Binance reaches deal to pay $4.3B settlement to American regulators

[icalical]

Even though they change the CEO and paid the settlement, I don't think general perspective about Binance will still be the same after this case, especially for people whoa aren't crypto enthusiast general people who just enter crypto world. I doubt they can maintain their position of top exchange next year. 

[Pmalek]

...but the problem is they hold (held?) too much sway over the entire crypto industry and its good to see them taken down a peg.

I don't disagree, however, the parties that brought them down (a bit) didn't do it because of the goodness of their hearts. Their intentions aren't a more fair crypto economy with less manipulation. Their goal is to make themselves more important and have greater affect on prices and public opinion. It's just shifting the ability to influence or manipulate the market to a better-suited party. 

[EluguHcman]

Did we consider Sam Bankman Fried & Changpeng Zhao would've been convicted criminals in 2023? They're going to be sentenced next year.

Of course there wouldn't had been a bridge of him being convicted but possibilities of paroles may have been considered.
But why don't we think otherwise too if maybe he pleaded the guilty not to prolong the agitations or rumours of the bad image upon the crypto companies exchange (Binance) all to eject himself out to avoiding any forms of contact of his existence still in the company maybe to bear the consequences while the company has to maintain a reliable stability roles to still hold reliances to its clients? Possibly in due time the reality truth may showcase because a trace of prove to the fraudulent accused/agreed guiltiness should had been made known on how goes about such of his journey to the activity.
What if we lives to say sorry to CZ and Binance at large in due time?

[Ayers]

But the SEC seems to be indiscriminate either, all given advance warnings, but it may depend on how well they respond and meet the SEC's demands and fix what is in question, or maybe the payout from Coinbase is larger.

All exchanges related to the US and SEC end up with fines and Coinbase still survives, of course there are privileges from Coinbase.
The US government really doesn't let CEX operate properly, they want to control everything.

SEC have targeted many exchange regarding their operation in United Sate such as Binance US will make them easily how to find bit mistake, I think mistake did by ZC by opening Binance US exchange due they have Binance global and there are not large transaction than Binance global. After Binance who will be next target by SEC Commission are there exchange market or they will get new target as altcoin developer such as Ripple coin.

The US is still the largest financial market in the world and is home to a series of large organizations, investors and any business that wants to have a market share there. So it would be a big omission if Binance wasn't there. And one thing that's quite different from other markets is that if you want to do business in the US market, you need a company that caters specifically to them and that's why we have binance.us and just those only US citizens can use it.

I think this is no longer a battle between the SEC and companies or exchanges, but as I said, this is a battle for market share of financial giants because bitcoin and cryptocurrencies still have a lot of great potential.

[franky1]

The US is still the largest financial market in the world and is home to a series of large organizations, investors and any business that wants to have a market share there.

its not though.. do you know how many other countries populations have never touched a dollar bank note
do you know how many countries (cumilatively adding up populations) have businesses that are not regulated by the SEC
americas finances, the dollar only services 330m american population

compare that to china that services a billion people+
compare that to india that services a billion people+
compare that to europe that has 750m

the reason america SOUNDS greater then it is. is publicity.
yes they trade with other countries.. but thats the same as suggesting bitcoin is the biggest market in the world because it trades with USD EURO YEN YUAN

america do trade deals internationally but that doesnt make them the biggest market. it means they have a long reach
when you find out that china produce products for 100 countries but US exports to only a few. you soon see "america is the greatest" is not real.. its just a publicity slogan

its much like the UK calls itself GREAT britain. but we brits know that our electric is supplied by power stations owned by france/china. we drive cars made by international brands. we go home and eat indian fast food sit on a scandanavian sofa and watch US tv shows on a asian flatscreen

did you know that the US only has 32m businesses
did you know that china has 52m businesses

americas number of 1 business per 10 citizens has a catch. many CEO's have more then one business so the US numbers are scewed/inflated as many american businesses dont actually sell real products/services but operate as shell companies

america play the slogans of highly invested in oil.. but lets dig deeper
america do import alot of oil but they are not the biggest importer.
what you then learn is who is the exporter. the area that makes money giving that oil to many countries. and its that area thats the biggest oil market

[MarjorieZimmermanGinger]

It's official CZ pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating money laundering laws. CZ's on bail at $175M. He's replaced by Richard Teng after he resigned as CEO of Binance. The exchange's got to pay $4.3B to settle the case.

This will be a long case and we see a new drama starting to unfold, where CZ is forced to resign as CEO of Binance for proven reasons of money laundering crimes. It seems like this will never stop and the exchange will continue to be monitored by those in power and if something happens they will go after and force the CEO or whoever is at fault to resign or pay compensation. Is the harsh action they gave appropriate or commensurate with the perpetrator?

Did we consider Sam Bankman Fried & Changpeng Zhao would've been convicted criminals in 2023? They're going to be sentenced next year.

If the legal decision is binding then of course they are just waiting for their time, but have we ever thought about how this started and how the story will end?

[JayJuanGee]

Did we consider Sam Bankman Fried & Changpeng Zhao would've been convicted criminals in 2023? They're going to be sentenced next year.

Of course there wouldn't had been a bridge of him being convicted but possibilities of paroles may have been considered.

Since neither of them have yet been sentenced, then probation would be the most appropriate consideration of possible ways of a reduced sentence (rather than your use of the term parole).  So if the judge is giving out a sentence, s/he may  include prison time and/or probation, or in some cases no prison time is required, and the judge would hand out some probationary terms that may end up lasting many years with various terms of being able to NOT stay in prison during the period on probation, or merely a short period of time.

Parole is a slightly different concept, but they are surely similar.  Accordingly, I am pretty sure that you already have to be in prison in order to thereafter be eligible for parole, which usually would be some kind of an early release, and perhaps following terms of parole for a period of time that would be established by the parole board that agrees to the early release, and maybe if the terms of parole are breached, then the person could easily end back up in custody and perhaps having to serve the remainder of the sentence.  I get the sense that you may have been referring to probation rather than parole since the parole eligibility comes after already in prison for a while, from my understanding.

But why don't we think otherwise too if maybe he pleaded the guilty not to prolong the agitations or rumours of the bad image upon the crypto companies exchange (Binance) all to eject himself out to avoiding any forms of contact of his existence still in the company maybe to bear the consequences while the company has to maintain a reliable stability roles to still hold reliances to its clients? Possibly in due time the reality truth may showcase because a trace of prove to the fraudulent accused/agreed guiltiness should had been made known on how goes about such of his journey to the activity.
What if we lives to say sorry to CZ and Binance at large in due time?

It is quite likely that CZ has been consulting with attorneys for many years about these kinds of topics regarding if he were to ever be accused of a crime, and surely the consideration of the matter becomes more serious when actual criminal charges are filed.  Even his pleading to the charge constituted several risks, including that he had to appear in person in a US court, which I am sure that his attorneys went back and forth a lot regarding whether he would be taken into custody, and maybe they cannot 100% guarantee that the USA government might end up taking him into custody, even if he seemed to have had gotten pre-agreement to their not taking him into custody.  

Surely several of the details of the settlement are not exactly clear, and the interim between the announcement of the guilty plea and the actual sentencing will include more negotiations but also the providing of evidence and arguments in order for each side to iron out some of the potential terms and to attempt to remove some of the elements of surprise - while at the same time, it seems that even CZ's counsel has conceded that they may well be willing to agree to sentencing of 6 months of jail time. and surely those are not necessarily locked in stone, but sometimes it will show a certain amount of good faith negotiations and willingness to accept that some jail time is appropriate in CZ's case.

[Odohu]

Of course there wouldn't had been a bridge of him being convicted but possibilities of paroles may have been considered.
But why don't we think otherwise too if maybe he pleaded the guilty not to prolong the agitations or rumours of the bad image upon the crypto companies exchange (Binance) all to eject himself out to avoiding any forms of contact of his existence still in the company maybe to bear the consequences while the company has to maintain a reliable stability roles to still hold reliances to its clients? Possibly in due time the reality truth may showcase because a trace of prove to the fraudulent accused/agreed guiltiness should had been made known on how goes about such of his journey to the activity.
What if we lives to say sorry to CZ and Binance at large in due time?

There are many hypothesis suggesting that CZ pleaded guilty just to avoid further quizzing and scrutiny. Even this seems plausible, if you juxtapose the advantage of such decision and the disadvantages, you will see that the later outweighs the former. Why will someone deliberately damage such an enviable image he has built for himself in the cryptocurrency space? It does not make any sense to me. If he actually intentionally pleaded guilty to avoid further digging, it means he has more shits to cover than we can imagine.

From someone of the articles I read, his major offense was Binance romance with Iran that have been in the black book of the powers that be. This seems to me like the borne of contention.

[Ale88]

It's official CZ pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating money laundering laws. CZ's on bail at $175M. He's replaced by Richard Teng after he resigned as CEO of Binance. The exchange's got to pay $4.3B to settle the case.

Did we consider Sam Bankman Fried & Changpeng Zhao would've been convicted criminals in 2023? They're going to be sentenced next year.

I'm not sure how you can put CZ and SBF on the same level: CZ didn't follow some money laundering laws, which is not something that uncommon, of course if you are the biggest exchange in the world and the US hate you, well, it's a serious problem. On the other hand we have SBF who created an exchange just to scam people, because that was his final goal. I would say that there is quite a big difference.

I completely support your point of view, I don't understand why many people compare CZ with SBF when they are completely different. Maybe CZ is not a good person and he also contributed to market manipulation for his own gain, but he never defrauded investors the way SBF did. So it wouldn't be fair to CZ if we compare the two. When it comes to bitcoin, CZ has made no significant contributions but when it comes to the cryptocurrency industry, he has created a large and fair playing field for all of us. SBF is not worthy or qualified to be compared to CZ.

At the end of the day I like CZ, I like Binance, and I own some BNB, but I'm sure that CZ is not "a good person" just like many other millionaires/billionaires out there: if you want to get to that level, you have to do some unethical stuff. Or does any of you think that all those people made money following every single rule and being kind with everyone? Of course not. But CZ is not SBF at all.

[Patrol69]

CZ is a very sincere man and he is a very good man, from what I know about him he will never compromise on injustice that is why I have enough trust and faith in him. At first when I heard such news, I thought that such a complaint could be made against the CEO of such an exchange, so I did not give much importance to the matter, but when the matter was proved, I felt the matter was a little different. CZ has been sued and the case has gone against CZ but I still trust CZ. New CEO of Binance Exchange appointed but new CEO is appointed only to clear legal complications, once legal complications are over CZ can take over as CEO again.

CZ and SBF cannot be compared together. SBF has done one of the biggest scams and cheated its users but CZ has not done that at all.  Both are criminals in the eyes of law but the crime committed by SBF can be considered as lesser crime.

[philipma1957]

Of course there wouldn't had been a bridge of him being convicted but possibilities of paroles may have been considered.
But why don't we think otherwise too if maybe he pleaded the guilty not to prolong the agitations or rumours of the bad image upon the crypto companies exchange (Binance) all to eject himself out to avoiding any forms of contact of his existence still in the company maybe to bear the consequences while the company has to maintain a reliable stability roles to still hold reliances to its clients? Possibly in due time the reality truth may showcase because a trace of prove to the fraudulent accused/agreed guiltiness should had been made known on how goes about such of his journey to the activity.
What if we lives to say sorry to CZ and Binance at large in due time?

There are many hypothesis suggesting that CZ pleaded guilty just to avoid further quizzing and scrutiny. Even this seems plausible, if you juxtapose the advantage of such decision and the disadvantages, you will see that the later outweighs the former. Why will someone deliberately damage such an enviable image he has built for himself in the cryptocurrency space? It does not make any sense to me. If he actually intentionally pleaded guilty to avoid further digging, it means he has more shits to cover than we can imagine.

From someone of the articles I read, his major offense was Binance romance with Iran that have been in the black book of the powers that be. This seems to me like the borne of contention.

A ) we will never know what he did or did not do.
B ) he fell on the sword over his dealings with Iran 🇮🇷
C ) Some one backed Hamas with money weapons and good planning
D) The Hamas attack has lead to more than 16500 people killed
E ) Iran was the supposed backer of Hamas

I would not want to be in the shoes of CZ

Does it mean I think
Hamas
 Isreal
Iran
USA

are right or wrong no.

They are merely feeding the military industrial complex.

It looks like CZ got has hand bitten by that machine in his search for profits.

It also means more kyc for all of us.

F2pool recently censured txs when asked to do so by America 🇺🇸 which means they would censure for any country that has some weight.

[upotami]

They have agreed to pay the fine so the exchange is not going to shut down. Rest of the services there are working same as before and they are already the biggest exchange in the world in terms of number of users.

[JayJuanGee]

It's official CZ pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating money laundering laws. CZ's on bail at $175M. He's replaced by Richard Teng after he resigned as CEO of Binance. The exchange's got to pay $4.3B to settle the case.

Did we consider Sam Bankman Fried & Changpeng Zhao would've been convicted criminals in 2023? They're going to be sentenced next year.

I'm not sure how you can put CZ and SBF on the same level: CZ didn't follow some money laundering laws, which is not something that uncommon, of course if you are the biggest exchange in the world and the US hate you, well, it's a serious problem. On the other hand we have SBF who created an exchange just to scam people, because that was his final goal. I would say that there is quite a big difference.

I completely support your point of view, I don't understand why many people compare CZ with SBF when they are completely different. Maybe CZ is not a good person and he also contributed to market manipulation for his own gain, but he never defrauded investors the way SBF did. So it wouldn't be fair to CZ if we compare the two. When it comes to bitcoin, CZ has made no significant contributions but when it comes to the cryptocurrency industry, he has created a large and fair playing field for all of us. SBF is not worthy or qualified to be compared to CZ.

At the end of the day I like CZ, I like Binance, and I own some BNB, but I'm sure that CZ is not "a good person" just like many other millionaires/billionaires out there: if you want to get to that level, you have to do some unethical stuff. Or does any of you think that all those people made money following every single rule and being kind with everyone? Of course not. But CZ is not SBF at all.

Rules are meant to be broken and even challenged and even questions regarding their fairness if they are retroactively applied.

CZ could have had pled guilty because he new that he violated laws that were clearly applicable to him and/or his company, or he may have plead guilty based on the practicality of the whole matter and being able to reach some kind of an acceptable settlement agreement that helps him and Binance to move on but also they have an agreement that surely the US Government likes too, which is to both send a signal but also to be able to spend some time monitoring CZ and/or the company.. perhaps for the next 5 years, perhaps longer.

Whether something is ethical or not does not necessarily make it illegal, and there can be draconian laws and/or draconian applications of the law, so for sure the US Govt (and the various agencies that were involved in various investigations) had a sufficient amount of evidence that would either muddy the waters or it might even be able to convict CZ and/or the company in a trial process.   Frequently the pleas are going to require some level of admission of wrongdoing, so CZ and the company already went over those grounds by agreeing that they both did some wrongdoing (that is likely described in the plea agreement), but they also agreed that the amount of punishment is suitable, too.. even though they might not like it, they might have had conceded in their own internal discussions that it is likely close to the best that they would be able to get and to also have some certainty of having entered into the plea agreement versus the various uncertainties of potentially fighting the matter for a considerable amount of time, and maybe CZ might have felt also that he is too well known, so that he would end up getting arrested sooner or later if they had not worked out a deal... which again looks better for him to enter into a deal instead of being potentially perceived as a fugitive of the law and then maybe getting harsher sentencing based on fighting the matter rather than settling.. so whether he is actually wrong or not might be another question, even though for practical purposes, he has admitted to being wrong on behalf of himself and his company.

[JoyMarsha]

The case of the CEO of Binance will be resolved as soon as the exchange pays the $4.3 billion in fees charged against its owner. It is already known that SBF will go to prison for bankruptcy of public funds before the end of the next year.

The danger that I perceive in this is that it has damaged the reputation of the CEO of Binance and its exchange. People would no longer have the same level of faith in them or their ability to keep their funds on the Binance exchange as a result. People will start withdrawing their money from the Binance exchange.

[arabspaceship123]

That is a lot of money. I hope they won't go bankrupt

Binance's going make part payments so they'll cope.

On one hand, I think CZ is a sociopath and I'm glad he's out as CEO. On the other hand, its impressive that Binance could absorb this fine and keep going. They've obviously been good at doing what any good business does: continue to make money no matter what, but the problem is they hold (held?) too much sway over the entire crypto industry and its good to see them taken down a peg.

The new CEO's going to make changes but Binance isn't going to get smaller. It's a successful business they'll keep getting bigger but I'm glad Binance's lost some shine because it's been dominating crypto.

I don't know if it's true CZ's the reason FTX couldn't become regulated in Europe because he didn't comply to govt requests for info. If he's played his hand ppl will consider it's justice.

CZ's taken Binance from ICO to tech giant but he's going to jail. It's been said he's worth $24B so there's going to be rivers of cash waiting for him after he's paroled until it happens he could be sharing a cell with SBF for part of his sentence.

[JayJuanGee]

he could be sharing a cell with SBF for part of his sentence.

That is ridiculous to even be making that kind of a suggestion in regards to if something like that would be very likely to happen... it is probably pretty damned close to zero odds, so why say it?, except to make phoney-baloney comparisons...

or are you that uninformed regarding how the world actually works?
 
Or were you just trying to have some funzies at the expense of the truth (and reality)?

[SamReomo]

Finally another guy who was running the world's no.1 crypto exchange got sued with many allegations and the exchange has to $4.3B to settle the case. That's not the first attack to stop the growth of the Binance exchange I believe low-intensity attacks on that exchange took place some time ago as well but those attacks weren't enough to sue CZ however this time they got him and the chapter of CZ is closed now.

I believe that the regulators will do anything in order to wipe out those centralized exchanges at least exchanges like Binance that are known to on top for most of traders. I hope that Binance will continue to operate even with CZ as I still think that the guy was evil like SBF. Let's see which exchange in going to be the next target before approval of those spot ETFs.

[BALIK]

Finally another guy who was running the world's no.1 crypto exchange got sued with many allegations and the exchange has to $4.3B to settle the case. That's not the first attack to stop the growth of the Binance exchange I believe low-intensity attacks on that exchange took place some time ago as well but those attacks weren't enough to sue CZ however this time they got him and the chapter of CZ is closed now.

I believe that the regulators will do anything in order to wipe out those centralized exchanges at least exchanges like Binance that are known to on top for most of traders. I hope that Binance will continue to operate even with CZ as I still think that the guy was evil like SBF. Let's see which exchange in going to be the next target before approval of those spot ETFs.

Legal or government agencies regulate us through those centralized exchanges. If we destroy them all, what will they use to control us? This is simply a war for market share, they will destroy those who do not follow their orders and bring the exchanges they manipulate into the market to gain market share. I believe nothing would have happened to CZ if he had saved SBF and FTX from collapse last year. But things didn't work out that way.

Regarding Binance's future prediction, it will still exist but its top position will definitely be replaced by someone else soon, IMO.

[bbc.reporter]

he could be sharing a cell with SBF for part of his sentence.

That is ridiculous to even be making that kind of a suggestion in regards to if something like that would be very likely to happen... it is probably pretty damned close to zero odds, so why say it?, except to make phoney-baloney comparisons...

or are you that uninformed regarding how the world actually works?
 
Or were you just trying to have some funzies at the expense of the truth (and reality)?

Agreed and it only appears that there are many people in bitcointalk.org that are giving their opinions, however, they are ignorant on what is really happening in the cryptospace.

On CZ stepping down, I am very disappointed that it was Richard Teng that replaced him. I wanted this to be He Yi hehe. She would be a very good follow on social media if she is CEO ehehehhe.

On what it might imply for Binance under Richard Teng, we need to look at his education background and his career. He graduated in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore with a degree in accounting. After this, he went to University of Pennsylvania for an executive leadership course.

His first job was with Singapore's regulator similar to the SEC and worked for 13 years. His next job was with the Singapore stock exchange as a compliance officer. According to some artcles, Richard Teng was someone who helped create important regulatory frameworks and rules for the Singapore exchange.

He also worked in Abu Dhabi where he became the CEO of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority where he also created important regulatory frameworks and rules.

On August 2021, Richard Teng became the CEO of Binance Singapore, on November 2021 he became Binance's head of regional markets.

I reckon his background implies that he can make Binance the biggest fully regulated exchange in the cryptospace. However, nothing is certain.

[JayJuanGee]

Finally another guy who was running the world's no.1 crypto exchange got sued with many allegations and the exchange has to $4.3B to settle the case. That's not the first attack to stop the growth of the Binance exchange I believe low-intensity attacks on that exchange took place some time ago as well but those attacks weren't enough to sue CZ however this time they got him and the chapter of CZ is closed now.

I believe that the regulators will do anything in order to wipe out those centralized exchanges at least exchanges like Binance that are known to on top for most of traders. I hope that Binance will continue to operate even with CZ as I still think that the guy was evil like SBF. Let's see which exchange in going to be the next target before approval of those spot ETFs.

Legal or government agencies regulate us through those centralized exchanges. If we destroy them all, what will they use to control us? This is simply a war for market share, they will destroy those who do not follow their orders and bring the exchanges they manipulate into the market to gain market share. I believe nothing would have happened to CZ if he had saved SBF and FTX from collapse last year. But things didn't work out that way.

Sam was not savable.   He was (and likely still is) a degenerate gambler (who may not have learned his lesson, yet), and probably CZ and/or the Binance team saw that putting money into attempting to save Sam and/or FTX and/or Alameda would be like putting money into a never ending black hole.