According to Richard Teng, the CEO of Binance, it is premature to talk about the possibility of the company returning to the United States even with a pro-crypto president in office. This came a year after the exchange’s exit from the U.S. after it had to agree to a $4.3 billion deal to settle accusations of violating sanctions among other money-related illegal operations.
While speaking to Bloomberg TV on the 9th of December, Richard Teng replied rather straightforwardly: “We will go back to the question of entering the US market, but I think that’s a premature discussion.” He only remarked that he had no idea whether or not Binance would even consider launching its Binance USD (BUSD) stable coin again, or some other recent strategy they might have to re-enter the US market.
So far, Richard Teng has stressed that expanding Binance’s arms globally is the priority. The exchange hopes to increase the market share among institutions, sovereign funds and wealthy investors, who, according to Teng, are the current trends in investing in crypto.
Richard Teng Witholds Binance Plans with President-elect Donald Trump
When asked if Binance might lobby the incoming Trump administration, known for its crypto-friendly figures, to reduce the monitorship periods, CEO Richard Teng dismissed the idea. “That’s not up for discussion,” Richard Teng said.
Former CEO Zhao Changpeng left his position in November 2023 as Richard Teng became the new CEO. With the goal to shifting Binance’s focus onto compliance given that the US was at the brink of turnover in a case surrounding money laundering, he added that the firm can heavily soak its resources to invest into compliance and regulations to create more competitive advantages.
He has acknowledged the shortcomings of the past as well, back in December Binance had “compliance gaps” in its operations. Since then, he has been focused on ensuring the company is compliant in multiple jurisdictions.
While operating as an exchange, Binance US is crypto only, and is additionally ineligible for any transactions involving the United States dollar If we are to go around and look for the United States authorities, we’ll actually find that they’ve stated Binance, its US unit, and Zhao violated regulations and sold unregistered equities.
BTC reserve in China is ‘inevitable’ – Changpeng Zhao
Changpeng Zhao, former CEO of Binance, expressed his views on China using Bitcoin as a reserve during the Bitcoin MENA conference in Abu Dhabi on December 9. He went on to say that such reserves may first be created by smaller nations, though in the coming times, bigger nations such as China may also join in.
Zhao was however quick to stress that due to the in lack of transparency with which China operates much of its dealings, determining what position China will take on cryptocurrency will be rather challenging.
Many Countries Set to Build a Bitcoin Reserve
Donald Trump, who won’t be in office until the middle of 2021, made a surprise announcement on July’s virtual cryptocurrency conference where he said the US government will have, in the long term, a “strategic national stockpile for Bitcoin.”
This has been criticized, by a number of Bitcoin holders, as making only a select few wealthy. There idea is that the US government buys and holds on to one million coins leading to sufficient appreciation of the price.
Zhao on the other hand was on release ‘supervised’ from federal prisons last September after four months for failing to comply with US Anti Money Laundering regulations.
In Time, days after the news that he had quit as the Binance CEO in late 2023 he actually said that he will not be part of the running of the company at all. He is presumed to still be on parole and that does limit his business activity but there is potential for a spurious pardon by Trump after January 20 when he is inaugurated.
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