🤫 Mastermind Uncovered: Binance’s Secret Executive?

^{“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”}

— Stephen Hawking

👋 Friends, Rallie here. The newsletter spilling the tea on the latest in crypto, finance, and tech.

On the menu:

• 🤫 Mastermind Uncovered: Binance’s Secret Executive?

• 🗞️ Headlines That Hit

• 📈 Refresh: API

• 🤓 Trivia Tuesday

• 💯 Top Tweets

The Rallie Recap

🤐 Guangying Chen, the “gateway of the Binance treasury” has been exposed in SEC’s recent lawsuit. However, the company claims that her level of involvement is not conspiracy-worthy. Here’s the skinny:

• Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has been “unmasked” once again, but this time, it is not just from the SEC. 

• The Forbes investigative report with SEC’s evidence, testimonies and official filings found more. Throughout their research, they found that Chen, with no official title or visible public presence, has her name on dozens of Binance bank accounts and onboarding documents.

• Leaked “Tai Chi” documents. Forbes reported that the exchange was in hot water for a bait and switch plan to evade bitcoin regulators in 2020. Heina was not named; however, there were suspicions about “a senior executive” creating a certain Binance Holding document. Is this the answer to who the senior executive is?

• Binance’s fight with Forbes. In response to the “Tai Chi” article, the exchange sued the media company for defamation, but dismissed the lawsuit without citing its reasons.

• Still, the search for the secret executive and what is Binance is really “up to” continued. Here’s a key conversation in this story:

• The official reply. Soon after, Binance posted a blog in response, it explained that these “conspiracy theories” are unwarranted with explanations behind if the exchange was controlled by the Chinese government and Chen’s involvement. Binance’s CEO, CZ, cited restrictive laws in China for the frequency of Chen’s name in the early documents and also provided additional background on why he is not a Chinese spy.

• Does the SEC filings and other evidence in the Binance lawsuit support its claims of innocence and Chen’s “involvement”?

• Binance’s back office manager. The SEC case says they found that Guangying Chen “had signatory authority over the Trust Company B account holding the fiat deposits of the platform’s customers,” Uh oh. No bueno.

• SEC claims she is a director of eight Binance companies, signatory for dozens of bank accounts belonging to 27 entities registered in 13 countries, oversees the company treasury, and has processed $148 billion in deposits and withdrawals.

• Time will tell if this conspiracy theory is proved true, or if Binance will be able to refute these claims? Stay tuned!

Headlines That Hit

• 🧠 AI job enhancement? Adopters of AI in the workplace are more likely to receive salary increases that have outpaced inflation.

• 🇨🇳 A bad high. Strikes at Chinese factories have reached a seven-year high, and more are expected due to weak global demand, leading to pay cuts and plant shutdowns.

• 👾 Public enemy #1! A digital extortion gang, utilizing LockBit, the most deployed ransomware variant, has been identified as the world’s top software threat by Canada, US, and five other countries.

• 🔖 A controversial price. A new Volkswagen electric battery plant, costing over $16B in Canadian tax dollars, brings mixed hopes for its future payouts.

• 💥 Canada v. Russia. Canada seizes a massive Russian cargo plane, prompting Moscow to threaten to sever relations in retaliation. 

Rallie Refresh: What’s an API?

🔄 You may have heard the term ‘API’ thrown around when it comes to software development, but what does it mean? In light of the recent Reddit protests, we thought we’d give you a little explainer on what an API is and why people care.

📋 What is an API?

• An application programming interface (API) is a set of defined rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate and interact with each other.

• API’s establish rules and protocols in order for the applications and software to understand how to interact with each other. For example, if you make an online purchase and you pay through Paypal on an e-commerce site, if the e-commerce site does not utilize the Paypal API correctly, then your order might be invalidated.

• There are four types of web APIs: open, partner, internal and composite. But don’t worry, unless you are interested in being a software developer or tech founder, you probably don’t need to study these systems.

😡 Are API changes protest worthy? Here are some of its benefits.

• Global use: The average corporation uses almost 1.2K cloud applications and many are disconnected from each other and the actual site; therefore, without the use of APIs, productivity and performance would be messy.

• Accelerated innovation: APIs allow business connections, the ability to offer new services to existing consumer bases, access to new markets, and they help you communicate with the online world in general.

• Security: In order to prevent your data from being compromised, many websites use API for authentication credentials and other identifiers to understand and minimize security threats.

• Data monetization: Many APIs are free for developers - especially third-party ones. They’re used to build out an increased audience around their brand and add features onto the current interface. However, with the API economy, selling access to developers often puts third-party applications out of business because the price point is too high.

☝ APIs are critical for the digital ecosystem. That’s why how they’re managed and what they cost is a big point of conversation. Have questions still? Reach out to us!

Fun Fact

₿ The answer for Tuesday’s newsletter (what is the highest one bitcoin has ever been worth?) is $60K-70K USD! Tune in next time for today’s fun fact answer.

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DISCLAIMER: This is not financial or legal advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions.