According to Bloomberg, Binance is close to reaching an agreement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to ease its sanctions. What do we know?
Will Binance sign an agreement with the Department of Justice (DoJ)?
In November 2023, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) struck a major blow by prosecuting Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ). The case led to the exchange paying a $4.3 billion penalty, mainly due to negligence in its anti-money laundering program. For his part, CZ was forced to resign as CEO and served a four-month prison sentence in 2024, along with a lifetime ban from holding any position of responsibility at Binance.
In addition, the cryptocurrency exchange had to comply with increased oversight, with the obligation to maintain external compliance monitoring for a period of three years.
However, the United States has had a new president since this case, and a wave of cryptocurrency-friendly regulation has swept across the US with Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House.
According to Bloomberg, Binance is in the process of reaching an agreement with the DoJ that would allow it to shed its external oversight obligations sooner than expected.
For now, these rumors remain unconfirmed, but it’s worth remembering that last July, Bloomberg revealed that Binance had collaborated with World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the Trump family’s crypto initiative, to set up the USD1 stablecoin. We could therefore assume that this is a case of tit for tat, even if this is still only speculation.
At the same time, an observer on X noticed that CZ had changed his bio from “ex-binance” to “binance,” suggesting that he may have returned to work or is about to do so:
Of course, again, this is not sufficient proof, but it is further fuel for rumors of a possible agreement between Binance and the U.S. Department of Justice.
For now, we will have to wait and see whether or not this will materialize in the near future. In the meantime, the price of BNB crypto seems to be reacting favorably, with a 2.87% increase in 24 hours at the time of writing, reaching $954.
