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On November 21, 2023, Binance founder and then-CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in Seattle to a Bank Secrecy Act violation. Binance Holdings Limited entered a separate corporate guilty plea covering violations involving anti-money-laundering rules, money-transmitter registration and U.S. sanctions. The company’s announced financial penalty was $4,316,126,163—not a personal fine against Zhao—and included both forfeiture and a criminal fine.
Why did Changpeng Zhao plead guilty in Seattle?
Zhao pleaded guilty to causing Binance to fail to implement an effective anti-money-laundering program, in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). He entered the plea in person on November 21, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle, according to DOJ case materials. The Seattle reference identifies the court and venue; the case concerned Binance’s U.S. legal obligations.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said Zhao entered his plea in that court earlier that day. Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said the resolution sent crypto and decentralized-finance companies a message: “if you serve U.S. customers, you must obey U.S. law.”
What did Binance admit, and how was that different from Zhao’s plea?
Binance Holdings Limited and Zhao were separate defendants and entered distinct pleas. Zhao’s personal plea was for a BSA violation. Binance’s corporate plea involved offenses relating to the BSA, operating as a money-transmitting business without required registration, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the federal sanctions law. The corporate admissions and penalty should not be attributed to Zhao personally.
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| Defendant | Guilty plea | Outcome described in the cited materials |
|---|---|---|
| Changpeng Zhao | Bank Secrecy Act violation involving Binance’s failure to implement an effective anti-money-laundering program. | Four months’ imprisonment, according to a DOJ document published in 2024. |
| Binance Holdings Limited | Corporate offenses involving the BSA, money-transmitter registration and IEEPA. | $4,316,126,163 combined financial penalty and a three-year independent-monitor requirement, according to DOJ’s November 2023 announcement. |
What does Binance’s $4.3 billion penalty include?
The U.S. Department of Justice announced a total corporate financial penalty of $4,316,126,163 on November 21, 2023. It comprised $2,510,650,588 in forfeiture and a $1,805,475,575 criminal fine. So the often-rounded “$4.3 billion fine” is more precisely a combined penalty; the criminal fine alone was about $1.81 billion.
Other figures describe different aspects of the case, not additional components of that total. The DOJ announcement said more than $898 million in trades took place between U.S. users and users ordinarily resident in Iran from January 2018 through May 2022. It also quoted Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam, who said Binance had earned approximately $1.35 billion in trading fees from U.S. customers. These are case-related figures, not amounts to add to the announced penalty.
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What compliance obligations did Binance accept?
Binance agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years and to remediate and strengthen its anti-money-laundering and sanctions compliance controls, according to the DOJ announcement. The cited materials do not establish the monitor’s current status or whether the term has concluded.
What sentence did Zhao receive?
Zhao was sentenced to four months of imprisonment, according to a DOJ document published in 2024. That is a later development than the November 21, 2023 plea announcement. The four-month sentence applies to Zhao; it is separate from Binance’s corporate forfeiture and fine.
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Why did prosecutors describe the resolution as a record crypto penalty?
The headline figure reflects the scale of the corporate financial resolution, which DOJ announced as $4,316,126,163. A separate figure reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington illustrates why totals from different sources should not be conflated: the office said it collected $1.5 billion in Binance criminal payments in fiscal year 2024. That is a district collection figure, not the full penalty or a replacement for its announced total.
The resolution combined criminal accountability with financial penalties and compliance obligations. It did not make Zhao personally responsible for Binance’s $4.3 billion corporate penalty.
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