNZwZzg?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/Blw2dNZwZzg?feature=share
    • hef19898 3y ago
      Just imagine the paper trail this new breed of criminals will leave!
  • tedivm 3y ago
    Oh that's easy- this was the compliance officer, and by showing that he raised concerns over this he may be able to claim that he did his job as best he could under the circumstances. I'd need to see the rest of the context, but this could very well be a "cover your ass" message. Imagine if you're a security officer at a company and were just overridden on a decisions- you'd definitely want to shoot off an email describing the issue so that later on you aren't held responsible for it (of course depending on the severity quitting may also be desirable, but not everyone is in a position to immediately drop a job).
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • nafey 3y ago
      I am wondering if raising objections internally will be sufficient in this case. As a leading executive at Binance shouldn't he be expected to report any malicious activity to the authorities?
      • dsr_ 3y ago
        Yes, and the SEC mandates that.
    • notahacker 3y ago
      If you're covering your ass, you write something with cautious "could be interpreted as..." wording that distances yourself from it, not "we're doing a fking crime bro!"
  • saiya-jin 3y ago
    we don't hear from the smart ones, do we
    • koolba 3y ago
      There’s clearly some extreme selection bias when it comes to leaving a paper trail admitting to crimes.
  • baby 3y ago
    Because that's his job? He's the compliance officer
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • unity1001 3y ago
    > Thank goodness that criminals aren't very smart No, the criminals are extremely smart. Its just that these were amateurs who didnt know that in Anglosaxon common law, you have to avoid being honest about anything and even deny any wrongdoing even if you get caught the act of murdering someone. Then you can exercise plausible deniability, claim incompetence or mental incapacity and you can negotiate your sentence. Any kind of honesty works against you in the US law as a result. That's how you end up with people who are total experts in their field testifying in courts that they "didnt know" that something they did would cause so much harm to something or somebody or the society. As of this very moment, thousands of much, much bigger corporations are actually destroying the entire US society in a real way and not like these amateurs who were just shuffling some funny money. But the real psychos know how common law works. There wont be any trail of their wrongdoing, and when there is, there will always be plausible deniability in that trail...
    • w7 3y ago
      > these were amateurs who didnt know that in Anglosaxon common law, you have to avoid being honest about anything and even deny any wrongdoing even if you get caught the act of murdering someone Ignoring the "Anglosaxon" buzzword here, none of this is unique conceptually to US law, or foreign conceptually to anyone who's told a lie when younger. It's instinctual for many when they know they've done something wrong. Trying to paint human nature as a unique problem that US law faces, or promotes, is itself dishonest. > claim incompetence or mental incapacity Neither of these get you "off the hook"; that's a misconception. > That's how you end up with people who are total experts in their field testifying in courts that they "didnt know" that something they did would cause so much harm to something or somebody or the society. It can be either dishonesty, or lack of omniscience by the expert in question. Unless you're a mind reader, you have no idea. This is why testimony is evaluated along with other aspects of a case, and not alone. > There wont be any trail of their wrongdoing, and when there is, there will always be plausible deniability in that trail... Plausible deniability does not shield you from all liability.
      • unity1001 3y ago
        > Ignoring the "Anglosaxon" buzzword The 'Anglosaxon' term is a long-standing political science, history and diplomacy term. Its not something that can be ignored, especially because... > none of this is unique conceptually to US law ... it is. The common law derives from the medieval !Anglosaxon! feudal law, which is based on contracts, agreements, negotiations and precedents. It can be 'interpreted' by the judge, who takes on the role of the feudal lord of the earlier times, and he or she can 'interpret' the law or precedents. The persecution or the defendant can negotiate any outcome. This trait of the common law system causes all the parties to open the 'bargain' from the maximum bets that they can imagine, assuming that it will be 'negotiated down' eventually. Which obligates the need for lying and denying that was mentioned earlier - if you deny any kind of wrongdoing even when caught red handed, you have a better chance of negotiating something better than if you were honest. The only sizable countries that use this law system are the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and NZ if you count as sizable. Along with a number of smaller island states. The ENTIRE rest of the world uses the civil law system that descended from the Napoleonic law, which descended in turn from the French Revolutionary principles. It does not rely on agreements, contracts, negotiations or precedents. It cannot be 'interpreted' The law is made by the democratic parliamentary authority and it clearly outlines crimes and punishments and there can be no negotiation made. Even the reductions in sentencing or the modifications that can be done to the final decision on anything are clearly outlined. Including the benefits that confessing a crime brings. Whereas lying is penalized further. There is no 'negotiation' that can be done in any way. That is why civil law encourages confessions and telling the truth in contrast to the common law which allows you to negotiate. Which is also the reason why the lawyers get upper middle class salaries and income in entire rest of the world but make obscene, irrational income in the US - when the legal system allows outrageous decisions, reparations, sentences that can only be negotiated through professional lying, posturing, playing down or up, personal relations in between the lawyers, prosecutors and judges, it encourages the mess that one can see in the US to happen. In Europe, judges and lawyers and prosecutors function more like clerks - the law is clear and solid. The rewards and punishments are the same. Has someone done what he or she shouldnt have done? Yes. What is the penalty for this? This particular thing. That is applied. There is no 'negotiation' anywhere in the process. This difference not only makes the Anglosaxon legal system quite different from entire rest of the world, but it also causes the social, economic and political life in the Angloamerican world and the rest of the world to be very different. A corporation can get away with destroying the environment or killing hundreds of thousands people with their product or the new drug. Even if they know beforehand what will happen and start to repress information and bribe experts to lie on their behalf to sell their product. Because, when they get caught, what will happen will be an eventual negotiation. In the rest of the world that does not happen - there is no way to negotiate down any sentence that may befall on your corporation, but most importantly, you, the perpetrator...
• ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  All I can say is, wen movie?
• civilitty 3y ago
  Is you takin' notes on a criminal fuckin' conspiracy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc&t=80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc&t=80 Robert Rules would be proud
  • EA-3167 3y ago
    You'd think at some point people would learn, but I suppose human nature and selection bias are at play.
• throwaw12 3y ago
  is "[w]e ...." literal text from a message? when this kind of wording is used usually in english? For me typing "we" is much easier. reason I am asking is, if text was written "e are operating as fk....." then it's very easy to claim: "oh I wanted to write "they are", when talking about FTX" and blame them for everything (IANAL)
  • nightpool 3y ago
    In legal context it almost always means "We" quoted as "we" or vice versa to match the capitalization required for the context it's quoted in. if it was "e are operating" then they probably would have notated it differently.
  • TylerE 3y ago
    It's an editorial correction. E.g. fixing a typo to what was obviously intended, while indicating it isn't an exact quote.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • ZephyrBlu 3y ago
    I don't know why he quoted it like that because in the actual filing it's literally quoted as "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.". Not capitalized or missing the "w". Page 29 if you're curious. Ctrl + F also works.
  • smeyer 3y ago
    I'm not sure why the tweet adds the brackets around the w, since I don't see it in the SEC complaint. Here's what's in the linked complaint. For clarity, the "emphasis added" part is from the SEC bolding the text inside the quote, not something I added. 111. As Binance’s CCO bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.” (Emphasis added.)
  • sowbug 3y ago
• webXL 3y ago
  I'd give some benefit of the doubt like perhaps it was taken out of context, but... "bro"!? roflmao at the brazenness
  • Analemma_ 3y ago
    I would love to know what context could surround the sentence "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA" that makes it not an admission that they are operating as an unlicensed securities exchange in the USA.
    • nubb 3y ago
      sarcasm and hyperbole soon to become illegal. thanks. good work.
      • lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Does the context that it was written by the chief compliance offer in a work email make any difference? Should people be held to account for what they express at any time, or is “sarcasm” a valid cover your ass for any situation?
        • mrguyorama 3y ago
          Can't wait for a CEO to announce that their child labor was "Just a prank bro"
    • HWR_14 3y ago
      There's a ton of context that could work. Anything where it's framed as either (a) untrue or (b) temporary and about to be mitigated. "What we are being falsely accused of is: 'we are operating...'" "We are operating... To fix this we must xyz" But I consider the second one to make the most sense. Saying "we have a problem" is a common first step of fixing it. Saying "we will be committing a felony if I don't win this argument" is usually a good card to play.
• johndhi 3y ago
  what's stupid is that quotes like this, not actual substance of what their business practices are, are the only way the SEC can establish what is and isn't a "security." there is no real truth or objective test and the SEC has offered no meaningful guidance. so they just determine this based on subjective emails the CEO sent once.
  • CPLX 3y ago
    There is like 100 years of detailed precedent and caselaw around what a security is. The crypto scam artist just don't like it.
    • mgamache 3y ago
      And yet there is no clear definition offered by the SEC. https://www.smitheilers.com/blog/coinbase-sues-securities-and-exchange-commission-following-issuance-of-wells-notice#:~:text=In%20its%20response%20to%20the,on%20digital%20assets%20on%20the https://www.smitheilers.com/blog/coinbase-sues-securities-an...
      • CPLX 3y ago
        https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/framework-investment-contract-analysis-digital-assets https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/framework-investment-contract-an...
        • mgamache 3y ago
          Coinbase and the Howey test https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are-not-securities-and-heres-why https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are...
          • rcme 3y ago
            Coinbase's argument hinges upon a blockchain not being a "common enterprise." The rest of their arguments are even weaker.
• setgree 3y ago
  My theory is that Binance execs were having these chats in an encrypted medium (e.g. WA or Signal) but didn't secure themselves against a defector. I think someone on the inside took screenshots and went to the feds (or started cooperating under legal pressure). There's even a leading candidate [0]. What's funny about this is it's a fine metaphor for what ails crypto as a whole. The technology is cryptographically secure, but not at all robust to much simpler betrayals, hacks, etc. If you trust overmuch in the tech and don't focus on less technically interesting but more fundamental threats, you're apt to get rekt. [0]https://decrypt.co/124999/ex-binance-us-ceo-catherine-coley-attorney-cftc-lawsuit/ https://decrypt.co/124999/ex-binance-us-ceo-catherine-coley-...
  • arcticbull 3y ago
    Ahh yes Coley! So we finally find out where she's been stashed for the last two years.
  • whiskeytuesday 3y ago
    insert XKCD five dollar wrench comic here
    • max_hammer 3y ago
      https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
  • PheonixPharts 3y ago
    > but didn't secure themselves against a defector Still a surprisingly amateur move. Once worked for the Federal Government where literally everything you write is potentially subject to a FOIA request. The message all new hires were told was, very clearly: "Never put anything into writing you wouldn't be happy to be see published on the front page of the Washington Post" Anything that was even vaguely close to failing this test was handled exclusively by a private phone call or, preferably, in person conversation. And this was for an org that was doing nothing sneaky or underhanded in the slightest. Still if something could be misunderstood in a negative way, don't put it in text. I'm still surprised when I see coworkers say things in slack, which is clearly able to be monitors by admins, that don't pass this test. Far more surprised when people knowingly engage in criminal activity and keep any kind of unnecessary record.
• pcbro141 3y ago
  https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1665779371108335618 https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1665779371108335618 SEC just tweeted the quote
• ryan69howard 3y ago
  Chief Compliance Brofficer?
• mhh__ 3y ago
  First piece of advice I ever got in Finance was to never say anything you wouldn't want your mother seeing on the frontpage of tomorrow's paper.
• optimalsolver 3y ago
  Admissible in court, bro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14WE3A0PwVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14WE3A0PwVs