Week in Review: Changpeng Zhao Steps Down as Binance CEO, Sam Altman Rejoins OpenAI

Bitcoin surpassed the $38,000 mark and reached a yearly high.

As of writing, the digital gold was trading at around $37,400.

The aggregate market capitalization of cryptocurrencies stands below $1.5 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index stands at 52.5%.

Binance to pay $4.3 billion in fines; Changpeng Zhao steps down as Binance CEO

On November 21 Binance settled claims with the U.S. Department of Justice. The bitcoin exchange agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines, and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) stepped down. His replacement is Richard Teng.

CZ will also personally pay a $50 million fine. He was barred from any involvement in the operations of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The court released Zhao on bail of $175 million. The Binance founder was allowed to leave the United States; he is a Canadian and a UAE national.

Prosecutors filed a motion for a travel ban on CZ from the United States until the verdict on February 23, 2024. Prosecutors consider flight risk “substantial”, given his vast wealth outside the United States and limited ties to the country. Zhao’s lawyers opposed the motion.

Analysts believe that Binance will remain among the largest crypto exchanges over the next two to three years, and the settlements with US authorities are a favorable outcome, despite the absence of inclusion of the SEC in them.

What to talk about with friends?

• A Netflix director, instead of filming a series bought Dogecoin and earned $27 million.
• An unknown paid $3.1 million in fees for a single Bitcoin transaction.
• Binance-listed BLUR — the token rose by 88% over the week.
• The Near Protocol token price doubled over the month.

Bitcoin advocate Javier Milei elected Argentina’s president

On November 21 libertarian Javier Milei won the presidential election in Argentina. He spoke of plans to ‘burn’ the central bank and ditch the peso in favour of the dollar to beat inflation.

Milei sees Bitcoin as ‘returning money to its original creator—the private sector’. He did not say he intends to adopt digital gold as legal tender in the country, as El Salvador and the Central African Republic have done.

OpenAI fired and reinstated CEO Sam Altman

On November 17 the AI company OpenAI announced the dismissal of CEO Sam Altman following an internal review. Major investors demanded his reinstatement to the post.

According to media reports, shortly before this, OpenAI researchers warned the board of a major AI breakthrough that ‘could threaten humanity’.

On November 22 the company announced Altman’s return. OpenAI will assemble a new board of directors to conduct an independent corporate investigation into the events.

Also on ForkLog:

• Bitcoin mining difficulty reached a new high.
• Jesse Powell criticised the SEC after Kraken’s lawsuit.
• The crypto exchange Bittrex Global announced its closure.
• P2P trading volume on the Bitcoin exchange CommEX reached 90 million rubles.

Blast raises $20 million; TVL of L2 project exceeds $500 million

The Blast project raised $20 million from Paradigm and Standard Crypto to create an ‘end-to-end L2 solution on Ethereum with native yields in ETH and stablecoins’ at around 4-5%.

Developers are preparing to launch the mainnet and native token, and the community has already begun hunting for an airdrop. In less than a week, total value locked in the protocol reached $532 million, according to DeFi Llama.

What else to read?

In the traditional digest, we collected the week’s main events in cybersecurity.

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting more institutional players. This is reflected in new investments in infrastructure, and in the increasing attention that companies pay to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in ForkLog’s overview.