Binance employees can now trade up to $5,000 in crypto, report
Binance has reportedly eased some of its restrictions on short-term trading by employees. Historically, Binance has forbidden employees from selling crypto assets within 90 days of their acquisition, regardless of their value. With this change, most employees, excluding those on the listing team, will now be able to actively trade up to $5,000 worth of crypto with no minimum holding period.
Founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), who owns 90% of Binance’s equity according to Bloomberg, stands to lose the most if anyone were to publicize evidence of insider trading by Binance employees. In an attempt to protect the Binance brand, prohibit conflicts of interest, and otherwise prevent unethical behaviors, he used to insist that employees hold digital assets for at least three months before initiating selling transactions.
For whatever reason, he is now accommodating a $5,000 threshold for shorter-term trades.
For context, Binance employs at least 5,000 employees and up to 9,700 or even 10,584 by some estimates. If that highest number of employees were to each trade their maximum $5,000 today, their trades would total $52.9 million. In comparison, Binance itself claims to have facilitated over $17 billion worth of spot trades today for its customers.
Binance still says insider trading is not allowed
As of publication time, Binance has not edited a February 2024 blog post stating that it bans its employees from insider trading yet. Indeed, that blog post states that it puts guardrails around privileged information that could be used for insider trading, and would blacklist and fire employees engaging in insider trading.
Read more: Binance founder CZ made $12B overnight when Donald Trump won
Furthermore, Binance maintains an internal auditing team that patrols for insider trading.
In a display of sincerity, Binance offered rewards of up to $5 million for tips that lead to proof of insider trading. It established this program after an investigation into alleged insider trading ahead of its listing of the Solana-based meme coin, Book of Meme (BOME).
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