The Fall of (Another) Crypto King

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News, Business News

4.2 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Changpeng Zhao built Binance into the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and became one of the faces of crypto in the process. Last week, he appeared in federal court and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering laws and agreed to step down as CEO. WSJ’s Patricia Kowsmann explains what the deal means for Zhao, Binance, and the future of crypto itself. Further Listening: - The Trial of Crypto’s Golden Boy - A Crypto Exchange Crackdown - The Rise of Binance - And The Effort to Reel It In Further Reading: - Inside Binance’s Guilty Plea and the Biggest Fine in Crypto History - The World’s Biggest Crypto Firm Is Melting Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Chang'
0:05.2	Chang-Peng-Jao, also known as CZ, owns the world's biggest crypto exchange.
0:10.9	It's called Binance.
0:12.3	So CZ is the most important figure in crypto.
0:17.0	He created this exchange in 2017 that became the largest exchange in the world for crypto trading and people just you know see him as sort of a
0:30.7	a crypto god that's our colleague Patricia Kousman who's been writing about
0:34.8	CZ for years. He's not known, superknown outside crypto, but in the little big
0:40.4	world of crypto he's the king. In 2021 we traded 34 trillion US
0:47.9	equivalent of crypto. Can you repeat? Yeah so 34 trillion US dollars equivalent in crypto in 2021.
0:55.0	But now, CZ and Binance have pleaded guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws
1:01.2	and admitted to compliance issues in the past.
1:03.9	And CZ, the so-called king of crypto, is stepping down as CEO.
1:09.4	The Wall Street Journal reporting that the CEO of Binance and its founder, CZ, plans to step down and plead
1:14.8	guilty to violating US anti-money laundering requirements.
1:20.8	Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutzen.
1:26.0	It's Monday, November 27th.
1:29.0	Coming up on the show, the downfall of the crypto king. This podcast is brought to you by Meta for Work. It's not just SciFi anymore. Virtual and mixed reality are transforming how business works.
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