$4.3 billion settlement is one of the biggest settlements in the history of crypto.
I don't think people realise how serious that fee is. It's not "one of the biggest" but the biggest penalty, and not only in history of crypto, but in history of the treasury department. Google is not very helpful on this one, but I believe the previous highest fines were all below $1 billion.
This shows how hard they came on Binance, but also how serious the crypto industry has become, and I don't think the owners of the top crypto-businesses have been prepared for all this.
I wouldn't be surprised if CZ resigned just to see the end of it all and not risk a long time in prison. He still may be subject to investigation, but I imagine the settlement reached indicates the authorities are willing to drop the charges or at least go easy on him personally.
I wonder if this would ever happened if Binance made some big political donations like the FTX did.
Richard Teng is the new CEO of Binance and for sure, when things are run under the new management, we never know how they progress. If SEC stops chasing them, Binance may still come good out of this crisis but if the SEC regulations keep on tightening on binance then I am afraid Richard Teng won't be able to resist much.
I don't see them being allowed to freely compete in US or EU. That looked like a targeted action to remove the Chinese business from being on the top in favour of locally owned exchanges.