FTX's schemes were only exposed AFTER they couldn't handle withdrawals.
Anyone who follows crypto closely knows that every crypto exchange is crooked. Even crypto bros will tell you that. I can say that Binance is shady and likely stealing from their customers and I'll more likely to be correct than not. Saying FTX was shady before they were exposed was not a bold statement.
https://old.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/cj5ovr/ftx_... (2019)
https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/m6b53a/sbf_... (2021)
You're right about Binance, but the same wouldn't be true about Fidelity, Coinbase, Kraken, etc. People with an axe to grind about crypto like to pretend the industry is homogeneous and always complain about the likes of FTX and Binance (who are in the news a lot for reasons you'd expect), but conveniently never have anything to say about the exchanges with a good track record that people actually use and trust.
But no one figured out that FTX was 100% scam, moved billions from their customers, commingled funds with Alameda until after the collapse. This is despite being on the blockchain.
My point is that the transparency of blockchains does not matter for crypto exchanges. They have a million ways to scam their customers without being noticed on chain.
Since this thread is about Google (don't forget), what's the equivalent of "not your keys" for Google ads? That's why it's an apt comparison, and the subject of the EU's complaint.