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Omid Malekan, an author and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, said that rather than harming consumers like the failed crypto exchange FTX, Binance expanded financial inclusion to underserved communities. Malekan said in a Nov. 22 post on X that Binance was more successful than many traditional financial institutions in expanding financial services to include underprivileged people.
"Unlike FTX—a company whose psychopathic leader was beloved by half the people in that press conference not that long ago—Binance didn’t abscond with user money. It did a reasonably decent job of onboarding tens of millions of poor, brown, and otherwise underprivileged people into the financial system, something the world’s compliant financial firms have chronically failed to do (which is OK—it’s not considered redlining when the AML department holds the pen). Binance's net contribution to a more inclusive financial system is something to be commended," said Malekan.
Binance reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Nov. 21, agreeing to pay $4.3 billion in penalties to resolve historical compliance issues, according to a DOJ press release. As part of the resolution, the company’s founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), agreed to step down from his role as CEO and pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program.
