Binance Holdings Ltd., branded Binance, is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. On 12 September 2023, Binance.US announced the resignation of CEO Brian Shroder and a reduction of the exchange’s workforce by around 100 positions, roughly one-third of its total staff. Arkham Intelligence provided data in January 2023 that identified “an alleged nexus of money laundering” from a much smaller exchange called Bitzlato through intermediate wallets of Binance.
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In June, Reuters found that Binance had acted as a conduit for the laundering of at least $2.35 billion from hacks, $780 million laundered from the Russian darknet market Hydra, and €800 million from investment scams. In March 2022, amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zhao refused to ban users from Russia, citing “financial freedom”. In September 2019, the exchange began offering perpetual futures contracts, allowing leverage as high as 125 times the value of the contracts. Later in 2023, Forbes leaked a document allegedly from Binance titled “TaiChi” that proposed this regulatory solution to reduce US regulatory risk.
Nigeria
Investigative journalists have uncovered how Binance continues to profit from money laundering for organized crime groups. In October 2025, President Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao who had been convicted for enabling money laundering on Binance. In November 2023, the company pleaded guilty in a US federal court to money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations.
Japan
- In May 2023, Thailand’s Ministry of Finance issued a cryptocurrency exchange license to Gulf Binance, the joint venture of Binance and Gulf Innova, a subsidiary of Thai billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi’s Gulf Energy Development.
- On 13 June 2022, Binance announced that for an unspecified period of time users would not be unable to withdraw their funds held in bitcoin, as the value of cryptocurrencies suffered serious declines.
- That same year, Binance shared client data, including names and addresses, with the Russian government.
- Despite Binance’s significant presence and activity in the Philippines, the SEC aims to provide investors with ample time to transition their investments to authorized platforms.
- SEC Chair Emilio Aquino emphasized the potential threat to investors’ security posed by continued access to Binance’s platform.
In December 2022, Binance’s American entity Binance.US announced that it would acquire Voyager Digital’s assets in a $1.02 billion deal. In response, Binance and other investors opened Binance.US, a separate exchange designed to comply with all applicable US federal laws. In January 2021, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority began requiring firms dealing with cryptoassets to register in order to comply with anti-money laundering rules. Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission filed a criminal complaint against Binance on 2 July 2021, “for commission of offence under the Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Business B.E. 2561 (2018)”. Additionally, the SEC has collaborated with major tech companies like Google and Meta to halt Binance’s digital advertising efforts targeting Filipino users, although the Binance app remains available for download on mainstream app stores.
Tokens
In May 2021, Bloomberg News reported that Binance was under investigation by the United States Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service for money laundering and tax evasion. This decision follows the SEC’s identification of Binance as operating without the necessary licensing for its investment and trading platform. Amid regulatory issues in Nigeria, Binance disabled its Naira services on 8 March 2024. In June 2023, Binance announced that it was leaving the Netherlands after failing to obtain regulatory approval. In April 2022, the Dutch central bank announced a €3.3m fine for Binance due to offering services within the Netherlands without being registered in the country.
- Binance accounts of Russian users were able to transfer to the new platform until March 2024.
- In January 2021, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority began requiring firms dealing with cryptoassets to register in order to comply with anti-money laundering rules.
- In April 2018, Binance signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Bermuda.
- In June 2024, Binance was imposed with a fine of US$2.25 million by the Financial Intelligence Unit, for operating in India in violation of local anti-money laundering regulations.
On May 30, 2023, it was reported that the Ontario Securities Commission had issued an investigation order into whether Binance may have taken steps to circumvent Ontario securities law and compliance controls prior to its withdrawal from the Canadian market. In May 2023, Thailand’s Ministry of Finance issued a cryptocurrency exchange license to Gulf Binance, the joint venture of Binance and Gulf Innova, a subsidiary of Thai billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi’s Gulf Energy Development. In August 2022, India’s Enforcement Directorate froze the assets of WazirX, an exchange owned by Binance, as part of a money laundering investigation. In May 2022, Binance gained regulatory approval in Italy, allowing the company to provide digital asset services in the country. In May 2022, Binance gained regulatory approval in France, allowing the company to provide digital asset services in the country.
On 6 April 2023, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission cancelled the Australian financial services licence held by Oztures Trading Pty Ltd trading as Binance Australia Derivatives (Binance). According to a 2024 report in The Wall Street Journal covering 2023, Binance fired several members of its internal investigation team who were tasked with investigating market manipulation such as pump and dump schemes and wash trading. In 2019, the company announced Binance Jersey, a Jersey-based exchange which offers fiat-to-cryptocurrency pairs, including the Euro and the British pound. In January 2018 it was the largest cryptocurrency exchange with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion, a title it had retained as late as April 2021, despite competition from Coinbase, among others. The company was founded in 2017 in China but moved its servers and headquarters out of the country in advance of the Chinese government’s ban on cryptocurrency Binance cryptocurrency exchange trading in September 2017. He also worked at OKCoin as CTO for less than a year, a platform for spot trading between fiat and digital assets.
2019: launch of stablecoin and security breach
Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously created high-frequency trading software.
In 2022, BUSD became the third largest stablecoin by market capitalization, following Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Binance USD (BUSD) was a US dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Paxos on the behalf of Binance. By 2021, BNB had the third highest market capitalization among cryptocurrencies. It was originally called Binance Coin when it was launched in July 2017, for users to pay fees on the company’s platform. According to a 2024 study by John Griffin, a finance professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Binance is the most popular exchange used in pig butchering scams.
2019: launch of stablecoin and security breach
On 27 May 2022, Binance announced the registration of its legal entity in Italy and plans to open offices in the country. Binance accounts of Russian users were able to transfer to the new platform until March 2024. In March 2023, the exchange banned Russian residents from buying euros and dollars through its p2p service.
On 8 November 2022, Binance offered to buy rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s non-US operations (FTX.com) to help cover the latter’s liquidity crunch. In September 2023, Binance announced it was leaving Russia and selling its business to the CommEX platform, which had been launched the previous week. In May 2021, it was reported that Binance was under investigation by both the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Department of Justice on allegations of money laundering and tax offenses. On 21 February 2020, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) issued a public statement responding to media reports referring to Binance as a Malta-based cryptocurrency company.
Binance has been the subject of lawsuits and challenges from regulatory authorities throughout its history, in particular over its involvement in money laundering. Binance was initially based in China, then moved to Japan shortly before the Chinese government restricted cryptocurrency companies. In April 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to violating US money laundering laws.
On 21 November 2023, Binance pled guilty to federal charges, of money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations. In June 2023, the SEC said it was suing Binance and Zhao on 13 charges for alleged violations of US securities rules. In April 2023, three unidentified trading firms cited as VIP clients of Binance were revealed to be Radix Trading, Jane Street Capital, and Tower Research Capital. Over the course of several years, it was found that the intermediary wallet deposited $15 million worth of crypto onto Binance’s platform. This deal was called off in April 2023 due to what Binance.US called a “hostile and uncertain regulatory climate”.
On March 12, 2025, it was announced that the Abu Dhabi government-backed investment fund MGX Fund Management Limited had made a minority $2 billion investment in Binance. Other defendants include former White House communications officer Anthony Scaramucci, digital-asset exchange Crypto.com and political groups such as the Mark Zuckerberg-founded FWD.US. The acquisition allowed Binance to re-enter the Japanese cryptocurrency market. Binance backed out of the deal the next day citing concerns about FTX’s business practices and investigations by US financial regulators.
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That same year, Binance shared client data, including names and addresses, with the Russian government. As a result, Binance has been banned from operating or ordered to cease operations in some countries, and has been issued fines. According to data from blockchain analytics company Arkham Intelligence, Binance is the largest crypto-holding entity in the world with over $200 billion in digital assets.
Despite Binance’s significant presence and activity in the Philippines, the SEC aims to provide investors with ample time to transition their investments to authorized platforms. SEC Chair Emilio Aquino emphasized the potential threat to investors’ security posed by continued access to Binance’s platform. In October 2024, Gambaryan was released after the Nigerian government dropped charges against him. The Nigerian government subsequently filed a criminal charge against Binance for tax evasion. On 28 February 2024, two Binance executives, Nadeem Anjarwalla and Tigran Gambaryan, were detained by Nigeria’s government on allegations of illegal operations and forex manipulation. It issued a declaration stating that Binance Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Binance, was operating unlawfully in the country.
