The US govt pressure and oversight post-CZ is starting to show
quotingI have been chasing this story since October 2023.
note1ag3…dddq
I spoke to sources in Gaza whose Binance accounts had been frozen – The addresses they provided were not listed in Israel's official seizure orders.
I was then put in touch with Turkish and Saudi Arabian nationals whose Binance accounts were frozen, who were allegedly told to contact Israeli police.
The claim that Binance is freezing all Palestinian accounts, to my knowledge, is not correct. And this is what kept the story from being published.
Palestinians in the Westbank appear to be unaffected, while Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were only affected so long they had a certain balance in their account. But we couldn't figure out what that threshold was, as communication into Gaza was effectively cut off.
So I reached out to other news outlets hoping that I'd get help investigating the story. I reached out to CoinDesk editor in chief Kevin Reynolds, both via email and on the personal phone number he gave me – and got ghosted.
I reached out to Forbes, who were initially interested in the story, but Forbes refused to let me publish under my pseudonym.
Just recently I reached out to Bennet Tomlin
and Cas Piancey of Protos and got ghosted there too.
In November 2023, a journalist from Reuters contacted my source to write about the account seizures, but dropped the story as well.
Binance owes us an explanation under what legal framework it seizes the accounts of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip not listed in official seizure orders, and under what legal framework it seizes the accounts of foreign nationals on behalf of the Israeli government.
note17en…8f89