The Block: Binance CEO warns colleagues 'crypto winter' isn't over: Bloomberg

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao warned colleagues at the world's biggest crypto exchange that the proverbial "crypto winter" isn't over, and the months ahead won't be easy, according to Bloomberg.

“While we expect the next several months to be bumpy, we will get past this challenging period — and we’ll be stronger for having been through it,” Bloomberg reported the executive as saying in an internal memo.

Zhao — who often goes simply by his initials, CZ — blamed the collapse of high-profile competitor FTX for adding "a lot of extra scrutiny and tough questions" on Binance. On Tuesday, a U.S. grand jury charged former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried with committing or conspiring to commit fraud on FTX’s customers and lenders, as well as money laundering. He was reportedly denied bail and remanded to the custody of the Bahamas Department of Corrections.

Also on Tuesday, Binance experienced a record amount of bitcoin and ether withdrawals as uncertainty surrounding the liquidity of centralized exchanges grows. The outflows caused a temporary USD Coin withdrawal freeze, though CZ largely dismissed concerns that the exchange has liquidity issues.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department continues to consider charging Binance for possible money laundering and criminal sanctions violations, Reuters reported on Monday.

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

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