• Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao may have more control over the company than he admits.
• Former employees and investors claim Zhao maintains a firm hold on Binance in practice.
• If true, it contradicts the decentralised finance movement’s goal of removing authority from banks.

Binance’s CEO has previously been hailed for his libertarian views on cryptocurrency and his decentralised management style. However, according to a new Bloomberg story, Zhao may have more authority over the corporation than he admits.

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, CEO Changpeng Zhao discussed the company’s mission, his relocation to Dubai, and his support for blockchain-based businesses that function autonomously without a central leader.

Former employers and investors told Bloomberg this isn’t how Binance works. Zhao controls Binance, which contradicts the decentralised finance movement’s goal of removing authority from banks.

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Former employees and investors claim that, while Binance is constituted as a decentralised organisation, with decision-making power dispersed among numerous entities, Zhao maintains a firm hold on the company in practice. According to one former employee, “at the end of the day, he’s the holding company.”

Decentralized autonomous organisations, also known as DAOs, are a type of organisation that is comparable to cooperatives but do not have a hierarchical structure. Many blockchain and cryptocurrency enterprises have created DAOs. In contrast to what Binance did in the past, the majority of companies do not choose to build enormous centralised offices.

This contradicts the fundamental ideas of the cryptocurrency revolution, which was intended to decentralise power away from centralised authorities such as governments and banks. If Binance is actually controlled by a single individual, that would be a significant setback for the cryptocurrency community.

For his part, Zhao refers to Binance not as a company but rather as an “organisation,” and he calls the company’s employees “team members.” Binancians, on the other hand, is used to refer to all of the other stakeholders in the Binance ecosystem.

Binance is known for hiding its location. In a Reddit AMA in late May, Zhao said Binance has “not modest” offices in Bahrain, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. Binance.com’s primary exchange receives most crypto purchases and transactions, although its existence is unknown.

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Because of this ambiguity, Binance has been able to circumvent harsh regulations, which has been critical to the company’s growth. Binance, on the other hand, has decided to create a base of operations with regulators, according to Zhao. In September 2021, he told Fortune, “The location will be announced very soon,” but the company has yet to do so.

Zhao owns various Binance operations around the world, including Singapore and Italy, according to the filings.