Kevin O’Leary Blames CZ Binance for FTX Collapse, Ripple CTO and John Deaton Reacts

Kevin O’Leary, the Chairman of O’Shares and Beanstox, and CNBC Contributor launched an attack on the leading cryptocurrency exchange and largest blockchain ecosystem platform, Binance.

Reacting to the fall of SBF’s crypto empire in early November, the popular investor Mr. Wonderful blamed Changpeng Zhao, the founder, and CEO of Binance for the abrupt implosion of the FTX exchange. According to him, Binance orchestrated the meltdown of FTX Trading Limited given that both top centralized exchanges were at war with each other.

Following the Tuesday arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX by the Bahamas authorities, and his subsequent extradition to the United States, many relevant industry players have been interviewed by the senate banking committee.

In a recent hearing where Senator Pat Toomey, the United States Senator for Pennsylvania asked Kevin O’Leary why FTX failed. In response, O’Leary channeled all the blame on CZ Binance, claiming that the Binance exchange is unregulated.

“I have an opinion, I don’t have the records. Here it is: these two behemoths that own the unregulated market together and grew these incredible businesses in terms of growth were at war with each other and one put the other out of business intentionally,” O’Leary said.

“Binance is a massive unregulated global monopoly now. They put FTX out of business,” he remarked.

Ripple CTO and Attorney John Deaton Reacts

It is worth noting that Kevin made these comments despite an earlier assertion by Senator Toomey that the problem with FTX was not with the instruments that were used but rather the misuse of customer funds. Hence, the unnecessary attack on Binance has prompted several members of the broader crypto community including Ripple CTO and John Deaton to blast O’Leary.

“Does this man have no shame? Against the entire weight of an absurdly massive amount of evidence, he blames the FTX collapse on Binance,” David Schwartz, the CTO at Ripple and the co-creator of the XRP Ledger wrote. “Let me just say that If Binance had anything to do with FTX collapsing, they were doing a public service because the sooner this growing cancer — a fraud from day one – gets stopped the better for all of us,” he added.

On the other hand, John Deaton and several others questioned Kevin O’Leary’s involvement in FTX’s bad dealings, considering that he found no faults in Sam Bankman-Fried’s action.

“I just saw Kevin O’Leary’s utter disgrace of an answer on why FTX failed. He literally blames the entire collapse on CZ Binance and doesn’t once say SBF is to blame, even though he just got indicted on 8 counts and is the biggest fraud since Madoff,” Deaton tweeted.

Ndianabasi Tom

Ndianabasi Tom joined the crypto and blockchain industry in late 2018. He is an all-rounded crypto journalist and content writer. At TimesTabloid, he covers the industry's latest news, developments, and other educational content. He is a graduate of Petroleum Engineering.