Wow. This is insane. I did not see that coming.
Are we sure that $4.3 billion is the correct figure and not typing error? Fincen is reporting on $3.4 billion, which is the highest settlement in US history:
FinCEN’s historic $3.4 billion settlement is the largest penalty in U.S. Treasury and FinCEN history.
Binance admits that it willfully operated as an unregistered money services business (MSB) while obscuring its ties to the U.S. and maintaining its most commercially important U.S. customers.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1925I have my doubts whether Binance will survive that. They already received severe beating from almost every side (I had to move my funds elsewhere due them no longer supporting GBP transactions). Media are already reporting that ~$1 billion of assets has left the platform after the news came out and it's not going to get any better anytime soon.
Unless the settlement allows the payment to be made in manageable chunks over a long period of time, I think this might be the end of Binance. Or maybe they'll just scale down, stay outside of the US sphere of influence and never pay that fee. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
"Binance encouraged U.S. users to obscure their location" - do we have any details on what exactly is this referring to? I find it hard to believe they were openly encouraging US customers to sign up.