Binance Holdings Ltd., branded Binance, is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao. It was initially based in China, then moved to Japan, subsequently left Japan for Malta, and currently has no official company headquarters. Binance has been the subject of lawsuits and challenges from regulatory authorities.[6] As a result, Binance has been banned from operating or ordered to cease operations in some countries, and has been issued fines. On 21 November 2023, Binance pled guilty to violating U.S. anti–money laundering rules and paid a $4.3 billion fine. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority ordered Binance to stop all regulated activity in the United Kingdom in June 2021.[7] In March 2025, Wall Street Journal uncovered that the company was in talks with the family of Donald Trump about business dealings. In August 2025, Wall Street Journal found that Binance was quietly administering a trading platform for the Trump family's World Liberty Financial.[8] The company paid lobbyists $800,000 to lobby for a pardon from Trump for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.[9] In October 2025, President Trump pardoned Zhao.[10][11]
History
2013–2017: company beginnings and move out of China
CEO Changpeng Zhao founded Fusion Systems in 2005 in Shanghai; the company built high-frequency trading systems for stockbrokers. In 2013, he joined Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet's team. He also worked at OKCoin as CTO for less than a year, a platform for spot trading between fiat and digital assets.[12] Zhao was hired at this position in 2014 by Yi He, with whom he co-founded Binance several years later.[13]
Binance was founded in 2017. The company raised about $15 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) that year to fund the launch of the exchange.[14] The company later moved its operations out of mainland China after Chinese regulators began cracking down on cryptocurrency trading in 2017.
Tokens
BNB
BNB (Build'N'Build) is a token on the BNB Smart Chain. It was originally called Binance Coin when it was launched in July 2017,[95] for users to pay fees on the company's platform. By 2021, BNB had the third highest market capitalization among cryptocurrencies.[96] The token was initially on the Ethereum network, then moved to BNB Smart Chain when it was released in September 2020.[97][98]
In February 2022, the company changed the token's name to Build'N'Build. At that time, Binance Smart Chain was also renamed to BNB Chain. BNB Chain had previously been criticized for being overly centralized, which had led to several exploits on the network.[95]
Legal status
Australia
On 6 April 2023, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission cancelled the Australian financial services licence held by Oztures Trading Pty Ltd trading as Binance Australia Derivatives (Binance).[111] On 18 May 2023, Binance Australia announced that it had lost access to Australia's PayID payment system "due to a decision made by our third party payment service provider". The same day, Westpac bank banned Australian customers transacting with Binance.[112][113]
Belgium
On June 23, 2023, Belgium's Financial Services and Markets Authority ordered Binance to “cease, with immediate effect, offering or providing any and all” virtual currency services in the country.
See also
- Bitfinex
- BTCC (company)
- Coinbase
- Kraken
- List of bitcoin companies
- List of cryptocurrency trading platforms
External links
References
- John Hyatt, Nina Bambysheva. The Wealthiest Person In Crypto Climbs Into World's 20 Richest Forbes, 5 April 2022^
- Tom Wilson, Angus Berwick. How Binance CEO and aides plotted to dodge regulators in U.S. and UK Reuters, 17 October 2022^
- James Clayton. Binance chief Changpeng Zhao pleads guilty to money laundering charges