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Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty
- colesantiago 3y agoGood. May the entire of crypto be brought down with it.
- ivanmontillam 3y agoIf you could please elaborate, for the free curious spirits of HN. Crypto has brought good in underdeveloped countries like Venezuela and Argentina. Venezuelans use USDT to purchase real, physical goods. Sometimes groceries.
- AlexandrB 3y agoHave any numbers on this? The only numbers I could find are very modest[1]. IIRC Zeke Faux, the author of "Number Go Up" also noted that adoption is very illusory - like the "Accepts Bitcoin" stickers you see all over the place Canada when there's no functioning bitcoin payment processing inside. But besides all that, I think it's criminal to leave people in underdeveloped countries at the whims of unaccountable central-bank-style institutions like USDT. What will proponents of this crap say if/when USDT collapses? "They knew the risks"? Is the "crypto community" going to bail out people who invested their life savings in this garbage[2]? [1] https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/latin-america-cryptocurrency-adoption/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/latin-america-cryptocurrenc... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/AxieInfinity/comments/10ovcoo/lost_my_savings_and_more_investing_into_axie/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AxieInfinity/comments/10ovcoo/lost_...
- keep_reading 3y agoI think it's criminal to leave people in underdeveloped countries at the whims of unaccountable central-bank-style institutions like Federal Reserve.
- EFreethought 3y agoIt's criminal to leave people in underdeveloped countries at the whims of criminals.
- keep_reading 3y agocentral bankers are indeed criminals!
- Kranar 3y agoHow does this in any way deter crypto, if anything it strengthened it. Binance continues to operate, Zhao won't face any actual penalty and continues to be a billionaire. Seems to me like Binance and crypto is the winner here.
- AlexandrB 3y ago"This is good for Bitcoin"
- almost_usual 3y ago> May the entire of crypto be brought down with it Pretty hard to get rid of decentralized systems.
- colesantiago 3y agoCrypto is pretty centralised thanks to these exchanges and many blockchains running solely on AWS such as Ethereum. Crypto being ‘decentralised’ is a well known myth.
- lawn 3y agoYou don't need exchanges for cryptocurrencies to work, they just make onboarding easier.
- zshrdlu 3y agoDo you mean that, once on-boarded, crypto holders would only need to trade with fellow crypto holders?
- everfree 3y agoEthereum running “solely” on AWS is a myth. If AWS were shut down, the chain would continue as usual.
- colesantiago 3y agoEven Vitalik knows that Ethereum is centralised. > If AWS were shut down, the chain would continue as usual. Continue laundering money for foreign state actors and narcotics businesses, sounds about right as this is is what crypto is good for. https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/united-states-seized-and-files-forfeiture-action-recover-over-54-million-cryptocurrency https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/united-states-seized-and-...
- everfree 3y agoDo you think it would continue or not? Your comments seem to hold conflicting points.
- wonderwonder 3y agoAnyone in the variety of South American countries experiencing massive inflation would have been worlds better if they had just parked their money in BTC. Crypto is full of scams but there is also a world of positives and opportunity there.
- n2d4 3y agoThey would've also been worlds better if they had parked their money in Gamestop, or honestly even in a casino, but that doesn't make it a sound investment
- hi5eyes 3y agowhy does orange reddit always have comments like this whenever coins get mentioned
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zarzavat 3y ago“Orange reddit” was one of the first places that Bitcoin was discussed. Consequently there’s an awful lot of people here who know exactly how much they missed out, and express this by being saltier than dead sea whenever the topic comes up. The accepted wisdom on HN, when the bitcoin price was in the single digits, was that it was a “tulip bubble” and you should absolutely not buy it under any circumstances.
- boeingUH60 3y agoAnd many people were scammed and lost their savings to BTC and other crypto schemes. It's funny how the Ponzi promoters always forget that part when touting whatever cooked-up reason they promote crypto for. But sure, in a sector where most of the biggest names are fraudsters, some people still manage to be adherents.
- 3y ago
- throwayaw84329 3y ago[dead]
- unclebucknasty 3y agoReflecting on how crypto once fit with the HN ethos. Hard to say where the community is now, partly because I don't spend as much time here. But it definitely seems to not be the darling it once was. Don't know if this is because it's mainstreamed in a way that makes it less "hacker"-appealing (quotes intentional), the HN community has changed, or because crypto went full crypto-bro so hard. May be some combination.
- gizajob 3y agoProbably because the brave new world of cryptopunk anonymity and liberation has turned into this mess of fraud and in-your-face centralisation and crime.
- methodical 3y agoI have to admit I do find it pretty funny when the people who have touted blockchain and cryptocurrency as great because of its decentralization have discovered /why/ a central authority is incredibly important in finance. All of the crypto pumpers start crying for government support when they're the ones who get fleeced, when that's literally built into the technology as a feature.
- suoduandao3 3y agoI imagine HN in particular is also quite dominated by traditional US finance.
- ravenstine 3y agoI honestly don't remember the time you are describing. As far as I can remember, the most prevalent voices about crypto from HN have been from the naysayers by far. The craze just simply isn't there anymore, which is a very good thing. People who refuse to try and understand cryptocurrencies but tout fanciful things about them shouldn't be the ones representing them.
- tnel77 3y agoAnd why would that be?
- pawelduda 3y agoBecause he's salty about it, the comment doesn't point at anything else
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- colesantiago 3y agoName any positive valid use case that crypto does better than the current financial system.
- glerk 3y agoUncensorable money across borders
- colesantiago 3y agoThis is a perfect use case for criminals and ransomware gangs which is certainly why crypto is popular for these groups. Especially for funding the North Korean regime. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-18/how-north-korea-makes-a-fortune-stealing-crypto/103107824 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-18/how-north-korea-makes...
- afroboy 3y agoYou so realise that cash and gold are used by those groups as first choice?
- colesantiago 3y agoExcept crypto is way easier for criminals to move funds around better than what you've suggested.
- seydor 3y agoIt won't though
- pwb25 3y agoSEC is a joke . Failed to stop FTX or donor scams, but then make up accusations against a working exchange
- pwb25 3y ago[flagged]
- xadhominemx 3y agoHave you looked into this case at all? The evidence compiled against Binance is extensive and compelling.
- WinstonSmith84 3y agoAre you sure? Well, you must be new, it's just SEC's business. Here is what the most enshrined companies are doing Your average tradfi trader - https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/wall-street-pays-1-8bn-in-fines-after-traders-use-banned-messaging-apps-20220928 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/wall-street-pays-1-8bn-in-... And here the most respected (and/or feared) financial institution - https://www.reddit.com/r/amcstock/comments/p8m2p6/citadels_pathetic_history/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amcstock/comments/p8m2p6/citadels_p... If I were you, I'd be much more concerned about a very influential company like Citadel which just keeps breaking law years after years despite numerous lawsuits, than about a crypto company that probably is not affecting you the slightest.
- xadhominemx 3y agoI know way more about all of this than you.
- WinstonSmith84 3y agoI'm glad you know me!
- boeingUH60 3y agoAny railing about Citadel is a good signal for ignorance about the traditional finance markets and susceptibility to crypto and meme stock rubbish.
- 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- boeingUH60 3y agoHe'll pay $4.3bn in fines and likely be sentenced to probation or short home confinement instead of prison...in exchange for not being a US fugitive. He'll step down from Binance and live the rest of his life with billions. Sounds like a good deal :)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ivanmontillam 3y agoFor a purposeful human being, that is also a miserable life. Pretty much like you cannot eat your favorite food anymore and have to settle with "the next best" (philanthropy, maybe?)
- boeingUH60 3y agoHaha, I was actually referring to being a US fugitive as the miserable life, which Zhao obviously wants to avoid.
- rnk 3y agoZhao can do new things with his billions. He can start new companies, work in new markets if he wants. If he can escape China's clutches with his money, I assume he can travel the world.
- hyperfuturism 3y agoI think he's relieved that he won't get lifetime prison, and even years in prison. Living at the top, to having no freedom must be very, very hard to stomach. I would take the deal too if I was CZ. Giving up some "power-grab addiction" for 100% freedom (and being a billionaire still), seems very good for him.
- fbdab103 3y agoAdam Neumann is still getting huge financing. There is always a way to keep hustling.
- fhinson 3y agoPerhaps this was the final takedown necessary to pave the way for BTC ETF approval.
- janmo 3y agoNot before Tether has been taken down
- roland35 3y agoyup Tether is the biggest fake money printing machine that keeps BTC afloat
- TacticalCoder 3y agoI think so too however it looks like they may have printed their (counterfeited) way into solvency. Basically: buy cheap BTCs, print shitload of tethers, sell BTCs for real USD to the tune of tens of billions and now store these real USD in short term US treasuries (they don't own chinese treasuries anymore) bringing in 5% and more. They're claiming they now have excess money (!) to back their tether due to the fact that they collect 5% or more of interest on the short-term treasuries they have. Put it this way: even if they printed $40bn out of their arses out of $80bn of tether, the $40bn of actual USD they'd have would still net them $2bn a year in interest. That'd still be a big hole but... What if they printed "only" 10 bn out of thin air out of 80 bn: they'd have near 70 bn bringing in 3.5 bn yearly at the moment. They don't give any of the interest back to USDT (tether) holders. So if they printed "only" 10 bn out of their arses, in less than three years they'd have these 10 bn for real on interest alone. It's still criminal (I guess) but it may not be "0% of tether are backed". People have tried to run the maths on how much money entered the cryptocurrency world (with Coinbase giving a huge hint). Centre (Circle+Coinbase) has really $24 bn backing their USDC coin (they publish the individual US short term treasuries bill number). USDT (tether) is much older than USDC. Did they cheat? Most certainly. Did they "fake it 'till they made it", helped, by sheer luck, by interest rates going like crazy? I think it's possible.
- 3y ago
- crypt1d 3y agoHappy to see this whole thing finally coming to an end, its a nice wrap to the dead market we've had for the past 2 years. I'm excited for 2024 in crypto!
- scrlk 3y agoI'm curious to see how BTC will fare. We've only seen the 4 year halving cycle play out during a secular bull market so far.
- landemva 3y agoThere were reward halvings in 2012, 2016, and 2020. I thought the 2012 halving was the most uncertain, as it was the first and the market had little liquidity. https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/bitcoin-halving https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/b...
- esafak 3y agoFTT to the moon! Oh wait.
- SilasX 3y agoActually ... since the trial ended, FTT went from ~$1.2 to ~$3.5 and has stayed up. I have no idea how these people expect it to pay out. Even if FTX restarts, they will almost certainly cast off such liabilities with the approval of the bankruptcy court.
- rideontime 3y agoWhat makes you think this is the end of anything?
- crypt1d 3y agoThe rumour about Binance indictment by DoJ has been going around for 1-2 years now. Its one of the last remaining pieces of major news that could have potentially negatively affected the industry. After two years of prosecutions, regulatory uncertainty and general poor market conditions, its only now starting to feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoSmart move to avoid jail.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pasttense01 3y agoAnyone have a non-paywalled repost of this article?
- buggeryorkshire 3y agoThis was the one posted on r/buttcoin https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/binance-ceo-changpeng-zhao-step-down-plead-guilty-01f72a40?st=r0ybsxfuderurp6&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/binance-ceo-changpeng...
- hardwarephreak 3y agohttps://archive.is/G8utD https://archive.is/G8utD
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- carimura 3y agoanybody else have issues with archive.is lately? Tried two computers multiple browsers and all I get is a never-ending security check, sometimes with a captcha to really laugh at me.
- greyw 3y agoIts cloudflare dns
- javawizard 3y agoAs in 1.1.1.1? I don't use 1.1.1.1 for my DNS provider and yet I still get the never ending validation loop. I am on Google Fiber though, so I probably use 8.8.8.8 without explicitly meaning to. Perhaps this is a problem shared by both Cloudflare and Google's DNS proxies?
- vlovich123 3y agoIf you’re on iOS / Mac and have Apple private relay that would also use 1.1.1.1
- javawizard 3y agoOh interesting, good to know. I don't use Apple private relay so that wouldn't be the problem for me.
- abm53 3y agoI use a Google mesh network and get the same issue, which I assume is related to it using 8.8.8.8 by default.
- lordfrito 3y agoWhat about cofounder Yi He? If she's still in place then CZ stepping down doesn't mean much. I mean they have two kids together, don't tell me he won't be involved from the sidelines.
- standapart 3y agoExactly -- and CZ was always the fall guy. Yi is the mastermind.
- i4u 3y agoCan you elaborate more? I do not know anything about Yi and how she is a cofounder.
- lordfrito 3y agoBinance intentionally downplayed her role in the company (and her relationship with CZ) for a long time. Now she's seen as the most likely successor to CZ. Here's a recent article https://cryptoslate.com/reclusive-binance-co-founder-yi-he-speaks-on-sec-case/ https://cryptoslate.com/reclusive-binance-co-founder-yi-he-s...
- Emoticon4032 3y agoHere’s an article: https://coincu.com/110838-he-yi-co-founder-binance/ https://coincu.com/110838-he-yi-co-founder-binance/
- Tarimckins 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- costco 3y agoIncoming: third party compliance monitor (as always, run by ex DOJ people) and a more risk averse CEO. I hope this doesn't mean they eventually stop operating in the unregulated markets like China, Vietnam, Turkey, etc. Bet365 and DraftKings do it but for gambling so it's certainly possible to run a major respected company while ignoring the laws of countries that don't have the leverage America does.
- Tarimckins 3y ago[dead]
- FormerBandmate 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ipaddr 3y agoWhy would unregulated markets have a different use case than regulated? Whatever reasons people have here is the same reasons they have in countries who haven't regulated it.
- pants2 3y agoThe involvement of crypto in financing Hamas was likely vastly overestimated[1]. 1. https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/cryptocurrency-terrorism-financing-accuracy-check/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/cryptocurrency-terrorism-fi...
- Enogoloyo 3y agoChina is not unregulated. And all countries strong enough with their own fiat do care quite a lot to not having crypto in their country
- costco 3y agoSorry, I meant places where Binance is not licensed. This is most of the countries they operate in.
- fredgrott 3y agoI have a question why is what CZ did different from what SBF did? I mean other than SBF getting caught over-extended in downgrading market they both did the same type of fraud.
- rossdavidh 3y agoWhat countries they hung out in, I think. The Bahamas is not able to hold of US pressure for very long.
- h4l 3y agoSBF lost customer funds by spending them as if they were his own. CZ isn't accused of spending customer funds, he's accused of letting people trade too freely.
- grey-area 3y agoBinance is also accused of commingling funds.
- jawiggins 3y agoAFAIK, commingling means that customer funds went into the same account as business funds. SBF is accused of then using those customer funds for business expenses, while Binance _seems_ to have stopped at just not separating them properly.
- WrongAssumption 3y agoCommingling is not losing or spending. I don't know why you used a "also" with a word that wasn't in the comment you responded to.
- grey-area 3y agoIf you commingle customer funds, by definition you’re spending some of them when you use that account to pay business expenses, it’s impossible to differentiate them and makes several other types of fraud more likely.
- Apocryphon 3y agoCrypto, AVs, and AI. Is nothing sacred this week?
- lenerdenator 3y agoWhen money stops being cheap, people stop being lenient. Never should have been that cheap to begin with, really.
- gorbachev 3y agoTakes a thief to know one? re: CZ's campaign to expose FTX and SBF.
- olalonde 3y agoCZ was not accused of theft, he was accused of violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements.
- yieldcrv 3y agowoah! a guilty plea on the executive!? this will probably wind up like Arthur Hayes, where its just probation
- jihadjihad 3y agoCZ saw the immolation of SBF and probably decided it'd be a bad move to do anything other than whatever his lawyers told him to.
- rchaud 3y agoCZ is much smarter, he didn't have any number 2s that could testify against him, and had already moved to a non-extradition country years ago. SBF thought he was cleverer than everybody and testified himself straight into a 8x10 cell for the foreseeable future.
- Nevermark 3y agoEvery move SBF made after his fall seemed extremely poorly thought out. Not a hater, just processing the dichotomy of his genius image with his ingeniously ungenius self-immolation. Lesson: Looking like you make lots of money makes you look very smart.
- rchaud 3y agoPR rules the day, especially when you're VC-funded and have to maintain the charade of subject matter expertise. Although you'd think his Stanford Law professor father would have at least attempted to duct tape his son's mouth shut when it became clear he planned to testify.
- peanuty1 3y agoBoth his parents are Stanford law professors and according to Kevin O'Leary, they teach compliance law.
- cdchn 3y ago"Everyone is a genius in a bull market"
- cguess 3y agoNon-extradition doesn't mean the US can't request an extradition. It means each request is a one-off and there's not a process agreed on in a treaty.
- ZoomerCretin 3y agoI'm surprised no one has brought up the famous quote from this Binance saga: 'We are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.' https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-complaint-against-binance-contains-legendary-quote-bro-2023-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-complaint-against-binanc...
- thr0waw4yz 3y agoI wouldn't put a foot on US territory if I was him. Really wonder why didn't just wait it out in UAE.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nashashmi 3y ago> plead guilty to violating criminal U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements This has nothing to do with crypto. What forces him to comply with supposedly US dictatorship? Apparently this was a move against Iran and maybe Russia.
- WrongAssumption 3y agoThe DOJ literally never said it was about crypto.
- nashashmi 3y agoEveryone else assumes this has something to do with crypto.
- wnc3141 3y agowould crypto investors or optimists consider the recent legal woes in the space to be a much needed clearing out of bad actors or a sign of falling confidence in crypto?
- shawn-butler 3y agoMost crypto companies and investors are now AI investors / pivots. Don't think many are left to answer your question.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tim333 3y agoI'd say mostly a needed clearing. Confidence is probably recovering a little from the FTX collapse low.
- underseacables 3y agoI'm absolutely astonished by this. He lives in the Middle East, which does not have any extradition treaties with America. Granted, he might transit a country that has a treaty, but I'm really shocked that he would give him. What did they have over him? Maybe it was China…
- tim333 3y agoBinance does a lot of business in the US. Probably in exchange for paying fines etc they will be able to keep in operation. I assume CZ himself won't suffer much. The Bitmex guy pleaded guilty of not enforcing AML properly and ended up with 6 months house arrest at home.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> He lives in the Middle East, which does not have any extradition treaties with America. Some Middle Eastern countries have extradition treaties with the US, but, more relevantly, a number of countries have legal extradition processes not dependent on treaties, including the UAE, the country where he lives.
- pants2 3y agoBinance is also paying many billions in fines to the US and exiting the US completely. I also don't understand why - if they're presumably headquartered outside of US jurisdiction, what are they gaining by paying exorbitant fines? They're also further inviting every country they've ever had a customer in to levy huge fines against Binance.
- mandevil 3y agoI suspect that the threat of something similar to Global Magnitsky Sanctions (cutting them off from all dollar-denominated accounts everywhere) is a pretty big stick to use in negotiations. For a financial firm like Binance, access to bank accounts that can send dollars to and from US firms is pretty important, even without any US customers at all (losing access to banking in France, Cyprus, etc. would be equally difficult for them). The US has recently (gradually over the past 20 years or so) started to really weaponize access to dollar-denominated accounts, essentially conscripting all the banks that want to do business with American banks into service of American foreign policy goals. This started in the aftermath of September 11th, for terrorism, then spread with the Magnitsky act of 2012 to include international corruption, and has slowly spread to more and more areas. So far the US has been somewhat judicious about using the tool- they seem to be aware that if they use it too often people will eventually just build ways around it- but it is a pretty big threat to wield against a company that absolutely needs to do business with somebody's banks.
- ourmandave 3y agoZhao isn't getting any jail time. Wonder who he rolled over on for that deal.
- blobbers 3y agoSBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Govt collects a big crypto fine, fine makes the big losers in FTX whole, problem solved. CZ should have just bought FTX and closed the deal and made people whole, woulda saved himself some drama.
- firekvz 3y agohe has infinite supply of money to pay any fine, i dont really understand the fine amount, whats the porpouse of it, u either force them to destroy the whole exchange or just try to make their complete reputation go down but this looks like the govt getting some pocket money and letting them keep doing nasty things overseas and thats it?
- fyokdrigd 3y agothat's what fines are for. most people criticize fines as a mere check for the offender belonging to some moneyed elite and nothing else. fines are not replacement for civil law. if anyone think they were wronged, that's the only way. not a magically proactive government becoming their patents.
- crispyambulance 3y agoIsn't it better to just go after the scammers and fraudsters as soon as possible? Otherwise somebody else will be left "holding the bag" eventually (and it will be a larger bag). I might be old-fashioned but these fines and charges, to be clear, are for ACTUAL wrong-doing, you know, MONEY LAUNDERING. That's greedy-bad-guy stuff. It's not arbitrary or simply a matter of "avoiding drama".
- xur17 3y ago> SBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Is this conjecture?
- napierzaza 3y ago
- sosuke 3y agoFines always feel meaningless. Who gets the money?
- PUSH_AX 3y agoLike this space couldn't get more ridiculous.
- partiallypro 3y agoI just saw the headlines that Binance knowingly let ISIS, Hamas, Al Qaeda and Iran use their platform to launder money. Hot take: that doesn't seem great.
- drited 3y agoYes I cannot believe CZ avoided jail time.
- mrbonner 3y agoIn a sense, this is prisoner dilemma at play here :-) Other guy confessed and agreed to testify against CZ. The optimal path for CZ is to confess.
- bitcharmer 3y agoSomeone correct me if this is false but it looks like so far an overwhelming majority of crypto firms have been utter scams. I frequently get job offers in this space, always decline stating I don't want to be associated with organised crime.
- popcalc 3y agoHe doesn't have that kind of money. That's VIP client money and he is going to have a target on his back.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agohttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.328569/gov.uscourts.wawd.328569.15.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32... Looking forward to reading the Plea Agreement.
- JCharante 3y agoWhoa, I didn't even know CZ was under investigation
- sleepybrett 3y agogood for bitcoin
- tw1984 3y agoAfter all these recent shit regarding crypto currencies in the US, you don't need a full brain to figure out that there is a huge hole in the system. It is also amazing to see that CZ managed to walk away free of any jail time, kept most of his assets gathered by his con job.
- lifty 3y agoWhy would you say it’s a con job? The settlement is for not enforcing money loundering restrictions, not conning or scamming people. Binance seems to be reputable and hasn’t done any shady things with customer funds, as far as I know.
- bergen 3y agoDid you every track their tokens? The price of movement of the short and long coins was very dubious. Binance at points allowed up to transfer and 1 BTC without registration, therefore enabling a lot of shady characters to trade on their platform. A lot of scammers and fraudsters were using binance as their preferred platform.
- tw1984 3y ago> A lot of scammers and fraudsters were using binance as their preferred platform. they are the exact targeted audience of CZ's business.
- noch 3y ago> most of his assets gathered by his con job. How did he con you? Did someone force you to use Binance? Do you have evidence that he conned someone?
- kamray23 3y agoThat's obviously not what is meant by 'con', though. It's just composed of first gaining the trust of someone and then defrauding them. Forcing has nothing to do with it and would likely rule out the application of the term, since trust is an integral part of all cons. There has been no fraud yet proven, so it can't conclusively be called a con. On the other hand FTX can be called a con, as there was fraud. This is just running an overly unregulated exchange, which is still a crime but isn't fraud. This doesn't end the investigations though, there is an SEC probe into fraud by Binance still going on so while it currently can't be called a con, really, it's also the case that it could be in the future. Also, it can technically be said that Binance has taken commission and largely made its money from cons of other people that they simply enabled and took fees on, which wouldn't necessarily be incorrect. Whether that's illegal depends on whether there was conspiracy – you wouldn't indict BoA for wire fraud just because someone else used them to do wire fraud.
- android521 3y agofor money laundering, few use binance. Everyone uses wallet to walllet USDT transfer. If US is serious about money laundering, they should ban USDT and the like.
- dontupvoteme 3y agoThat's the price you pay for going after SBF.
- crystaln 3y agoExcept he made hundreds of billions, paid a small fine for him, and serves no jail time.
- VikingCoder 3y agoI liked the capabilities of Game Maker and really wished they were available to C#...