Innovation, Regulation, and the Future of the Crypto Industry

Our industry has been growing by leaps and bounds these past few years, both from a technology adoption and new user perspective. When we launched Binance, we decided that it would be our unwavering commitment to users that would differentiate us in the market. As a result of that commitment, we have grown to become the largest crypto platform on the globe.

At Binance, we recognize what it means to be the industry leader versus simply being the largest player in the industry. We recognize the myriad responsibilities that are inherent in the former. In particular, we are committed to continue working with regulators across the globe to weed out bad actors and blaze a trail for the industry to grow and innovate in a responsible manner.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it has added a Russia-based entity, Suex OTC, to its Specially Designated Nationals list. Together with the details of the company, 25 cryptocurrency addresses were listed. Make no mistake — this is a positive development for the industry and the millions of innovators, consumers, and investors across the globe that contribute to blockchain’s growth each day. 

As we’ve discussed on this blog in the past, one of the risks to our industry’s trajectory is money connected to cyber attacks being laundered through nested services and exchanger accounts that try to hide inside macro VASPs, including exchanges like ours. Much like they have been for traditional financial institutions, these criminals are parasitic, feeding off reputable exchanges’ liquidity, diverse digital asset offerings and well-developed APIs. We recognized this threat previously and immediately further enhanced our approach to investigating potentially illicit activity through the use of AI and building a best-in-class internal investigative team. That team is staffed by some of the most accomplished investigators in law enforcement today, and we will have more announcements to share shortly. 

Based on a comprehensive audit by our investigative team, several accounts related to the addresses mentioned in the OFAC announcement were identified earlier this year and had appropriate action taken against them. We de-platformed these accounts based on internal safeguards. Information regarding the addresses in the announcement, as well as other information from our internal investigation was shared with the appropriate authorities and we continue to collaborate with law enforcement to cast sunlight on those threat actors that seek to abuse our platforms, such as Suex.

Suex is just the latest illicit entity that we’ve had to take proactive action against, previous efforts include the FANCYCAT operation and Bulletproof Exchanger Project which targeted so-called “bulletproof exchangers” like Suex.io and buy-bitcoins.pro. 

Binance will continue supporting law enforcement and regulators to ensure that those who violate the law will be brought to justice. Binance has dedicated all the appropriate resources to thwart those who attempt to abuse the platform or pose any risk to our users. As an industry, we must tackle this challenge head-on in partnership with law enforcement across the globe.