Cryptocurrency has been hailed as the financial revolution of our time, but with great power comes great responsibility—or in some cases, great criminal ingenuity. Tether (USDT), a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, has become a go-to tool for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels looking to launder millions of dollars, according to unsealed court records. Let’s unpack how a digital asset designed for transparency and stability found itself deep in the murky world of global narcotics.
Changpeng Zhao, commonly referred to as CZ, is the brains behind Binance, the world's premier cryptocurrency exchange. As of October 23, 2023, Forbes estimated his wealth at $10.2 billion. However, recent financial shifts, as reported by Bloomberg Billionaires Index, have seen his fortune decrease by $11.9 billion due to decreased trading volumes on Binance.
Changpeng Zhao, a/k/a CZ, the CEO and co-founder of the Binance exchange, recently shared insights on the upcoming Bitcoin (BTC) halving via a post on Binance Feed. Like many other crypto evangelists, CZ is optimistic that BTC halving could again trigger a new bull cycle.
Binance has recently announced to reimburse its users with $1 million USDT (Tether) due to an event involving the CyberConnect (CYBER) token. This reimbursement is intended to make amends to users who faced a pricing inconsistency with the CYBER tokens, a result of liquidity issues on the Korean crypto exchange, Upbit.
Reuters published an interesting report about the world's largest crypto platform Binance. According to the report, Binance processed transactions totaling at least $2.35 billion stemming from hacks, investment frauds, and illegal drug sales between 2017 and 2021. Allegedly, in 2019 Binance processed criminal funds totaling $770 million.
Binance is the largest crypto exchange by trading volume. Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in 2017. He is an experienced tech entrepreneur and founded Fusion Systems in 2005 in Shanghai; the company built high-frequency trading systems for stockbrokers. In 2013, he joined Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet's team and worked at OKCoin as CTO for less than a year.
The world's leading crypto exchange operator Binance has cleverly woven a global spider web of companies spanning regulatory regimes since its inception in 2017. Binance Group has so much money that it recently bought into Forbes's US financial magazine. The latest partnerships with Eqonex, Paysafe, or Checkout extend this powerful spider web. Binance founder Zhao Changpeng is the 18th richest person on the planet with just under $64 billion. Regulators are concerned about the Binance Spiderweb.
The stocks of the leading payment Paysafe (NYSE:PSFE) gained more than 17% following its fourth-quarter earnings, which beat analyst expectations. Paysafe is trading as Paysafe, NETELLER, Skrill, Rapid Transfer, and Skrill Money Transfer. The company booked revenue of $371.66 million, while analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated revenue of only $357.35 million.
Most recently, we have seen in Canada, which is a liberal country, how quickly governments can access bank accounts and crypto wallets and freeze the funds on them without the intervention of the courts. The government of Justin Trudeau has shown how critical decentralized cryptocurrencies without government control are. We advise not to hold your crypto funds in custodial wallets on online exchanges but in non-custodial wallets. Do not let Big Brother c