Major cryptocurrencies experienced a downturn on Tuesday evening following a significant development involving Binance.
What Happened: The Department of Justice (DOJ), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and U.S. Treasury jointly unveiled a substantial $4.3-billion settlement with Binance.
In addition, the former CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, will reportedly plead guilty to one felony charge as part of the settlement agreement, which aims to address both criminal and civil cases related to the cryptocurrency exchange.
"Moving forward, Binance must file the suspicious activity reports that were required by law. The company is required to review past transactions and report suspicious activity to federal authorities. This will advance our criminal investigations into malicious cyber activity and terrorism fundraising, including the use of cryptocurrency exchanges to support groups such as Hamas," said United States Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Despite the troubling news surrounding Binance, users of the exchange, as well as centralized exchanges in general, are not hastily abandoning the platform. According to Glassnode, the net change in Bitcoin positions on Binance is significantly lower than the numbers observed in January and July.
Following CZ’s resignation, Binance appointed Richard Teng as the new CEO on November 21. In doing so, the exchange reaffirms the sentiments of the crypto community regarding ...