Binance Faces Landmark $4.3 Billion Settlement: Founder Resigns

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is under criminal scrutiny for violating sanctions and money-transmitting laws, culminating in an unprecedented $4.3 billion settlement. Founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has admitted personal culpability, accepting a $50 million fine and relinquishing the CEO position. The charges encompass accusations of inadequate anti-money laundering measures and breaches of sanctions laws.

This monumental settlement, one of the largest ever from a corporate entity, will be distributed among regulatory bodies, including the U.S. Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen underscored that Binance's settlement stands as the largest in the history of the Treasury.

FTX Founder Denied Release by the Appeals Court

FTX founder and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried has been denied release by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as he pursues an appeal of his conviction. The court emphasized Bankman-Fried's past attempts to interfere with witnesses during his pretrial release as a key factor in rejecting his plea for freedom. Accused by government prosecutors of leaking Caroline Ellison's diaries to The New York Times in July, Bankman-Fried had his bail revoked by a New York District Court.

Despite Bankman-Fried arguing that his actions were constitutionally protected under the First Amendment as freedom of speech, the appellate court upheld the New York District Court's decision, asserting that witness tampering falls outside the realm of constitutional protection.

In other news

• Kyber Network has managed to recover $4.67 million from the $46 million exploited during a recent attack. The blockchain liquidity hub communicated with the operators of frontrun bots, who were responsible for siphoning around $5.7 million from KyberSwap pools on Polygon and Avalanche.

• Bitcoin is poised to be a prominent topic in the upcoming U.S. Republican debate, according to Vivek Ramaswamy, a presidential candidate and staunch Bitcoin supporter. Ramaswamy pledged to raise the subject during the 2024 presidential election's Republican Debate, stating, "If they [the moderators] don't bring [Bitcoin] up, I will, absolutely," in a November 25 interview on What Bitcoin Did.

• Montenegro's court approves Terra founder Do Kwon's extradition to South Korea or the U.S., pending a decision by the Justice Minister after his four-month prison term for document forgery. Kwon faces multiple fraud charges in the U.S. and an ongoing South Korean investigation linked to the terraUSD (TUSD) collapse.