day. (There is a Binance U.S. exchange, but in
terms of activity, it’s dwarfed by what’s some-
times referred to as “Binance global.”) Binance
has four times the spot trading volume of its
nearest competitor on a typical day, and its
activities potentially have wide influence
across this globally interconnected industry.
Binance allows its customers to employ
enormous leverage — at one point up to 125 to 1
(now down to 20 to 1 for most customers,
comparable to other exchanges). That means
everyday people, or “retail traders,” can gamble
with far more chips than they actually bought.
The upside is large, but so is the downside: At
125 to 1, for every 1 percent move, your $100 bet
could more than double, or you could get wiped
out instantaneously. Kim was trading with 30
to 1 leverage.
In mainstream financial markets, offering
extreme amounts of leverage to retail traders —
not accredited investors who must prove they
have the funds to withstand a margin call — is
not allowed, a rule meant primarily to protect
inexperienced traders from themselves. (The
SEE BINANCE ON B2O
n May 19, 2021, Francis Kim thought
he had hit it big. The Australia-based
entrepreneur had been dabbling in
derivatives trading in regulated mar-
kets, and he was used to their relative
volatility. Now, however, he was trying his hand
in the Wild West of finance: cryptocurrency
futures. He had begun trading on a crypto
exchange called Binance only a month prior
with less than $20,000, when bitcoin and
Ethereum (the two most popular cryptocur-
rencies) were at then-all-time highs. Kim
thought their prices would fall, and using
leverage — essentially borrowing from the
exchange to risk more on a trade — he put his
money on the line. What he would soon find out
is how, in the topsy-turvy world of crypto
trading, a person can be right about the market
and still lose it all.
Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic
of Binance, the exchange Kim was using to
place his bets, is its size: In terms of volume,
Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the
world by a wide margin, regularly processing
tens of billions of dollars in transactions perKLMNO
Outlook
SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/OUTLOOK. SECTION B EZ BD KARTHUR GRACE/CONTACT PRESS IMAGESLife beyond Soviet propaganda
A farmer and son take a break from plowing a field in
Poland in 1982, in this image from “Communism(s): A
Cold War Album.” The photographs capture everyday
scenes in the Soviet bloc in the 1970s and ’80s. B4-5lawyer, is a product of what she
calls a eugenics project. Her dad, a
lawyer and white supremacist
who mourned the end of slavery,
pitched marriage to Newton’s
mom under the premise that they
would make smart children to-
gether. As a father, he painted
over the faces of Brown children
in his daughters’ picture books
and forbade Newton from watch-
ing “Sesame Street” so she
wouldn’t see White and Black
children at play. Newton’s mental-
ly volatile mother, who met New-
ton’s father just a week after at-
tempting suicide, eventually took
a sharp turn into religion and
started her own church in the
family living room. She per-
formed exorcisms and saw de-
mons everywhere, including in
her daughter. This marriage last-
ed 12 angry years, punctuated by
loud arguments and Newton’s
mother throwing kitchenware.
SEE FAMILY ON B6Book review by
Libby CopelandG
enealogy is a national ob-
session right now, and
there’s no shortage of books
about the family revelations un-
covered by research and DNA
testing. But genealogical ac-
counts are almost always inward-
looking exercises; few writers can
offer a tale as riveting and timely
as Maud Newton does in “Ances-
tor Trouble: A Reckoning and a
Reconciliation.” This is testament
not only to her lyrical writing and
wide-ranging scholarship but to
the story told by her family tree —
one of profound intergeneration-
al racism intertwined with the
worst moments of American his-
tory.
Raised in Miami in the 1970s,
Newton, a critic and a formerDiscovering a family tree
with deep roots in racism
W
hen Russia launched its
war in Ukraine in Febru-
ary, Russian President
Vladimir Putin probably expected
a quick battle and a quick win.
Instead, we are now in the second
month of a grinding, brutal fight.
Thousands of civilians almost cer-
tainly have been killed (though
there’s no precise count), Ukraini-
an cities have been leveled, and 4
million Ukrainians have poured
into Europe, causing the greatest
refugee crisis on the continent
since World War II. Russia has also
taken heavy losses, with as many
as 40,000 of its soldiers killed,
captured or wounded and at least
seven Russian generals killed by
Ukrainian forces — even as most
major Ukrainian cities remain un-
der Kyiv’s control. In what looked
like an effort to save face, Russian
military officials announced re-
cently that they would shift strat-
egy to refocus on “liberating” the
eastern Donbas region.
So far, Western diplomacy and
economic sanctions have failed to
change Russia’s behavior. But a
diplomatic effort between
Ukraine and Russia may be show-
ing some promise, even if very
faint. On Tuesday in Istanbul, the
sides met for a sixth time. After-
ward, a Ukrainian 10-point plan
laid out a set of compromises,
including commitments from
Ukraine that it would not join
NATO, develop nuclear capabili-
ties or host foreign military bases.
In exchange, the plan envisions,
Russia would allow for security
guarantees for the protection of
SEE NEGOTIATIONS ON B3Russia’s military losses give
diplomacy a fighting chance
The best strategy now is to
arm Ukraine to the teeth,
say Alina Polyakova
and Sasha Stone
RAN ZHENG FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTCrypto’s
unfair playing
ground
Users of the world’s largest
cryptocurrency exchange are pushing back
a fter losing everything, write Ben McKenzie
and Jacob Silverman