Binance's CZ and the End of the 'Borderless' Crypto Company

We probably will never see another company quite like Binance. Crypto itself might be borderless, but crypto companies are not beyond the reach of US law.

Tuesday marks the end of an era. Binance's Changpeng Zhao stepped down and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering requirements, despite the fact that Binance was never a U.S. exchange. With that, the myth of “borderless” crypto companies is truly over.

To be sure, this is not the first time that U.S. law enforcement nailed a crypto exchange that was not officially in the country. The same thing happened with FTX. But no company exemplified the “borderless” myth more than Binance, which will also pay a $4.3 billion dollar fine to settle an investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice.