In the 16 months since the departure of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) from the post of its CEO, the crypto exchange has turned from a pariah into a trading platform loyal to the American administration.
In an interview with CNBC, the current head of Binance, Richard Teng, said that "the team of US President Donald Trump has carried out a fantastic reboot of the entire crypto industry."
At the end of 2023, Binance agreed to replace Changpeng Zhao (CZ) as head of the platform and pay a $4.3 billion fine to settle charges of money laundering and sanctions violations by the US Department of Justice. Zhao was sentenced to an additional fine of $50 million and a four-month prison term in the United States. He was released at the end of September 2024. Binance formally removed him from business management. Instead of CZ, Richard Teng took over the role of head of the crypto exchange.
Binance has been the largest exchange in the world for several years now, both in terms of trading volumes on the futures market, the spot market, and the number of active users.
As Teng noted, "at any given time, our global market share exceeds 40%, and the number of users has grown from 170 million to 265 million in just a year."
A few years ago, Binance carefully concealed its legal identity, trying to become a decentralized platform unlike other crypto exchanges.
In 2020, CZ compared Binance to the bitcoin blockchain, which does not and cannot have an office.
Five years later, in 2025, Binance turned into an organization accountable to the US authorities and governed by a board of directors. Although the exchange still does not provide services in the United States, the current head of Teng positively assessed the impact of the new administration's policy on the exchange.
"Now I report to the board of directors. We have a board of seven directors, including three independent directors and an independent chairman. We have benefited from all these changes," Teng said, noting that "Binance went through the repression of the former US administration, the so—called Choke Point 2.0, but now the US has a very cryptocurrency-friendly president."
Teng also noted regulatory progress in jurisdictions such as Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates: "We have received many proposals from governments around the world."
Operation Choke Point 2.0 is what participants in the crypto market call the policy of the previous US administration under President Joe Biden.
The essence of the problem lies in the fact that critical businesses often face difficulties in opening and maintaining bank accounts in the United States.
Over the past few years, under the leadership of cryptocurrency opponent Gary Gensler, the SEC has initiated numerous investigations into the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges and services. The reason for this was that some digital coins fall under the definition of securities, and therefore the commission has the authority to monitor the activities of crypto companies under securities laws.
Trump had previously promised that if he won the presidential election, he would "first of all" dismiss Gensler, who left his post on the day of Trump's inauguration. After that, starting in January, the termination of SEC proceedings and investigations against crypto companies followed one after another.
In addition to Binance, which, together with the SEC, filed a motion to suspend the trial for 60 days, the Coinbase exchange said that the regulator had agreed to withdraw the lawsuit against the company.
The regulator has also completed an investigation into broker Robinhood and its cryptocurrency business. A similar statement was made by the operator of the Uniswap decentralized exchange.
Earlier, the NFT marketplace OpenSea announced the closure of the SEC case. Proceedings have also been terminated against the Gemini crypto exchange.
Teng's interview took place against the background of information from The Wall Street Journal journalists that the family of US President Donald Trump is discussing the possibility of obtaining a stake in Binance.US is the American division of Binance.
The crypto exchange, in turn, conducted the largest investment round in the history of cryptocurrencies, receiving $2 billion from the MGX state investment fund from Abu Dhabi.
The WSJ wrote that several options for the structure of the deal are being discussed with the help of World Liberty Financial, a crypto project associated with the sons of the US president. According to the publication, the founder of Binance can thus seek a pardon and the removal of a criminal record.
No one else has confirmed this information, and CZ denies discussing the deal, calling the WSJ information "an attempt to create a story for reporting."
"It feels like the article was released as an attack on the president and cryptocurrencies. The residual forces of the "war on cryptocurrencies" of the previous administration are still active," Zhao wrote.
