• Despite nearly $2 billion in outflows, Binance still has a balance of $57.19 billion on its books.
• These outflows come after Changpeng Zhao plead guilty to money laundering charges in the US.
• The former CEO of Binance will be sentenced in February, but is out on a $175 million bond.

What a year this week has been for the tech sector. While OpenAI was doing the chief executive officer shuffle, the founder of Binance Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, pleaded guilty to money laundering charges and stepped down as CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange.

While this news may spook a bank’s customers, the damage this news has done to Binance’s reputation among customers is minimal. According to CoinDesk, outflows from Binance 24 hours after CZ’s admission and step down amounted to just over $950 million.

However, as we can see from data from Dune, since CoinDesk reports a total of $2 billion has left Binance’s borders. In comparison $1.76 billion has been deposited in the last 24 hours. In total Binance has a balance of $57.19 billion so it’s hardly struggling and there doesn’t appear to be a run on the exchange as of the time of writing.

While the number of withdrawals from the exchange is above average, the amount of total reserves means the volume isn’t significant. It also should be said that Binance now needs to exit the US market as part of its agreement with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and this may be why we’re seeing a minor exodus from the platform. We should highlight that Binance will continue to operate in other regions, at least for now.

The Binance native token, BNB has seen a decrease in value of more than eight percent according to CNBC.

As for CZ, he is currently out on bail after paying a $175 million bond. The now former CEO can also leave the US provided he returns 14-days before he is sentenced which is currently scheduled for 23rd February 2024.

The future of Binance is uncertain at this stage even though there is a new CEO in place. There are likely to be questions surrounding the exchange and fears about whether Binance will descend into mayhem as FTX did. This situation will undoubtedly give other exchanges an opportunity to capitalise on Binance’s problems.

What the future holds for Binance is unclear at this stage but given that yet another major exchange has fallen foul of lawmakers and regulators, we suspect that there will be greater scrutiny applied to cryptocurrency in general in the future.