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Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, today agreed to pay the U.S. government $4.3 billion to settle charges for breaking sanctions and money transmitting laws.

At the same time, Binance Chief Executive Changpeng “CZ” Zhao plans to step down and plead guilty to criminal charges in a bid to allow the company to continue operating in the U.S. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Zhao plans to appear before a Seattle court this afternoon and enter a plea, according to court documents unsealed today.

Zhao also agreed to pay a criminal fine of $50 million, court records show, an amount that could be reduced based on separate civil penalties he has agreed to pay to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. He will plead guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, causing a financial institution to violate the BSA, knowing failing to register as a money transmitter and willfully violating the Emergency Economic Powers Act.

According to the terms of the plea, Zhao will be prohibited from any involvement in the present or future in operating Binance for the next three years. Binance itself will have to appoint an independent compliance monitor for the next three years and report its own compliance efforts to the U.S. government along with the fines.

Update: Zhao posted on X, formerly Twitter, that he has officially stepped down from his position as CEO and announced that Richard Teng, formerly global head of regional markets, will become CEO of Binance. “Richard is a highly qualified leader and, with over three decades of financial services and regulatory experience,” Zhao said. “[H]e will navigate the company through its next period of growth. He will ensure Binance delivers on our next phase of security, transparency, compliance, and growth.”

In a press conference, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said that the $4.3 billion settlement taken from Binance was the largest criminal fine assessed against an organization by the U.S. representing a watershed moment. He added that throughout the investigation, the company had failed to follow U.S. law.

Although it had said that its overseas exchange Binance.com would not interact with U.S. citizens, the company failed to block U.S. users and continued to maintain connections and hide its interactions. He also outlined that the company failed to comply with U.S. anti-money-laundering laws and allowed illegal transmission of funds between users and sanctioned jurisdictions.

This is yet another crypto victory for the U.S. coming just weeks after the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and former CEO of now defunct FTX Trading Ltd., on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy charges in federal court.

“In just the past month, the Justice Department has successfully prosecuted the CEOs of two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges in two separate criminal cases,” said Garland. “The message here should be clear: Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disruptor, it makes you a criminal.”

Although this brings investigations into Binance to a close for the DOJ, it does not affect an ongoing lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued Binance and Zhao in June alleging that the exchange securities laws. According to the SEC lawsuit, Zhao and Binance, alongside BAM Trading Services Inc., engaged in deceptive practices, failed to register as securities brokers and operated an unregistered clearing house.

This comes at a time when the U.S. continues to crack down on crypto operations, as the SEC also filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken on Monday, accusing it of operating as a securities exchange without first registering with the regulator.

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