This saw BNB, Binance’s native token, slump nearly 11%, with Binance now facing an over $4 billion fine for breaking several U.S. anti-money laundering laws and skirting financial regulations.
Bitcoin fell nearly 5% to $35,714- erasing a bulk of its gains made over the past two weeks, while world no. 2 crypto Ethereum sank 4.5%.
CZ pleaded guilty in a Seattle court on Tuesday, and announced his resignation on social media platform X. Richard Teng, former head of Abu Dhabi’s financial authority and currently the head of Binance’s regional markets, will take his place as CEO.
CZ is now barred from any involvement in Binance, faces a personal $50 million fine and could potentially face prison time.
His resignation, along with Binance’s settlement, ends a years-long probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange over its alleged fostering of money laundering activities, particularly for entities under U.S. sanctions. The DOJ, along with a series of investigative pieces by Reuters, had alleged that Binance knowingly skirted regulations and even encouraged its users to bypass government restrictions on the exchange.
The settlement also deals another blow to the credibility of the crypto industry, coming just a few weeks after FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of committing fraud and misusing customer funds at the now-defunct crypto exchange.
The crypto industry has been grappling with a severe loss of faith over the past year, which was marked by several high-profile bankruptcies. This was followed by several apparent figureheads of the industry- including Bankman-Fried and CZ- facing accusations of criminal activity on their respective exchanges.
Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission leveled similar charges against crypto exchange Kraken, alleging that it commingled customer funds. The regulator has ongoing cases against other crypto players as well, most notably Gemini, which is owned by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN), the biggest crypto exchange in the U.S..
Bitcoin trading volumes plummeted over the past year as retail traders exited the space, and were now trading at a fraction of their 2021 highs.
But the token saw some resurgence in interest over the past few weeks, amid growing speculation that the SEC was close to approving an exchange-traded fund that directly tracks the price of Bitcoin.
But the regulator has given no such signals, and has regularly rejected applications for a spot-Bitcoin ETF on the grounds that the currency is prone to price manipulation.
Source: Cryptocurrency - investing.com
