Binance CEO Says Exchange Isn't A 'Chinese Company,' Reveals Who Guangying Chen Is

Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange by trading volume, has clarified that it is not correct to call the exchange a "Chinese company" and revealed who Guangying Chen is.

In a blog entry published Thursday, Zhao, popularly known as CZ in the crypto space, addressed conspiracies suggesting that a Chinese employee owns the crypto exchange and linking it to Chinese roots.

The CEO revealed in the post that his family left for Canada in 1989, but he returned to China in 2005 and formed an exchange-as-a-service business called Bijie Tech in 2015. However, the government shut down all such exchanges in 2017, and just months after Zhao founded Binance in 2017, the government banned crypto exchanges in China. Binance then switched to remote work and was registered in the Cayman Islands.

Interestingly, recent reports, including one from Fortune India, strongly insinuate that Binance has ties to China, even adding that the exchange might need to be banned in India like the popular application "TikTok" due to its Chinese roots.

Meanwhile, another report claims that Guanying Chen, a Chinese national who was one of the employees who worked for Bijie Tech, owns 93% of the said company, hence the same person could also be the owner of Binance.

Addressing the rumor, Zhao said Chen was listed as Bijie Tech's legal representative at the time because of China's harsh laws against foreigners like him, who has Canadian citizenship.

"Given that Guangying [Chen] was both a Chinese national and was managing the back office for us, she agreed. This is a very common practice in China," Zhao explained.

"Because her name is listed on the early Bijie Tech documents, Binance's detractors have leaped at the opportunity to spread a conspiracy theory that Guangying was secretly the owner of Bijie Tech and possibly even Binance," he added.

The CEO then pointed out that Chen "is not some secret Chinese government agent" and Binance is not a Chinese company.

"Both she [Chen] and her family have been targeted and harassed by the media and online trolls. Had I known how much of a negative impact this would have on her life, I never would have asked her to do what seemed like such an innocuous step at the time," Zhao said.