Binance reportedly anticipates paying monetary penalties to settle its U.S. business investigations. After reportedly admitting it broke laws, per Binance’s chief strategy officer (CSO), Binance officials were unaware of applicable bribery, corruption, and money laundering laws and rules.
Per CSO Patrick Hillman, Binance is working with regulators to figure out what are the remediations we have to go through now to make amends for that. Likely a fine, could be more.…We just don’t know. That is for regulators to decide.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is reportedly being probed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Per reports in December, the DOJ prosecutors initiated investigation into Binance in 2018, citing non-compliance with the U.S. anti-money laundering laws and sanctions.
The CFTC probed if Binance offered cryptocurrency derivatives to U.S. clients in the absence of a relevant registration with the CFTC. Binance went on to reportedly dispute the said report publicly, alleging the reporting entity is “wrong again” and “attacking our law enforcement team, a team that we’re incredibly proud of.”
Changpeng Zhao, CEO, Binance, had reportedly initiated a campaign on Twitter, alleging news agencies were “still working for” FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried. But Zhao gave no evidence to support the claims he made. He requested his followers to “ignore the FUD.” Binance’s current predicament has now become publicly apparent.
The U.S. SEC reportedly has served a Wells notice to the BUSD-issuer for Binance, Paxos. A Wells notice means that a federal authority is planning an action against Paxos Trust. Paxos has also ceased new BUSD tokens’ issuance as directed by the New York Department of Financial Services.
Kraken has also reportedly agreed to pay fines totaling $30 million to the U.S. SEC to seek a civil investigation solution for its staking investment program.
