> You have zero visibility into the operations of traditional private businesses.
If you need visibility into a private business for commercial reasons before doing business with them, there are ways to do it, including using auditors in the same way Binance did [before their auditors abandoned them for reasons].
Companies that engage private companies do this kind of thing all the time as part of due diligence (e.g. engaging a vendor on a critical project & ensuring they're going to be able to deliver).
> With Binance, you can at least view their wallet balances, in the 10s of billions.
I mean, you're describing the problem! Their wallet balances are irrelevant - it's their bank balances that we're interested in.
I can create a wallet with any arbitrary cryptoasset of my own invention & put "10s of billions" of coins in there and claim they're backed 1:1 with some real currency.
Until I can provide reliable evidence that I actually have the currency, it would be insane to believe me, right?
And this is the situation Binance is in - the state of their actual real-world finances is, and has been for as long as I can remember, questionable. (Arguably, I'd say it's worse now that Mazars have dropped them!)
It's neat they've managed to be liquid for the last few months during this latest crytopocalypse. But I stand by my first comment - they'll have the appearance of being completely fine, right up until the point that they're not. Like every single other exchange.
> And I don’t mean to pick on you.
None taken. I described myself as a 'mere tourist' because I hold no cryptoassets (except for some Stellar I got more or less accidentally in the Keybase drop), but I have been following the space since the release of the Bitcoin whitepaper.