In 2023, BTC led the cryptocurrency industry out of the winter with a growth rate of over 160%. However, for Binance, the world's largest trading platform, this was a challenging year.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have reached a resolution with Binance regarding historical registration, compliance, and sanctions issues. Binance founder CZ announced his resignation as CEO and paid a total fine of $4.3 billion.

Despite this, the incident did not have a significant impact on Binance. Within 24 hours of the incident, Nansen statistics showed that the net outflow of ETH was $956 million. Meanwhile, Binance's holdings increased from $64.6 billion to $65.2 billion.

In 2023, Binance did not stop its pace of innovation and development without being affected.

Compliance: Binance's New Transformation

Binance neglected compliance in the early stages of the industry's rapid development and growth, but began its journey towards global compliance in 2022.

From 2022 to present, Binance has successively obtained the fourth category license in Bahrain, the virtual asset (VA) trading platform license with comprehensive regulation in Dubai, cryptocurrency regulatory licenses in the first and second largest cities in the United Arab Emirates, registered licenses in France and Italy, virtual asset service provider (VASP) qualification from the Central Bank of Spain, financial service provider qualification in New Zealand, and registration license for cryptocurrency asset service providers in Cyprus.

It is reported that Binance's investment in compliance in 2023 increased by 35% year-on-year, reaching $213 million, and has embedded more than 10 electronic identity (eID) solutions worldwide, with support for 75 types of identity documents added. In the future, Binance will continue to invest in KYC suppliers and product solutions.

According to public information, the Binance investigation team handled over 53,000 law enforcement requests in 2023, actively assisting law enforcement agencies in resolving national security-related issues in various countries around the world. At the same time, they also held more than 120 training courses for law enforcement agencies in various regions to further investigate network and financial crimes.

Chainalysis' Asia-Pacific investigation and special project manager, Alec Zebrick, has stated that the scale of ransomware crimes increased by 10.3% in 2023, while the scale of scams and hacking crimes related to virtual assets decreased by 45.2% and 23.5%, respectively.

There is no lack of credit to Binance in this regard. In April of this year, Binance provided support to the FBI and the Department of Justice in investigating the "Ponzi scheme" cryptocurrency investment fraud case and seized $120 million worth of cryptocurrency.

In addition, Binance's newly appointed CEO Richard Teng also has extensive compliance experience.

During Richard Teng's tenure as Chief Financial Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore from 1994 to 2007, he led the development and management of the Securities and Futures Act, as well as the regulatory framework for real estate investment trusts, business trusts, and trust companies. He also oversaw the Singapore Code on Takeovers and Mergers, which regulates takeover and merger transactions in Singapore. From 2007 to 2015, Teng served as the Chief Regulatory Officer of the Singapore Exchange (SGX), leading the regulatory team responsible for policy, framework, and rule-making in the areas of listing, trading, and clearing, as well as regulatory solutions for new products and services.

From 2015 to 2021, Teng served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority at Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) in the Abu Dhabi International Free Trade Zone, helping ADGM develop from a newly established financial center to one with nearly 2,700 registered licenses and over 150 approved financial institutions. Forbes has named ADGM the "Best International Financial Centre in the Middle East and North Africa" for four consecutive years.

When taking over as CEO, Richard Teng also stated in a public statement that he will leverage his 30 years of experience in financial services and regulatory fields to focus on collaborating with regulatory agencies to maintain high standards that promote innovation and provide important consumer protection on a global scale.

Empowering the Industry, Focusing on Investment and Education

In the cryptocurrency industry that advocates decentralization and transparency, platforms that arbitrarily use user assets for speculative trading will cause FUD among users and lead to a devastating blow to the industry. Under the scrutiny of multiple departments in the United States, no misappropriation of user funds or market manipulation behavior has been found in Binance.

Binance launched the Merkel Tree Proof of Reserves (PoR) in 2022 to prove its ability to pay out user assets. In 2023, Binance added 9 new tokens to its PoR, bringing the total to 31. The latest reserve proof shows that the Binance wallet balances for all 31 tokens exceed the net balances of its customers. Among them, the net values of BTC, ETH, BNB, and USDT are 23,370, 255,262, 2,826,622, and 3,103,580,289 respectively, with a total value of over $5.6 billion.

In addition to increasing transparency, Binance has also increased investment in the industry and promoted industry education.

Messari report shows that in the first half of 2023, Binance Labs was the most active investment institution, with a total of 17 investments, of which 14 were led by them, far exceeding other institutions.

Source: Messari

In Q3 2023, Binance Labs continued to increase its investment and made 23 investments, more than twice the number of Robot Ventures, which ranked second. Among them, 12 investments were made in projects participating in its accelerator program. Binance Labs focuses on investing in the DeFi and gaming sectors. In 2023, Binance Labs' investment in DeFi accounted for 36% of all investments.

Source: Messari

According to incomplete statistics, Binance Labs currently manages over $10 billion in assets and has more than 250 portfolio companies in 25 countries.

Education is one of the biggest focuses for Binance, aside from investment. Binance Academy has helped 27 million learners in 31 languages to improve their understanding of the digital financial world since 2023. Additionally, Binance Academy has conducted global university tours in 45 countries, with over 10,000 students learning about and studying blockchain. Since its launch, Binance Academy has helped over 39 million users learn about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

与现实世界的紧密融合

translates to

Close Integration with the Real World

With the hot market of the encryption industry, the number of users participating in the industry has exploded. Binance's registered users increased by 30% YoY in 2023, with a total of over 170 million users, the highest in the industry. The creator community of Binance Square, which upgraded from Binance Feed, grew by 816% YoY, with a 71% increase in daily active users, contributing a large amount of high-quality content to the industry.

The growing number of users is a testament to Binance's continuous efforts in building the integration of Web3 into the real world.

Binance Pay and Binance Card are non-contact cryptocurrency payment technology and cryptocurrency debit cards launched by Binance to promote the landing of cryptocurrencies in the payment field. Since 2022, the active users of Binance Pay have increased by more than 20%. In addition, Binance has also cooperated with third-party banks to launch the world's first cryptocurrency tripartite agreement. The landing of this agreement helps to connect the traditional financial market with the cryptocurrency market.

For Binance, 2023 is a turbulent year. Despite the bumps along the way, it does not hinder its forward development and it continues to demonstrate its contribution and leadership in the cryptocurrency industry. On one hand, Binance continues to adhere to compliance and increase transparency, increasing its investment in compliance and maintaining good communication and cooperation with regulatory agencies and partners around the world. On the other hand, it delves deeper into the industry, increasing its investment in industry projects, as well as increasing its investment in Web3 education and integration with the real world.

2024 is destined to be a more magnificent year. The ETFs of BTC and ETH are about to be launched, and BTC is about to undergo its fourth halving, indicating that the cryptocurrency market will not be calm. Meanwhile, Binance, established in 2017, will also celebrate its 7th anniversary.

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