The Chopping Block: What Does Binance’s Record $4.3 Billion Settlement Mean for Crypto? - Ep. 573

11/23/23 • 62 min

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the gang breaks down the record $4.3 billion settlement between Binance and the U.S. government — whether it was fair, the chances CEO Changpeng Zhao will face any jail time, whether it was ultimately a good thing for Binance and for the U.S., and what this changes for the industry going forward. They also delve into the SEC’s lawsuit against Kraken, and the drama around Sam Altman’s firing from Open AI and what it says about corporate governance and crypto companies.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights:

the details of the settlement between Binance and the Department of Justice
how a core part of Binance’s business model was to allow bad actors on its platform, according to Robert
why Binance had to settle with the U.S. government even though it's not an American company
why Tom believes that the settlement represents a "very bad lesson"
whether U.S. market makers should be liable in cases like these
how the crypto community has reacted to the settlement
what the settlement means for the future of the crypto industry
whether the new SEC lawsuit against Kraken is just a “copy-and-paste” of its suit against Coinbase
The drama around Sam Altman’s removal from his role as CEO of OpenAI
Why Robert thinks that the OpenAI board was “silly and dumb”
What the problems at OpenAI say about its innovative governance structure