Binance

Binance Holdings Ltd., branded Binance, is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao. It was initially based in China, then moved to Japan, subsequently left Japan for Malta, and currently has no official company headquarters. Binance has been the subject of lawsuits and challenges from regulatory authorities. As a result, Binance has been banned from operating or ordered to cease operations in some countries, and has been issued fines. On 21 November 2023, Binance pled guilty to violating U.S. anti–money laundering rules and paid a $4.3 billion fine. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority ordered Binance to stop all regulated activity in the United Kingdom in June 2021. In March 2025, Wall Street Journal uncovered that the company was in talks with the family of Donald Trump about business dealings. In August 2025, Wall Street Journal found that Binance was quietly administering a trading platform for the Trump family's World Liberty Financial. The company paid lobbyists $800,000 to lobby for a pardon from Trump for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. In October 2025, President Trump pardoned Zhao. Despite pledging zero tolerance for illicit activities on the exchange since 2023, investigative journalists have found that Binance continues to profit from money laundering for organized crime groups and sanctioned entities. Internal investigators at Binance found evidence that Russia and Iran, two sanctioned states, continued to use Binance accounts to move money; after reporting these suspicious transactions to Binance leadership, the internal investigators were fired or suspended. In 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that Binance was under investigation by the United States Department of Justice for allegedly evading sanctions on Iran-backed designated foreign terrorist organizations such as the Houthis. U.S. federal prosecutors also alleged in an asset forfeiture lawsuit that Binance...