The explosive growth and success of Binance outside of the control of the traditional financial and political establishment led to heavy-handed enforcement actions against the exchange, according to former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes.
Hayes delved into the recent $4.3 billion settlement paid out by Binance in a lengthy Substack post. This comes after the exchange and its founder, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, admitted violating United States laws around money laundering and terror financing.
As Hayes highlights, CZ’s global exchange became the largest by trading volume in the six years since its inception in 2017. The former BitMEX CEO points out that Binance would also be rated in the top 10 traditional exchanges by average daily volume, which is indicative of its growing influence on a global scale.
“The problem for the financial and political establishment was that the intermediaries facilitating flows into and out of the industrial revolution named blockchain were not run by members of their class,” Hayes opined.
Binance challenged the status quo
The former BitMEX CEO, who himself fell foul of violating U.S. Bank Secrecy Act regulations after the exchange failed to implement adequate Know Your Customer procedures, highlighted Binance’s role in allowing everyday people to own intermediaries and cryptocurrency assets without needing traditional players.
“Never before had people been able to own a piece of an industrial revolution in under 10 minutes via desktop and mobile trading apps.”
Hayes added that from a fundamental standpoint, centralized exchanges use tools of the state, such as the company and legal structures to “disintermediate the very institutions that were supposed to run the global financial and political system.”
“How dearly did CZ pay? CZ — and by extension, Binance — paid the largest corporate fine in Pax Americana history.”
Hayes then refers to several high-profile mainstream banking scandals, as well as the 2008 global financial crisis and subsequent recession, which was directly attributed to the collapse of the U.S. housing market.
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In most of these instances, mainstream banking and financial institutions were largely absolved or held to limited accountability. On the flip side, CZ and Binance were hammered hard by the U.S. Department of Justice:
“Obviously, the treatment of CZ and Binance is absurd and only highlights the arbitrary nature of punishment at the hands of the state.”
Hayes then delves deeply into the intricacies of the current state of the U.S. and Chinese economies and how the latter could drive massive capital inflows to Bitcoin (BTC) in the next few years.
Capital making its way from China to Bitcoin
The former BitMEX CEO suggests that Chinese state-owned enterprises, manufacturers and investors are set to begin investing capital offshore due to a lack of attractive returns locally.
Quoting Peking University professor and former Bear Stearns trader Michael Pettis, Hayes writes that China cannot profitably absorb more debt because investments do not yield returns that exceed the debt’s interest rate.
“It gets punted in the financial markets instead. Capital, by which I mean digital fiat credit money, is globally fungible. If China is printing yuan, it will make its way into the global markets and support the prices of all types of risk assets,” Hayes explains.
Hong Kong’s recent approval of a handful of licensed cryptocurrency exchanges and brokers means that Chinese companies and individual investors have the means to purchase Bitcoin.
Given that China was once a powerhouse Bitcoin mining nation, Hayes suggests that many Chinese investors are well acquainted with the asset and its “promise as a store of value,” stating:
“If there is a way to legally move cash from the Mainland to Hong Kong, Bitcoin will be one of many risk assets that will be purchased.”
From a macro perspective, Hayes outlines an argument for China to increase the availability and affordability of Chinese yuan-based credit locally. This, in effect, may lead to the price of U.S. dollar-based credit falling, given that Chinese companies have an affordable domestic option.
“Given that the dollar is the world’s largest funding currency, if the price of credit falls, all fixed supply assets like Bitcoin and gold will rise in dollar fiat price terms.”
Hayes adds that the “fungible nature of global fiat credit” will lead to dollars flowing into hard monetary assets like Bitcoin.
Brazil’s central bank completed rules that bring crypto companies under banking-style oversight, classifying stablecoin transactions and certain self-custody wallet transfers as foreign-exchange operations.
Under Resolutions 519, 520 and 521, published Monday, the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) established operational standards and authorization procedures for what it calls Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Ativos Virtuais (SPSAVs), a new category of licensed virtual-asset service providers operating in the country.
The framework extends existing rules on consumer protection, transparency and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) to crypto brokers, custodians and intermediaries.
The rules will take effect on Feb. 2, 2026, with mandatory reporting for capital-market and cross-border operations set to begin on May 4, 2026.
Stablecoins under foreign exchange rules
Under Resolution 521, a purchase, sale or exchange of fiat-pegged virtual assets, including international transfers or payments using such assets, will be treated as foreign-exchange (FX) operations.
With this classification, stablecoin activity will be subject to the same scrutiny as cross-border remittances or currency trades.
Licensed FX institutions and the new SPSAVs will be able to perform these operations, subject to documentation and value limitations. According to the BCB, transactions with unlicensed foreign counterparts will be capped at $100,000 per transfer.
The rules also cover transfers to and from self-custodied wallets when intermediated by a service provider. This means that providers must identify the wallet’s owner and maintain their processes that verify the origin and destination of the assets, even if the transfer itself isn’t cross-border.
This provision extends AML and transparency obligations to areas previously considered outside the scope of regulated finance.
While the rules don’t explicitly ban self-custody, they close a key reporting gap, forcing regulated exchanges and brokers to treat wallet interactions like formal FX operations.
BCB says the goal is to promote efficiency and legal certainty
In the announcement, the BCB said its goal is to ensure “greater efficiency and legal certainty,” prevent regulatory arbitrage and align crypto activities with the country’s balance-of-payments (BoP) statistics, which means making stablecoin transfers visible in official financial data.
The move follows months of public consultation and growing concern from the central bank on the dominance of stablecoin use in Brazil. On Feb. 7, BCB President Gabriel Galipolo said that around 90% of crypto activity in Brazil involved stablecoins, mainly used for payments.
Galipolo said the widespread use of stablecoins in payments presented regulatory and oversight challenges, particularly in areas such as money laundering and taxation.
Brazil’s central bank said the new framework aims to curb scams and illicit activity while providing legal clarity to crypto markets.
For crypto builders, this may raise compliance costs and reshape how local platforms interact with global liquidity. Smaller crypto players will be forced to compete with bigger institutions and meet more stringent banking-grade standards.
The rules will take effect in February 2026, but market participants are expected to start restructuring before then.
For Brazil, where crypto activity is second only to Argentina in Latin America, the new regulations signal a decisive shift from experimentation to integrated oversight.
The new rules show that crypto is welcome in the Brazilian financial ecosystem, but it will have to play by the same rules as fiat money.
Institutional investors are maintaining confidence in digital assets despite a sharp market correction in October, with most planning to expand their exposure in the months ahead, according to new research.
Over 61% of institutions plan to increase their cryptocurrency investments, while 55% hold a bullish short-term outlook, Swiss crypto banking group Sygnum said in a report released on Tuesday. The survey covered 1,000 institutional investors globally.
Roughly 73% of surveyed institutions are investing in crypto due to expectations of higher future returns, despite the industry still recovering from the record $20 billion market crash at the beginning of October.
However, investor sentiment continues facing uncertainty due to delays in key market catalysts, including the Market Structure bill and the approval of more altcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
While this uncertainty may carry over into 2026, Sygnum’s lead crypto asset ecosystem researcher, Lucas Schweiger, predicts a maturing digital asset market, where institutions seek diversified exposure with long-term growth expectations.
“The story of 2025 is one of measured risk, pending regulatory decisions and powerful demand catalysts against a backdrop of fiscal and geopolitical pressures,” he said, adding:
“But investors are now better informed. Discipline has tempered exuberance, but not conviction, in the market’s long-term growth trajectory.”
Despite October’s correction, “powerful demand catalysts” and institutional participation remained at an all-time high, with the growing ETF applications signaling more institutional demand, added Schweiger.
Crypto staking ETFs may be the next institutional catalyst
Crypto staking ETFs may present the next fundamental catalyst for institutional cryptocurrency demand.
Over 80% of the surveyed institutions expressed interest in crypto ETFs beyond Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), while 70% stated that they would start investing or increase their investments if these ETFs offered staking rewards.
Staking means locking your tokens into a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network for a predetermined period to secure the network and earn passive income in exchange.
Meanwhile, investors are now anticipating the end of the government shutdown, which could bring “bulk approvals” for altcoin ETFs from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, catalyzing the “next wave of institutional flows,” according to Sygnum.
Rachel Reeves has signalled she is going to break her manifesto tax pledges at the budget – and has given her strongest indication yet she will lift the two-child benefit cap.
The chancellor said the world has changed in the year since the last budget, when she reiterated Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise national insurance, VAT or income tax on “working people”.
“It would, of course, be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments, but that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending,” she told BBC 5Live.
“I have been very clear that we are looking at both taxes and spending,” she added.
The chancellor also gave her strongest indication yet she will lift the two-child benefit cap at the budget on 26 November, saying it is not right a child is “penalised because they are in a bigger family”.
Ms Reeves blamed poor productivity and growth over the last few years on the previous government “always taking the easy option to cut investment in rail and road projects, in energy projects and digital infrastructure”.
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She said she promised during the election campaign to “bring stability back to our economy”.
Image: Ms Reeves, here with US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in London in September, blamed tariffs for poor growth. Pic: PA
‘I’ll always do what’s right for UK’
“What I can promise now is I will always do what I think is right for our country, not the easy choice, but the thing that I think is necessary,” she added.
The chancellor blamed the UK’s lack of growth under her tenure on global conflicts, trade and tariffs over the past year.
In a dig at Donald Trump, who has imposed wide-ranging tariffs on countries around the world, she said: “The tariffs. I don’t think anyone could have foreseen when this government was elected last year that we were going to see these big increases in global tariffs and barriers to trade.
“And I have to be chancellor in the world as it is not necessarily the world as I would like it to be. But I have to respond to those challenges, and that’s the responsible thing to do.”
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‘Shameful’ that 4.5m children in poverty
‘Children should not be penalised’
The government has, so far, resisted lifting the two-child benefit cap, which means a family can only claim child benefits for the first two children.
But, it is a contentious subject within Labour, with seven of its MPs suspended two weeks after the election for voting to scrap it, while others are aware it will cost £2.8bn to do so.
She said she saw Mr Brown at Remembrance Sunday, where they “had a good chat and we’ve emailed each other just today”, as she revealed they speak regularly.
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Labour’s child benefit cap dilemma
Ms Reeves added Mr Brown and Sir Tony Blair were big heroes of hers because they did so much to lift children out of poverty – the reason she went into politics.
Pushed on whether she would lift the cap, she said: “I don’t think that it’s right that a child is penalised because they are in a bigger family, through no fault of their own. So we will take action on child poverty.”
The latest YouGov polling found 59% of the public are in favour of keeping the cap in place, and only 26% thought it should be abolished.
Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “Rachel Reeves has borrowed, spent and taxed like there’s no tomorrow – and she’s coming back for more because she doesn’t have a plan or the strength to stand up to Labour’s backbenchers, who are now calling the shots.
“My message is clear: if Rachel Reeves reduces government spending – including the welfare bill, she doesn’t need to raise taxes again. “