Binance Holdings Ltd., known as Binance, is a global company that operates the largest exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies.
Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously created high-frequency trading software. Binance initially had its headquarters in China, then moved to Japan just before the Chinese government banned cryptocurrency companies. Binance subsequently left Japan for Malta and currently the company does not have an official headquarters.
In 2021, Binance was put under investigation by the United States Department of Justice and by the Internal Revenue Service for allegations of money laundering and tax offenses. The Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom ordered Binance to cease all regulated activity in its territory in June 2021. That same year, Binance shared user information, including names and addresses, with the Russian government.
On November 21, 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to federal charges, admitting that it engaged in money laundering, operating a money transmission business without a license, and violations of sanctions, and agreed to pay nearly $4 billion in fines.
CEO Changpeng Zhao had previously founded Fusion Systems in 2005 in Shanghai; the company built high-frequency trading systems for brokers. In 2013, he joined Blockchain.info as the third member of the wallet team. He also worked at OKCoin as CTO for less than a year, a platform for trading between fiat and digital assets.
The company was founded in China but moved its servers and headquarters to Japan in anticipation of the Chinese government’s ban on cryptocurrency trading in September 2017. In March 2018, the company established its offices in Taiwan.
In January 2018, it achieved that its token (BNB) reached a market capitalization
