Binance expects to pay fines to settle U.S. regulators' probes - report

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, expects to pay monetary policies to settle U.S. regulatory and law enforcement investigations of its business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an interview with the company's chief strategy officer. When Binance started it was run by software engineers without knowledge of laws that deal with bribery, corruption, money laundering, and economic sanctions, Patrick Hillman told the WSJ . While it's striving to address the early shortfalls in it compliance efforts, the company still expects regulators will impose fines for past conduct, he said. The firm is "working with regulators to figure out what are the remediations we have to got through now to make amends for that," he said Wednesday. He expects the result will be "likely a fine, could be more... We just don't know. That is for regulators to decide." Binance, which has no global headquarters, started in China in 2017 by CEO Changpeng Zhao. Its executive team, including CZ as he is called, has spent time in Japan after China banned crypto, and with it crypto exchanges. Currently, Binance isn't available to U.S. traders, Hillman said. As crypto has become a bigger business and attracted more traders and investors, regulators have taken notice. The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Binance for potential violations of U.S. anti-money-laundering law, the WSJ said, citing people familiar with the matter. In addition, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is looking into whether the company is offering crypto derivatives to U.S. clients without properly registering the activity, the people said. Earlier this week, the New York Department of Financial Services said Paxos Trust Company, the stablecoin issuer behind Binance's stablecoin ( BUSD-USD ), failed to safely administe r the token. Paxos had been ordered by the NYDFS to stop issuing new dollar-pegged BUSD tokens starting Feb. 12. In January, the Washington Post reported that U.S. prosecutors subpoenaed hedge funds with ties to Binance.