U.S. wants more than $4 billion from Binance to end case
The U.S. government dealt a massive blow to Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which agreed to pay a roughly $4 billion settlement Tuesday as its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform.
Zhao stepped down as the company’s chief executive and Binance admitted to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and apparent violations of sanctions programs, including its failure to implement reporting programs for suspicious transactions.
“Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disruptor, it makes you a criminal,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who called the settlement one of the largest corporate penalties in the nation’s history.
Zhao, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Seattle on Tuesday to one count of failure to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program.
Source: MSN
Bloomberg: BlackRock and Grayscale meeting with SEC about Bitcoin ETF issuance
Bloomberg Intelligence ETF research analyst James Seyffart reports that BlackRock and Grayscale, two major investment major companies with plans to issue a Bitcoin ETF, have recently met with the SEC.
Seyffart shows that BlackRock likely prefers in-kind for their offering over cash creations.
In highlighting this announcement, the analyst suggests that this decision makes sense as it is likely the cleanest structure for the company and its investors.
The news came alongside a consecutive report that Grayscale has also held meetings with the SEC’s division of trading and markets, responsible for approving or denying 19b-4, a form that is used to inform the SEC of a proposed rule change
Source: Cryptonews
$1.2 billion worth of crypto left Binance in the last 24 hours
Cryptocurrency investors withdrew close to $1.23 billion worth of crypto in one day from the leading centralized exchange Binance.
The massive outflow followed news, as mentioned above, about Binance’s and Changpeng Zhao’s (CZ) settlement with the Department of Justice of the United States.
As part of the agreement, Binance will pay a $4.32 billion fine, and CZ, Binance’s former CEO, has now left its role in the company.
Notably, the exchange has the largest cryptocurrency reserves, currently holding $67.65 billion worth of crypto, of which $59.51 billion are “Clean Assets.”
Finbold retrieved this data on November 22 from DefiLlama, which describes “Clean Assets” as all cryptocurrencies not issued by Binance itself.
Source: Finbold