Another one bites the dust: Binance CEO quits as both he and the company plead guilty to money laundering charges and accept whopping $4.3 billion fine
Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, and has been under investigation by US authorities for years over allegations of offshore money laundering. Now it has announced that CEO and founder Changpeng Zao is to step down from his role and plead guilty to violating US money-laundering regulations (via BBC), alongside Binance itself pleading guilty and reaching a settlement with regulators that will come to an eye-watering $4.3 billion.
«Binance enabled nearly $900 million in transactions between US and Iranian users, and facilitated millions of dollars in transactions between US users and users in Syria, and in the Russian occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk,» said a spokesperson for the US Justice Department.
Zhao will enter the plea this afternoon in Seattle federal court, and alongside Binance's plea this will settle the allegations made by regulators. It's impossible not to see this in the context of the recently ended trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former FTX CEO who was found guilty of fraud following the firm's collapse and now faces decades in prison.
There was definitely a sense that prosecutors wanted to make an example of Bankman-Fried, who had been a poster boy for the crypto industry, and it feels like no coincidence that shortly after this verdict Binance decided to play ball. Ironically enough, Binance's valuation has only grown since the collapse of FTX, which was one of its largest competitors, but the ongoing investigations have seen various executives leave.
«Today, I stepped down as CEO of Binance,» said Zhao. «Admittedly, it was not easy to let go emotionally. But I know it is the right thing to do. I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility [...]
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