Leading crypto exchange Binance has added 11 tokens to its proof-of-reserves (PoR) report, claiming it now holds $63 billion (?53bn).
The company began publishing its reserves in late 2022 following the collapse of rival exchange FTX in a bid to increase transparency.
According to the update, BINANCE now holds 24 assets in its proof-of-reserves system. The 11 added tokens included Dogecoin, 1INCH Network, Mask Network, Enjin Coin, WazirX, The Graph, Chromia, Curve DAO Token, PowerPool, Hashflow, and SSV.network. These results have not yet been audited by any accounting firms.
Our Proof-of-Reserves just got an update.
We have now increased the number of tokens we cover by 11, to a total of 24.
Find out more about our Proof-of-Reserves and this recent update with the blog below.https://t.co/4kKWhkNK3q
— Binance (@binance) March 7, 2023
Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin and Ether are the two largest assets on Binance’s reserves report, with a respective $12 billion (?10.14bn) and $6.85 billion (?5.8bn) in net customer balances.
Binance claims these assets are backed up with a reserve ratio of 101.53% for Bitcoin and 101.61% for Ether.
Despite the supposed transparency, financial experts have pointed out the limitations of public reserves.
Users remain unclear as to Binance’s use of collateralisation and leverage, while the absence of a proof-of-liabilities report makes any stated reserves largely futile.
Binance says that its reserves system “uses Merkle trees to add up on-chain data, so that users can rest easy knowing that their assets are held for them 1:1 in our custody.”
The exchange also updated its proof-of-reserves in February, implementing ZK-SNARKs, zero-knowledge protocols designed to “increase the privacy and security of user data during the verification process.”
In December last year, the former accounting firm of Donald Trump, Mazars, ceased working with Binance and removed its audit of the exchange’s proof-of-reserves from its website.
Mazars had said prior to its withdrawal from the crypto space that Binance’s Bitcoin assets were “fully collateralised” at the time.
The accounting firm conceded that its methodology was based on “agreed-upon procedures” and did not comprise a financial audit. The inspection was also limited solely to Bitcoin.
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Tags: audit, Binance, Bitcoin, transparency
