SBF’s alleged Chinese bribe, Binance clarifies account freeze: Asia Express
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
SBF’s Chinese bribe scandal worsens
According to October 11 testimony from Caroline Ellison, co-founder of FTX-linked hedge fund Alameda Research, her colleague — disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — allegedly paid $150 million in bribes to Chinese government officials in 2021, higher than the $40 million disclosed initially.
Ellison said during the FTX trial that two years prior, $1 billion worth of Alameda Research’s digital assets on crypto exchanges OKX and Huobi were frozen by Chinese law enforcement as part of a money-laundering investigation. Senior FTX executives, such as chief operations officer Constance Wang and Alameda trader David Wa, were also involved in the incident. The individuals first tried to contact a Chinese lawyer to unfreeze the funds, which didn’t work.
Then, FTX and Alameda staff allegedly created accounts on OKX and Huobi using the identification of a Thai prostitute to negotiate the return of funds. When that didn’t work out, Ellison accused Bankman-Fried of paying a $150 million bribe to unfreeze the accounts. The bribe was recorded as “the thing” in future Alameda balance sheets. According to Ellison’s testimony, the funds were immediately unfrozen following the bribe.
Presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York reminded the jurors that Bankman-Fried’s alleged bribery of Chinese officials is not within the scope of the ongoing FTX trial. Instead, a second trial relating to SBF’s bribery charges has been scheduled for March 11, 2024. The FTX trial will remain ongoing for the month of October.
Binance clarifies account freeze
Yi He, a co-founder of Binance, clarified on the Chinese social media app WeChat earlier this week that only accounts of users suspected of violating international sanctions will be frozen on the exchange.
The statement came after a wave of inquiries in response to local news reports that the exchange froze accounts of suspected Hamas militants per Israeli law enforcement’s request. Yi He explained:
“Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the United Nations. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.”
The Binance executive commented: “I have no political biases, yet no trading platform can refuse such law enforcement requests. Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local militant group. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Hamas is not Palestine; the freeze is targeted towards Hamas, not Palestine.”
In a follow-up post on October 11, Yi He further clarified that “Binance would not confiscate nor freeze assets of ordinary users. Rules are created by the strong; in the face of international regulations, Binance is a nobody.” She also pointed to the fact that, despite the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the exchange has not frozen the accounts of ordinary Russians.
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Crypto lending invalidated by second Chinese court
Crypto lending contracts in China are not protected by law because the underlying asset is illegal, a second Chinese court has ruled.
As narrated by the Nanchang People’s Court on October 10, plaintiff Mr. Ming lent 80,000 USDT to defendant Mr. Gang in April 2021 for the purpose of stablecoin trading. The loan was to be repaid within six months. Mr. Gang subsequently defaulted on the loan, leading to a civil lawsuit by Mr. Ming. Both the lawsuit and its appeal were dismissed.
In their decision, the presiding judge wrote:
“There are legal risks involved in participating in virtual currency investment and trading activities. If any legal person, unincorporated organization, or natural person invests in virtual currencies and related derivatives that violates public order and good customs, the relevant civil legal actions will be invalid, and the resulting losses shall be borne by them.”
The judge further explained that according to various legislation forming China’s crypto ban, “virtual currencies only exist in digital form, are not legal tender, and do not have legal compensation, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, etc., and cannot be used as currency in the market. Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities that harm national financial order, financial security and social public interests, and are strictly prohibited.”
The ruling does not extend to the digital yuan central bank digital currency, which the presiding judge said “is a legal currency in digital form issued by the People’s Bank of China. It is operated by designated operating agencies and redeemed by the public. It is equivalent to banknotes and coins.”
Previously in August, a Chinese man lost $10 million worth of Bitcoin after the borrower defaulted on his Bitcoin lending agreement and a court ruled that the contract was invalid, citing similar reasons as the Nanchang People’s Court.
Huobi hacker returns all assets
According to a statement by Justin Sun, de-facto owner of cryptocurrency exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi, a hacker has returned all of the 5,000 Ether ($8 million) stolen during a security incident last month.
“We have confirmed that the hacker has fully returned all funds, as promised, and we have also paid the hacker a white hat bonus of 250 ETH. The hacker made the right choice. We would like to express our gratitude to everyone in the industry for their help,” Sun wrote. On September 25, Huobi’s hot wallet was hacked for 5,000 ETH in an incident first detected by blockchain analytics firm Cyvers Alerts.
Sun subsequently offered a bounty and threatened legal action if the funds were not returned. During the incident, the blockchain personality also claimed that the exchange held around $3 billion in users’ assets. Last month, Huobi rebranded as HTX, raising community eyebrows due to the similarity of the name to the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX.
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Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao said that being considered for a presidential pardon from Trump would be “great news if true.”
Tensions between the two countries appear to have cooled off on Sunday, as representatives from both sides signal a willingness to negotiate.
Sir Keir Starmer will on Monday join world leaders at a historic summit in Egypt to witness the signing of the Gaza peace plan to end two years of conflict, bloodshed and suffering, that has cost tens of thousands of lives and turned Gaza into a wasteland.
Travelling over to Egypt, flanked by his national security advisor Jonathan Powell, the prime minister told me it was a “massive moment” and one that is genuinely historic.
US President Donald Trump moved decisively last week to end this bloody war, pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas into a ceasefire as part of his 20-point peace plan.
Pic: AP
In the flurry of the following 48 hours, Mr Starmer and another twenty or so leaders were invited to Egypt to bear witness to the signing of this deal, with many of them deserving some credit for the effort they made to bring this deal around, not least the leaders of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who pressed Hamas to sign up to this deal.
On Monday, the remaining 20 living hostages are finally set to be released, along with the bodies of another 28 who were either killed or died in captivity, and aid is due to flow back into a starving Gaza.
Some 1,200 Israelis were killed on 7 October 2023, with another 250 taken hostage. In the subsequent war, most of Gaza’s two million population has been displaced. More than 67,000 Gazans have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials
Then, the signing ceremony is due to take place on Monday afternoon in Sharm el-Sheikh. It will be a momentous moment after a long and bloody war.
But it is only just the beginning of a long process to rebuild Gaza and try to secure a lasting peace in the region.
The immediate focus for the UK and other nations will be to get aid into Gaza with the UK committing £20m on Monday for water, sanitation and hygiene services for Gazans.
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Humanitarian aid rolls into Gaza
But the bigger focus for the UK and other European allies is what happens after the hostages are released and Israel withdraws its troops.
Because what happens next is a much bigger and more complicated task: rebuilding Gaza; turning it into a terrorist-free zone; governing Gaza – the current plan is for a temporary apolitical committee; creating an international stabilisation force and all the tensions that could bring about – which troops each side would allow in; a commitment for Israel not to occupy or annex Gaza, even as Netanyahu makes plain his opposition to that plan.
The scale of the challenge is matched by the scale of devastation caused by this brutal war.
The prime minister will tomorrow set out his ambition for the UK to play a leading role in the next phase of the peace plan.
Back home the UK is hosting a three-day conference on Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction.
Last week, France hosted European diplomats and key figures from Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and later this week, the German chancellor is hoping to organise a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza with the Egyptians.
But in reality, European leaders know the key to phase two remains the key to phase one: and that’s Donald Trump.
As one UK figure put it to me over the weekend: “There is lots of praise, rightly, for the US president, who got this over the line, but the big challenge for us post-war is implementing the plan. Clearly, Arab partners are concerned the US will lose focus”.
The prime minister knows this and has made a point, at every point, to praise Mr Trump.
Bridget Phillipson and Mike Huckabee. Pics: Sky/AP
His cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson learned that diplomatic lesson the hard way on Sunday when she was publicly lambasted by the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for suggesting to my colleague Trevor Phillips that the UK “had played a key role behind the scenes” and failed to mention Mr Trump by name.
“I assure you she is delusional,” tweeted Governor Huckabee. “She can thank @realDonaldTrump anytime just to set the record straight”.
On Monday, leaders will rightly be praising Mr Trump for securing the breakthrough to stop the fighting and get the remaining hostages home.
People hug next in Hostages Square. Pic: Reuters
But this is only the beginning of a very long journey ahead to push through the rest of the 19-point plan and stop the region from falling back into conflict.
Britain has, I am told, been playing a role behind the scenes. The PM’s national security adviser Mr Powell was in Egypt last week and has been in daily touch with his US counterpart Steve Witkoff, according to government sources. Next week the King of Jordan will come to the UK.
Part of the UK’s task will be to get more involved, with the government and European partners keen to get further European representation on Trump’s temporary governance committee for Gaza, which Tony Blair (who was not recommended or endorsed by the UK) is on and Mr Trump will chair.
The committee will include other heads of states and members, including qualified Palestinians and international experts.
As for the former prime minister’s involvement, there hasn’t been an overt ringing endorsement from the UK government.
It’s helpful to have Mr Blair at the table because he can communicate back to the current government, but equally, as one diplomatic source put it to me: “While a lot of people in the Middle East acknowledge his experience, expertise and contact book, they don’t like him and we need – sooner rather than later – other names included that Gulf partners can get behind.”
On Monday it will be the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that sign off on the peace plan they directly negotiated, as other Middle Eastern and European leaders, who have flown into Sharm el-Sheikh to bear witness, look on.
But in the coming days and weeks, there will need to be a big international effort, led by Mr Trump, not just to secure the peace, but to keep it.
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