The company and the brand
Binance.com is operated by Binance Holdings Limited, which the Office of Foreign Assets Control describes as "a Cayman Islands company". Other entities in the group operate other pieces, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's March 2023 complaint named Binance Holdings Limited, Binance Holdings (IE) Limited and Binance (Services) Holdings Limited together. The Justice Department dates the launch of the exchange to 2017 and names Changpeng Zhao as its founder and, until November 2023, its chief executive.
What it does
A custodial spot exchange with a large derivatives business attached. The Treasury Department put its share of centralised spot trading at an estimated 60 per cent in November 2023. The structure has been the recurring point of regulatory friction: a group of offshore entities serving customers everywhere, including in places where it was not registered to serve them.
On the record
On 21 November 2023 Binance Holdings Limited pleaded guilty in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington. The Justice Department states that the company pleaded to charges relating to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and agreed to forfeit USD 2,510,650,588 and pay a criminal fine of USD 1,805,475,575, a total of USD 4,316,126,163. The company also agreed to a three-year independent compliance monitor. Zhao pleaded guilty the same day to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering programme, and resigned as chief executive. The Department's clemency records show he was sentenced on 30 April 2024 to four months' imprisonment and a USD 50,000,000 fine, and that on 21 October 2025 he received a full and unconditional presidential pardon for that offence. The pardon covers him. It does not disturb the company's own conviction.
The Treasury Department announced parallel settlements the same day. FinCEN assessed a USD 3.4 billion civil money penalty and a five-year monitorship, and states that "Binance admits that it willfully failed to establish, implement, and maintain an effective anti-money laundering program". OFAC assessed USD 968,618,825 to settle 1,667,153 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programmes, and determined that they were egregious and were not voluntarily self-disclosed.
These are anti-money-laundering and sanctions matters. Binance has not been designated by a sanctions authority, and no court or regulator has made a finding of fraud against it. Listing here is not endorsement.