Media: Brian Brooks leaves Binance US amid clash with Changpeng Zhao

Brian Brooks has left his post as head of Binance’s U.S. unit amid a clash with the exchange’s founder Changpeng Zhao, according to New York Magazine and New York Times.

Previously Brooks held a leadership post at Coinbase, and in 2020 he headed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency within the U.S. Treasury. In January he left the agency, later an independent member of the board of directors of the Spring Labs startup.

Brooks joined Binance in May. The parties expected that his experience would lend legitimacy to the exchange’s operations in the United States.

According to the publications, he pursued a multi-pronged strategy to distance Binance US from its parent company. The plan envisaged:

• appointment of independent directors to Binance US’s board;
• raising $100 million in capital to ensure the unit’s financial autonomy;
• transferring Binance technology to servers located in the United States.

“The transfer was the final piece of the puzzle, which, Brooks believed, would leave Binance’s regulatory issues in the past. But in the early days of August Zhao abruptly halted everything. The strategy was rejected, Brooks did not see a way to resolve the regulatory issues facing the company and could no longer work there. Therefore, on August 6 he announced his resignation,”

— said a New York Magazine source.

New York Times presents a somewhat different version of events. The paper says Brooks decided to resign after GreatPoint Ventures, regarded as a key participant in the planned investor round, declined to participate because regulators’ concerns about Binance were cited by the paper. Partly, the paper notes, Zhao’s 90% stake in Binance US influenced the decision.

As regulators in recent months have emerged in several jurisdictions, including the Cayman Islands, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Japan, Poland, Italy, Malta, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Netherlands.