Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, says it expects to have 645 full-time compliance employees on staff by the end of the year — a 34% increase from last November — as it continues to rapidly build out its compliance department.
Including contractors, the crypto exchange already has over 1,000 employees focused on compliance, according to a Friday press statement from Binance.
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Binance’s intense focus on regulatory compliance is relatively new for the crypto exchange, which just one year ago, agreed to pay a massive $4.3 billion fine to various U.S. regulators for violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and knowingly allowing users to skirt international sanctions. As part of Binance’s settlement, founder and then-CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao agreed to step down as CEO and was sentenced to four months in prison for violating the BSA.
Richard Teng, a former regulator in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, took the helm at Binance after Zhao’s departure. He’s since been very vocal about turning the exchange into a model of regulatory compliance — something he sees as necessary to ensure the company is sustainable for the long term.
Though Teng’s short tenure as CEO has certainly accelerated Binance’s compliance efforts, the exchange began making an effort to be more compliant with regulators well before Zhao stepped down in November 2023. Tigran Gambaryan, Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, left the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2021 to join the exchange. Noah Perlman, Binance’s chief compliance officer, started in January 2023. In 2023, Binance increased its compliance spend by 36%.
“Our industry has entered a paradigm shift and new phase of maturation where regulatory compliance is an essential standard to user experience and protection, business success, and responsible growth,” Perlman said. “Binance has matured alongside regulators and other players throughout the years, and the continued growth of our compliance team and program are a testament to that and this shift in our industry which is set for strong sustainable growth.”
Some of Binance’s recent compliance hires include people with long careers in traditional finance and government.
Todd McElduff, Binance’s new enterprise compliance director, who will spearhead the exchange’s relationships with global law enforcement agencies, previously led the global financial crimes oversight division at PayPal. Before that, he was head of a financial crime division at Morgan Stanley.
Binance has also hired two special investigations specialists, Céline Inial for France and Caner Akyürek for Turkey, who both previously spent nearly 20 years in law enforcement in their respective countries.
“We are actively hiring for top compliance talent to strengthen our already industry-leading compliance program and team to match the demands of our rapidly maturing sector while global crypto adoption also grows rapidly,” Perlman said. “We are proud of leading the industry’s standards in protecting users and the growth of our compliance team ensures we continue to protect our global user base of over 240 million.”