Original Author: Jack Inabinet, Bankless
Original Title: "What the Binance Judgment Means for Crypto"
Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
On Tuesday afternoon, US regulators held a meeting in Seattle and determined that the largest cryptocurrency exchange had violated US anti-money laundering and bank secrecy laws.
Binance has reached an agreement with federal agencies, ending the criminal investigation into the exchange that began in 2018.
CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) must step down for at least three years, but the exchange he owns can continue to operate. To address this issue, Binance will pay a hefty fine of $4.3 billion, setting the seventh largest financial regulatory fine in history. However, the company seems to have enough assets to pay the fine without selling off crypto assets.
Did Binance make a mistake?
Clearly, Binance and CZ violated US laws. Unlike the attacks on DeFi protocols and exchanges that failed to "comply" with unwritten rules, regulators believe they intentionally disregarded established laws.
The complaints against Binance mentioned numerous compliance personnel providing services to US customers illegally accessing international platforms, and cited multiple transactions related to terrorist organizations and illegal finance.
Furthermore, leaked chat messages show company executives directly admitting to years of criminal behavior.
What is the future of Binance?
Despite operating as the largest cryptocurrency exchange for many years, Binance's future seems quite challenging.
Binance has faced difficulties in obtaining licenses or operating in multiple jurisdictions, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, the Netherlands, and Germany. Today's announcement will provide foreign regulators with the opportunity to impose fines on the exchange or directly prevent it from operating within their jurisdictions.
Additionally, while Binance will be allowed to continue operating, the agreement includes strong monitoring and supervision provisions, posing significant compliance obstacles to its operations. Binance must also proceed with caution to avoid improper practices such as money laundering and illegal transactions that have driven trading volume for years.
Overall, Binance may no longer have the agility it once had to pursue new opportunities.
What is the future of cryptocurrency?
The market's response to today's news was muted; there was no liquidity exodus or immediate sell-off in today's news.
The Department of Justice has conducted a comprehensive review of Binance and found no fatal flaws that could lead to bankruptcy and trigger another crypto collapse. Assuming there are no further developments and investigations in the Binance case, we can consider that the cryptocurrency has significantly reduced the lingering risk.
Although today's regulatory action did not explicitly outline the various opaque rules that the US government wants cryptocurrency companies to comply with, it did demonstrate that some actors in the field have a tendency to intentionally defy established rules more than participants in other fields, and are not focused on long-term development.
The struggle between cryptocurrency and regulatory agencies will be difficult and will also be subject to unfair aggression and excessive bureaucratic intervention. Gensler is not the only enemy. But from the smallest price trends, it is clear that Binance's risk exposure here is well known and has been priced in. Now, cryptocurrency can strive towards clearer goals and usher in another bull market.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
