Binance Can’t Keep Its Story Straight on Misplaced $1.8B USDC

In the course of its investigation, Forbes interviewed Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief strategy officer. Hillmann’s explanation, included in the original story, seemed to be simply that the on-chain wallets understood to contain backing for Binance’s stablecoins are effectively meaningless. “There was no commingling” of customer funds, Hillman told Forbes, because “there’s wallets and then there is a ledger.” According to Hillman, this off-chain, internal ledger is what really tracks assets owned, or custodied, by Binance, with on-chain wallets acting as, in his words, mere “containers.”