Posted: November 22, 2023

• Binance gets a new CEO – Richard Teng with CZ vacating the post active immediately
• Binance will have to completely exit from US markets in a deal with FinCEN, but Binance.US unaffected

The United States Department of Justice has finally made an official statement on the charges against the largest crypto exchange – Binance and its former CEO – Changpeng Zhao. The US government reached a deal with both parties earlier today, with CZ pleading guilty to charges first, followed by the crypto firm.

Moreover, the deal has also seen one of the heaviest penalties imposed on a crypto entity, with Binance having to pay over $4 billion in total. Moreover, even CZ was required to pay a fine of $50 million. This will be directed to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to absolve its charges against the exchange and its founder.

In its press conference held today, after the court hearing, the government flagged the sanctions violations and the crypto exchange’s services provided to US customers despite claiming to have exited the market.  Janet Yellen – US Treasury secretary – also claimed that the exchange knowingly withheld information from the regulators, despite flagging suspicious transactions.

Moreover, the officials revealed that the exchange also knew the platform being used by terrorist organisations such as Hamas, Al Qaeda, and ISIS. A press release by Secretary Yellen said that over 100,000 transactions belonged to illicit actors but Binance never filed a suspicious activity report. It further read that Binance “also allowed over 1.5 million virtual currency trades that violated U.S. sanctions.”

During the press conference, it was also revealed that Binance will be completely exiting the US market as part of the deal. However, this does not apply to its American af