Key Takeaways:
- French Audit firm Mazars has paused work for Crypto Clients
- Binance, Crypto.com and KucCoin were among the crypto companies that were afected
- The news sent major crypto tokens tanking, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Binance's native currency BNB
YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — The cryptocurrency market slipped into a sea of red as audit and accounting firm Mazars Group suspended all work with its crypto clients. The organization’s latest decision has affected industry giants such as Binance, KuCoin, and Crypto.com. Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Binance (BNB) were among the major losers among popular tokens.
The world’s largest crypto exchange by volume Binance, which had an agreement with Mazars, shared the news of the development.
“Mazars has indicated that they will temporarily pause their work with all of their crypto clients globally, which include Crypto.com, KuCoin, and Binance. Unfortunately, this means that we will not be able to work with Mazars for the moment,”
Binance said in a statement sent to media houses on Friday.
Earlier this month, the French firm performed a proof-of-reserves assessment of Binance, finding that its Bitcoin (BTC) reserves were overcollateralized. However, the link to the said report on Mazars’ website is currently dysfunctional. The company appears to have deleted the audit report from its website.
Following the news, speculations as to the reason for Mazar’s decision began doing the rounds. While some blamed possible crackdowns from US authorities, others pointed to other reasons.
“Mazars will stop all its audit work of crypto companies including Kucoin, Crypto.com. No one knows why they took this step? Probably too much negative publicity,”
crypto investor and Bitinning’s founder Kashif Raza wrote.
Crypto.com also published its proof of reserves on December 9, which Mazars audited. Like in the case of Binance, 100% of its deposits were backed by Crypto.com’s reserves.
Meanwhile, KuCoin said they are “open to work with any leading and reputable audit” in the future.
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Crypto market tanks as the price of Binance (BNB), and Bitcoin (BTC) fall
The news of Mazar’s decision to cut links with cryptocurrency firms sent the market tanking. Market leader Bitcoin fell over 3%, dragging other players down with it. At the time of writing, BTC exchanged hands at $16.839 per token, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Ethereum (ETH), on the other hand, shed over 6%, dropping to as low as $1,190.91 from the daily high of $1,278.
However, BNB, the native token of the Binance ecosystem, was among the most impacted. It tanked over 8%, falling from $264 around the time that the news broke to a daily low of $241.
Meanwhile, Crypto.com’s in-house token CRO also lost nearly 7%, crashing from $0.06253 to $0.05817. Crypto exchange KuCoin’s native token KCS, on the other hand, saw its price drop by 4%.
Other major cryptocurrencies also bore the brunt of the market bloodbath. Key tokens, Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Litecoin (LTC) all shed over 7% each.
