Malta’s Finance Minister supported the President’s recent decision to reject Binance’s BNB donation. The initial fund of $200,000 has grown to $39 million after BNB’s dramatic rally over the past few years.
Apparently, the exchange wished to directly dispense BNB to cancer patients, which would require access to sensitive medical information. This concern and other reputational issues caused the nation to balk at the offer.
Malta Rejects Binance Money
Binance’s decision to donate a little over 30,000 BNB to Malta happened over six years ago, but it’s been resurfacing in headlines lately.
An initial $200,000 donation to the Malta Community Chest Fund for cancer patients has ballooned to $39 million thanks to BNB’s recent gains, but the President refused it.
The fund is not technically affiliated with the government, but the Maltese President is automatically appointed Chair of the organization.
Myriam Spiteri Debono, who currently holds this office, started a minor uproar in Malta’s government when she refused to accept Binance’s money. Today, local media reported that she got some backup:
“You either give to charity, or you don’t. Don’t dance around it,” claimed Clyde Caruana, Malta’s Finance Minister. He raised concerns about potential stipulations attached to the charitable donation.
Specifically, he warned that Binance wished to access patient records from Malta’s citizens.
The exchange allegedly wanted to ensure that the donation specifically reached actual cancer patients rather than dispensing BNB to the fund.
This stipulation might have complicated the charity’s work, but it certainly would’ve involved sharing sensitive medical information with a third party.
A Questionable Reputation
Crypto firms like Worldcoin have met legal pushback on multiple continents over their desire to put biometric data on the blockchain. Whether or not Binance wants to do anything like that, the exchange’s demand drew government hostility.
Plus, Malta has other reasons to be wary of Binance. Between recent insider trading accusations and questionable BNB tokenomics, there’s one big concern.
Last week, community experts accused the exchange of using charitable donations to launder its reputation after previous financial scandals.
Putting these factors together, Malta doesn’t think $39 million is worth involving itself with Binance at this scale. Although the Finance Minister also noted that the nation faces budget issues regarding public transit, this donation is in a totally different field and much too small to make a difference.
In other words, this BNB stockpile is going to remain in limbo for the foreseeable future.
