Binance Reportedly Sought Looser Regulation From US Treasury

Binance has reportedly met with government officials to discuss relaxed regulation on the cryptocurrency exchange.

The meeting between the company and representatives of the Treasury Department happened last month, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported late Friday (April 11), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The meeting came while Binance was also exploring a business arrangement with a Trump family crypto venture, the sources added.

Some of those sources said Binance wants the Treasury to remove a government-appointed monitor who oversees the company’s compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Such a move would be the first step in returning Binance to the U.S. market following its 2023 guilty plea to AML violations.

Other sources said Biannce is also in talks to list a new stablecoin from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by President Donald Trump’s sons. That listing could open the coin to a vast new market — Binance has 250 million users — a potential multibillion-dollar payday for the Trump family.

Binance paid a record $4.3 billion fine for allowing bad actors to move billions through its exchange. It also removed all U.S. customers and agreed to report all suspicious transactions.

If the government agreed to relax its oversight of Binance, it would mark the latest in a series of moves designed to roll back earlier crypto enforcement efforts.

Last week saw a report that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was planning to limit its crypto-related investigations to focus on the use of digital assets in things like terrorism, drug trafficking and fraud.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a memo cited by Bloomberg News that this change is meant to leave crypto-related activities to regulators, a change from the Biden administration’s use of the Justice Department to pursue “regulation by prosecution.”

Meanwhile, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda said last month that the regulator has changed how it regulates digital assets.

“This approach of using notice-and-comment rulemaking or explaining the Commission’s thought process through releases — rather than through enforcement actions — should have been considered for classifying crypto assets under the federal securities laws,” Uyeda said during a roundtable centered on the regulation of digital assets.

One week later, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) issued new guidance saying that FDIC-supervised institutions can conduct crypto-related activities without prior FDIC approval, provided they adequately manage the associated risks.