The Russian buyer of Binance has tightened control over its owners, denying the involvement of CZ
As for CommEx — the mysterious buyer of Binance's Russian division — the newly launched firm continues to deny Binance's ownership involvement.
On September 29, CommEx issued an open letter to the community, reiterating that the company does not own Binance and announcing that it has sold the company to CommEx and exited Russia.
“Although we do not disclose our UBO, we want to make it clear that we do not own Binance,” CommEx wrote on its website. A spokesperson for CommEx declined to comment on Cointelegraph, saying it does not share any information about its owners.
“We are a dynamic and agile startup team, made up of dozens of passionate individuals from diverse backgrounds,” CommEx said in the announcement, some of whose core members are former Binance veterans.
CommEx announced that the company has been developing the platform for six months, during which time it has brought on board some former Binance employees. “This allowed us to learn from Binance's product and operational experiences, establishing indirect relationships with them,” CommEx added.
The announcement confirms that although Binance has no ownership in the exchange, former members of the Binance division in the Commonwealth of Nations (CIS) are part of CommEx.
Former employees of Binance CIS will join or have already joined the new organization, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said on X (formerly Twitter) on September 28. “We think this is a good thing,” he said.
Some answers about Binance/CommEx
There will be crypto transfers between Binance and CommEx when users migrate their funds. There are also old transactions during the testing phase of the integrations. This is to be expected.
A few ex-Bins CIS team members may join their team,…
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) September 28, 2023
In addition to hiring some former Binance employees, CommEx has taken over features such as the design, application programming interface, or API, and terms of use from Binance. “We requested this to ensure a smooth user experience,” CZ wrote.
The CEO of Binance also emphasized that CommEx does not provide services to users located in the United States and Europe. CZ has announced that European and US residents will face intellectual property and know-your-client restrictions when trying to access CommEx. “This is the word we asked for in the agreement,” CZ said.
According to information from CommEx representatives on the company's official Telegram group, CommEx users can trade up to 2 Bitcoin (BTC) or about $54,000 without completing KYC checks.
Related: Binance successor in Russia: Everything you need to know about CommEx so far
CommEx's refusal to disclose information about its owners, combined with former Binance employees and similar web design and APIs, has fueled talk that Binance is hiding the company's ownership.
Adam Kochan, a venture capital partner at CinemaHine Ventures, believes that CommEx is “just another shell company on Binance.”
On the other hand, some crypto observers believe that such a move will undermine Binance's decision to leave Russia. “Of course, US authorities could quickly determine that the new owners are simply straw men for Binance. This makes the situation even worse than if Binance had only handled the business, David Lesperance, founder of Lesperance and Associates, told Cointelegraph.
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