Recent events surrounding the crypto exchange Binance sparked significant debate about the United States’ crackdown on crypto firms. According to Omid Malekan, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and author, the Department of Justice’s approach in the case is very different from what is seen in traditional finance.
“People who sincerely believe that crypto is some unique enabler of bad people doing bad things don’t understand how the rest of the financial system actually works,” Malekan wrote on X (formerly Twitter), adding that companies that follow Anti-Money Laundering best practices still process large sums of illicit funds. “But that’s all considered OK because somebody did the paperwork.”
Malekan also argued that many on Wall Street would be jailed if traditional firms were given the same treatment as Binance in similar cases.
“If they’d been held to the Binance Standard there’d be hundreds of managing directors in jail and less money for shareholder buybacks (or lobbying). But the bankers were smart enough to never question the game.”
Despite criticism, Malekan believes the exchange was still “wrong to lie to its customers and wrong for not being compliant.” Binance and its co-founder, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, recently reached a billionaire settlement with the U.S. government for allegedly allowing individuals engaged in illicit activities to move “stolen funds” through the exchange. CZ stepped down as CEO as part of the settlement.
Malekan also praised Binance’s contribution to financial inclusion over the past few years:
“It did a reasonably decent job of onboarding tens of millions of poor, brown, and otherwise underprivileged people into the financial system, something the world’s compliant financial firms have chronically failed to do.”
ICIJ investigation into global money laundering
Some of the world’s largest banks allowed trillions of dollars to be laundered by criminals, according to leaked documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The investigation, disclosed on Sept. 2020, analyzed over 2,100 suspicious activity reports (SARs) involving transactions worth more than $2 trillion between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged as potential money laundering or criminal activity by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers. Banks facilitating these transactions included major institutions such as the Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC.
The ICIJ organized more than 400 journalists from 110 news organizations in 88 countries to investigate banks potentially involved in money laundering.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.