💸 Binance Processed $346 Million for Bitzlato

Binance is in the news again. Last week, Bitzlato’s founder was arrested by U.S. authorities for allegedly running a “money laundering engine.” This week, news broke that Binance processed almost $346 billion in bitcoin for Bitzlato. Let’s take a closer look to see what this means for Binance.

• Back in January, the U.S. Justice Department said it charged Bitzlato’s co-founder with operating a money exchange business that processed over $700 million in illicit funds.
• Last week, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said that Binance was in the top 3 of Bitzlato’s counterparties (between May 2018 and September 2022).
• A Binance spokesperson said that they “provided substantial assistance” to international law enforcement to support the Bitzlato investigation.
• Is Binance in trouble? Currently, there is no [public] evidence that Binance broke any rules or laws when engaging in business. What authorities will check and turn their attention to are the compliance checks that Binance should have done on Bitzlato to see if everything was handled legally.

As crypto gains more traction, there will be more and more stories such as these that insinuate that crypto is doing more harm than good. It is important to remember, that illicit activity happens in all sectors. The main difference between crypto and other sectors is that crypto’s “receipts” are all public on the blockchain.