The World’s Biggest Crypto Firm Is Melting Down

After FTX crashed, the world of crypto seemed to belong to the largest exchange, Binance. Less than a year later, Binance is the one in distress.

Under threat of enforcement actions by U.S. agencies, Binance’s empire is quaking. Over the past three months, more than a dozen senior executives have left, and the exchange has laid off at least 1,500 employees this year to cut costs and prepare for a decline in business. And while Binance still looms large in crypto, its dominance is dwindling.

Binance now handles about half of all trades where cryptocurrencies are directly bought and sold, down from about 70% at the start of the year, according to data provider Kaiko.

What happens to Binance will have immense implications for the crypto industry because the exchange is so big. Industry players and watchers say other exchanges would fill the void if Binance were to collapse. But in the short term, liquidity in the market could evaporate, driving the price of tokens sharply down.

One institutional trader told The Wall Street Journal that his company has conducted fire drills to withdraw its assets from Binance quickly in the event of a meltdown.

Yi He, Binance’s co-founder and chief marketing officer, vowed to overcome the troubles in a message to Binance staff last month.

“Every battle is a do-or-die situation, and the only thing that can defeat us is ourselves,” she wrote in the message viewed by the Journal. “We have won countless times, and we need to win this time as well.”

Binance is a frequent investor in third-party crypto projects and beyond. Binance has invested in X, formerly known as Twitter. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao—or CZ as his 8.6 million X followers know him—is the biggest face of crypto.

“You just can’t quantify what would happen to the industry if Binance disappeared, given it has been responsible for fostering a huge amount of innovation and growth,” said Anthony Georgiades, a general partner at Innovating Capital, a fund that invests in early-growth companies.

The U.S. Justice Department has undergone a years long investigation that could result in criminal charges for Binance and Zhao as well as billions of dollars of fines, according to people familiar with the probe.

Binance also faces a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that alleges it and Zhao operated illegally in the U.S. and misused customers’ funds. The firm has acknowledged past mistakes but says customer money is safe and it is committed to compliance.

“We have worked tirelessly not just to learn the lessons of the past, but also to continue to invest in the teams and systems that ensure user protection,” a spokesman said.

Binance launched in China in 2017, though it claims to be based nowhere, with staff scattered around the world. Its global website is accessible by traders almost everywhere, but that number is falling as its presence has been forbidden in many countries. In Europe, more countries are shutting their doors to the exchange.

In the U.S., activity at its local exchange, Binance.US, has basically dissipated. Its chief executive officer, legal chief and risk head all left recently.

In a virtual Binance.US meeting days before his departure earlier this month, Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder said revenue at the exchange had fallen 70% year to date, according to a presentation viewed by the Journal. Executives looked on with dismay.

Shroder told employees Zhao would need to resolve “his regulatory matters, put his .US holdings in a blind trust, or sell his shares” in order for the U.S. platform to maintain its growth initiative. Those steps would allow the company to unblock banking relationships and get licenses, he said. Zhao is the majority owner of Binance.US and the global exchange.

A spokeswoman for Binance.US declined to comment.

Binance and the DOJ have been talking for months, according to people familiar with the discussions, and inside Binance, there have been discussions on whether Zhao should step down.

Zhao’s insistence in remaining at the helm of the company has frustrated some executives who believed him leaving would improve the chances of the company surviving, the Journal previously reported.

The company upheaval has also hurt employee morale.

Employees confronted Zhao in a summer meeting following layoffs, according to messages viewed by the Journal, in a rare showing of criticism.

“Some ppl laid off were given 0 days notice and/or found out they got laid off because they couldn’t login to the system anymore. How is that treating them respectfully? Is 2 weeks severance respectful?” one anonymous employee asked Zhao in the all-hands meeting chat. Nine others upvoted that. The question went unanswered.

A further stumbling block for Binance came in late August, when the Journal published an article on Binance customers’ use of sanctioned Russian banks. The DOJ has also been investigating Binance in connection with possible violations of U.S. sanctions on Russia, the Journal has reported.

Following the Journal story, the Justice Department questioned Binance about the banks’ usage, and Binance’s chief compliance officer, Noah Perlman, met with department officials to discuss their concerns, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Pressure from the DOJ was partly responsible for Zhao’s decision to begin winding down Binance’s business in Russia, once one of its most important markets, the person said. Over the following two weeks, Binance barred customers from using the sanctioned banks and forced out the executives managing its Russia business. It said it was considering a full withdrawal from Russia.

Zhao publicly remained defiant. “We are one community,” he wrote on X on the day the Russia executives left. “Keep building!”

But behind closed doors, Zhao has been bringing new lawyers to handle the DOJ case, according to people familiar with the move. And Zhao has been staying put in his home in the United Arab Emirates, which doesn’t have a mutual extradition treaty with the U.S.

LIKE MARVEL VILLAINS, most fashion writers have origin stories. Mine began with a navy nylon Prada purse, salvaged from a Boston thrift store when I was a teen in the 1990s. Scuffed with black streaks and sagging, it was terribly beat-up. But I saw it as a golden ticket to a future, chicer self. No longer a screechy suburban theatre kid, I would revamp myself as sophisticated, arch, even aloof. The bag, I reasoned, would lead the way.

That fall, I slung it against my shoulder like a shotgun and marched into school, where a girl far more interesting than I was called out, “Hey, cool bag.” After feigning apathy —“I don’t know, you could use a Sharpie on a lunch bag and it would look the same”—we became friends. She introduced me to a former classmate who worked at a magazine. That woman helped me get an internship, which led to a job.

Twenty years later, I still wonder how big of a role that Prada purse played in my future—and whether designer bags can function as a silent partner in our success. Branded luxury bags took off in 1957, when Grace Kelly posed with an Hermès bag in Life magazine. (Hermès renamed that bag “the Kelly” in 1973.) The term “status bag” was popularised in 1990 by Gaile Robinson in the Los Angeles Times, describing any purse that projects social or economic power. Not surprisingly, these accessories are costly. Kelly bags cost over $10,000; ditto Chanel’s 11.22 handbag. Some bags by Louis Vuitton and Dior command similar price points. The cost isn’t repelling customers—both brands reported revenue surges in 2023. But isn’t there something dusty about the idea that a branded bag carries meaning along with your phone and wallet? How much status can a status bag deliver in 2024?

Quite a lot, said Daniel Langer, a business professor at Pepperdine University and the CEO of Équité, a Swiss luxury consulting firm. Beginning in 2007, Langer showed a series of photo portraits to hundreds of people across Europe, Asia and the U.S., then asked them 60 questions. Those pictured carrying a luxury handbag were seen as “more attractive, more intelligent, more interesting,” he said. The conclusion was “so ridiculous” to Langer that he repeated the studies several times over the next decade and a half. The results were always the same: “Purchasing a ‘status bag’ will prepare you to be more successful in your social actions. That is the data.”

Intrigued, I gathered various Very Important Purses—I borrowed some from friends, and others from brands—to see if they could elevate my station with the same unspoken oomph as a “Pride and Prejudice” suitor.

First, I took Alaïa’s Le Teckel bag—a narrow purse resembling an elegant flute case and carried by actress Margot Robbie—to New York’s Carlyle Hotel on a Saturday night. The line for the famous Bemelmans Bar stretched to the fire exit. “Can I get a table right away?” I asked the host, holding out my bag like a passport before an international flight. “It’s very busy,” he said in hushed tones. “But come sit. A table should open soon.” I sank into one of the Carlyle’s lush red sofas and sipped a martini while waiting—a much nicer way to kill 30 minutes than slumped against a lobby wall.

Wondering if this was a one-time thing, I called up Desta, the mononymous “culture director” (read: gatekeeper) who has worked for Manhattan celebrity hide-outs like Chapel Bar and Boom, the Standard Hotel bar that hosts the Met Gala’s official after party. “Sure, we pay attention to bags,” he said. “Not too long ago at Veronika,” the Park Avenue restaurant where Desta also steered the social ship, “we had one table left. A woman had a Saint Laurent bag from the Hedi Era,” he said, referencing Hedi Slimane , the brand’s revered designer from 2012 to 2016. “I said, ‘Give her the table. She appreciates style. She’ll appreciate this place.’”

Some say a status bag can open professional doors, too. Cleo Capital founder Sarah Kunst, who lives between San Francisco and London, notes that in private-equity circles, these accessories can act as a quick head-nod in introductory situations. Kunst says that especially as a Black woman, she found a designer bag to be “almost like armour” at the beginning of her career. “You put it on, and if you’re walking into a work event or a happy hour where you need to network, it can help you fit in immediately.” She cites Chanel flap bags made from the brand’s signature quilted leather and stamped with a double-C logo as an industry favourite. “People love to talk about them. They’ll say, ‘Ohhh, I love your bag,’ in a low voice.” They talk to you, said Kunst, “like you’re a tiger.”

For high-stakes jobs that rely on commissions—sports agents or sales reps, for instance—a fancy handbag can help establish credibility. “It says, ‘I’m succeeding at my job,’” said Mary Bonnet, vice president of the Oppenheim Group, the California real-estate firm at the centre of Netflix reality show “Selling Sunset.” As a new real-estate agent in her 20s, Bonnet brought a fake designer bag to a meeting. To her horror, a potential buyer had the real thing. “I work in an industry where trust is important, and there I was being inauthentic. That was a real lesson.” Now Bonnet rotates several (real) Saint Laurent and Chanel bags, but notes that a super-expensive purse could alienate some clients. “I don’t think I’d walk into [some client homes] with a giant Hermès bag.”

Hermès bags are supposedly the apex predator of purses. But I didn’t feel invincible when I strapped a Kelly bag around my chest like a pebbled-leather ammo belt. The dun-brown purse cost $11,800, a sum that prompted my boyfriend to ask if I needed a bodyguard. Shaking with “is this insured?” anxiety, I walked into a showing for an $8.5 million apartment steps from Central Park. I made it through the door but was soon stopped by a gruff real-estate agent asking if I had an appointment. No, but I had an Hermès bag? Alas, it wasn’t enough. The gleaming black door closed in my face.

“What went wrong?” I asked Dafna Goor, a London Business School professor who studies the psychology behind luxury purchases. “You felt nervous,” she replied. “That always makes others uncomfortable, especially in a high stakes situation,” like an open house with jittery agents. Goor said recognisable bags from Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior are also often faked, which can lead to suspicion if not paired with “other signals of wealth.”

“You can’t just treat a bag as a backstage pass,” said Jess Graves, who runs the shopping Substack the Love List. Graves says bags are more of a secret code shared between potential connections. “I’ve been in line for coffee and a woman will see my Margaux [from the Row] and go, ‘Oh, I know that bag.’ Then we’ll chat.” Graves moved from Atlanta to Manhattan in 2023, and says she’s made some new, local friends thanks to these “bag chats.”

I had my own bag chat that night, when I brought Khaite’s Olivia—a slim crescent of shiny maroon leather—to a house party thrown by a rock star I’d never met. In fact I knew hardly any guests, but as I stood in the kitchen, a woman in vintage Chanel pointed to my bag and asked, “How did you get that colour? It’s sold out!” Before I could tell her my name, she told me the make and model of my purse. Then she laughed about her ex-boss, a tech billionaire, and encouraged me to buy some cryptocurrency. The token I picked surged nearly 30% in about a week. Now I was onto something—a status bag that might bring not just status, but an actual market return.

Thanks to their prominence on social media, certain bags have gained favour among Gen Zers. “TikTok and Instagram make some luxury items even more visible and more desirable to young people,” said Goor. I experienced this firsthand on a stormy Saturday morning, when a girl in a college hoodie pointed at my Miu Miu Wander bag as I puddle-hopped through downtown New York. The piglet-pink purse is a TikTok favourite seen on young stars like Sydney Sweeney and Hailey Bieber. “Your bag is everything!” yelled the girl from the crosswalk. “Thanks, can I have your umbrella?” I shouted back. She laughed and left. My Wander had made a splash—but it couldn’t keep me dry. I ran to the subway, soaked. The bag looked even better wet.

Changing the Status Bag Quo

Everyone loves an ingénue—fashion insiders included. Perhaps that’s why at Paris Fashion Week in September, newer handbags from Bottega Veneta and Loewe jostled for space and street-style flashbulbs.

“These bags, especially ones by independent labels like Khaite, are quieter signals of cultural access,” explained Goor. “Everyone knows what an Hermès Kelly bag is. So now there need to be new signals” beyond traditional status bags to convey power.

Sasha Bikoff Cooper, a Manhattan interior designer, says there’s a less cynical explanation for why these bags have captured celebrity fans—and more important, paying customers. “They’re fresh and also beautiful,” she said. “Hermès is always classic. It’s like a first love. But you want newness, too.”

The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets.

The World’s Biggest Crypto Firm Is Melting Down

‘Every battle is a do-or-die situation,’ Binance co-founder Yi He writes

Some designer handbags like the Hermès Kelly have implied power. But can a purse alone really get you a restaurant table—or even a job?

Changing the Status Bag Quo