Analysis shows sanction-linked wallets amassed major stablecoin balances, underscoring compliance challenges industrywide.
Binance has reported a reduction in its exposure to sanctioned entities, citing a 97% decline since January 2024.
The announcement follows accusations of sanctions violations and claims that investigators were dismissed for raising compliance concerns.
Binance Outperforms Global Peers
Recent reports from Fortune claimed that several investigators were terminated after flagging over $1 billion in transactions linked to Iranian counterparties, primarily involving Tether’s USDT on the Tron blockchain over 18 months.
In addition to the investigators’ terminations, the report indicated that during the last three months, at least four senior compliance employees have been let go or pushed out.
Separately, blockchain analytics platform Elliptic noted in January that wallets tied to the Central Bank of Iran had accumulated more than $500 million in USDT, indicating a growing reliance on stablecoins to bypass banking restrictions.
In response, Binance outlined its compliance measures in a blog post, describing its program as the “best-in-class” and continuously strengthening. Data shared by the exchange shows that sanctions-related exposure as a percentage of total exchange volume fell from 0.284% in January 2024 to 0.009% by July 2025, representing a 96.8% decline.
Direct connection to the four largest Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges also dropped by 97.3% over the period, from $4.19 million to approximately $0.11 million, surpassing ten major global exchange peers in risk reduction. In 2025 alone, the firm says it processed over 71,000 requests from authorities and supported more than $131 million in confiscations.
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These developments come as Binance continues to operate under compliance reforms agreed to during its settlement with U.S. authorities, after the exchange pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering and sanctions violations, paying $4.3 billion in penalties.
Binance Denies Allegations
According to Binance, the recent reporting on its sanctions compliance status is based on incomplete and mischaracterized information that does not reflect the full record.
The company shared that the two entities referenced in the reports underwent structured internal reviews, which confirmed they were not on any sanctions lists while using the platform and that their transactions did not trigger alerts from industry-standard monitoring tools.
Binance added that as soon as new information was discovered, it went on to activate its compliance protocols and took appropriate action.
The exchange also denied accusations that it had dismissed investigation staff for working on these cases, clarifying that some relevant employees departed after an internal review found breaches of company data protection and confidentiality guidelines.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also dismissed the claims on social media, stating,
“You can put a negative narrative on anything by talking to an ‘anonymous source’ who is ‘unhappy’ or paid to FUD.”
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