Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao — who played a prominent role in the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange last year — will plead guilty to money laundering charges, step down from the company and pay a $50 million fine. Zhao will also pay a $150 million penalty to the CFTC, while Samuel Lim, the company’s former chief compliance officer, has agreed to a $1.5 million penalty to the agency, according to the authorities.

“Binance turned a blind eye to its legal obligations in the pursuit of profit. Its willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. In prepared remarks, Yellen said groups like Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and ISIS had all used Binance to conduct transactions. …

Under the terms of the settlement, Binance will also enter into a monitorship and undertake new compliance efforts, including “to ensure Binance’s complete exit from the United States,” the Treasury Department said. The monitor — a first for the crypto market — will give Treasury access to Binance’s books and records for five years.

[It took us this long to figure that out? Or was the Biden administration too focused on appeasing Iran to seriously probe the financing behind their proxies? At least it warranted a regulatory death penalty, which may or may not include its smaller Binance.US subsidiary. One has to assume, though, that Binance has had enough time to scrub its books of those connections. And one has to wonder how other crypto markets will react to a federal monitor on the blockchain at this scale. — Ed]