Binance CEO Teng Rejects Allegations the Exchange Froze All Palestinians’ Funds

Binance CEO Richard Teng dismissed claims the crypto exchange froze all assets belonging to all Palestinians at the request of the Israeli armed forces, an allegation publicized on social media platform X by Ray Youssef, the founder and CEO of peer-to-peer bitcoin trading platform NoOnes.

“FUD,” Teng wrote in a post on X, using the acronym for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. “Only a limited number of user accounts, linked to illicit funds, were blocked from transacting. There have been some incorrect statements about this. As a global crypto exchange, we comply with internationally accepted anti-money laundering legislation, just like any other financial institution.”

In his post, Youssef included a letter in Hebrew from Paul Landes, head of Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing, together with a translation. The letter rejects an appeal against a seizure order dating from Nov. 1, 2023, and says funds were transferred from the Dubai Exchange Company in the Gaza Strip to cryptographic wallets “yours among them.” The letter doesn’t identify the recipient. The Dubai Exchange Company was designated a terror organization in 2022, it says.

While terror groups are said to use cryptocurrency to fund their operations, figures are hard to discern given the difficulty of identifying the owner or any specific wallet. In July, Singapore’s government noted an increasing use of cryptocurrencies in terror financing while saying cash and other informal value transfer systems remain the predominant means for financial transactions.

Israel has seized 190 Binance accounts it said were tied to terrorists since 2021, Reuters reported in May last year. That was before the Oct. 7 invasion that murdered 1,200 Israelis and took another 250 hostage, prompting Israel to enter the territory. More accounts on the exchange, linked to Hamas, were frozen on Oct. 10 at the request of Israeli police. Later that month, the U.S. issued a list of sanctions that included a business providing money transfers and digital assets exchange services in Gaza to squeeze Hamas, listed as a terror organization in the U.S., U.K. and other regions.