Last week, the French auditor Mazars causes new doubts about the liquitity of ifs crypto clients such as Binance or Crypto.com. It surprising deleted Binance‘s PoR audit report from its website and announced the pausing of all activities for all its crypto clients. Mazars also prepared the POR report for Crypto.com, one of the main sponsors of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and worked with KuCoin. However, the author may have gotten cold feet in light of the massive public criticism of the reports.
Mazars cited the public perception of the POR reports as the reason, with the auditor always explaining that it was not a real audit. The scope of the audits and the limitations in the report also called its value into question. Other auditors, such as Armanino, who had worked for the now-defunct FTX, have also stopped working with crypto exchanges such as OKX and Gate.io.
In fact, after the many collapses and bankruptcies of crypto companies in recent months – Terra-Luna, Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital, and FTX – distrust in the scene is huge and credibility is down.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, responded a short time later to the discussion that flared up on social media in light of the apparent termination of the cooperation between Mazars and his exchange. In doing so, he retweeted a user who had written, “You want a statement on why the auditor doesn’t want to work with the crypto industry anymore? Just ask him directly.”
Auditors turning away from the crypto industry could be the end of it. Without audits, it will be difficult with financial partners and regulators.