Justice Department Announces Binance’s Guilty Plea

We are here today to announce that the Justice Department has secured felony guilty pleas from the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, and from its founder and C.E.O., Changpeng Zhao, also known as C.Z. The Justice Department is requiring Binance to pay $4.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures. This is one of the largest penalties we have ever obtained from a corporate defendant in a criminal matter. The message here should be clear: Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disrupter. It makes you a criminal.