According to people familiar with the situation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is allegedly looking to settle an ongoing investigation with Binance Holdings for a sizeable sum of money—more than $4 billion.
The long-running investigation’s conclusion could have a big influence on investors’ perceptions of the crypto market.
For Binance and the larger cryptocurrency market, the possible settlement comes at a crucial moment. The industry was disrupted last year when FTX, Binance’s former rival, filed for bankruptcy.
The crypto market is recovering despite these obstacles thanks to growing backing from conventional financial institutions.
Note that the DOJ probe is only one of several legal and regulatory problems that Binance, the biggest crypto exchange in the US, is currently dealing with.
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accused Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), of “willful evasion” of U.S. commodities law and filed a lawsuit against them in March.
The exchange was accused in the lawsuit of running a “sham” compliance program on an “illegal” platform.
To make things even more complicated, in June, the U.S. SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance and CZ, claiming that they planned a sophisticated scam to get around federal securities laws in the U.S.
Binance retorted that it would “vigorously defend” itself against the accusations made by the SEC.
