Binance Sees Wave of Senior Compliance Staff Departures

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is reportedly losing its chief compliance officer.

Noah Perlman was hired after the company settled a criminal case with the U.S. government in 2023 and is now hoping to depart sometime this year or in 2027, Bloomberg News reported Monday (April 6), citing a source familiar with the matter.

The company told Bloomberg that Perlman—a former U.S. attorney—“has no exit date, no identified successor, and is fully committed to the work ahead.”

The report added that several other senior compliance staff have left Binance as well. Bloomberg cited an internal organization chart—viewed by the news outlet—which shows that those leaving include employees handling sanctions, investigations and financial crime monitoring.

Binance said these departures “reflect natural turnover and performance management” and that its commitment to compliance “remains fully intact” and that “reports from individual employees suggesting otherwise do not reflect the reality of our organization.”

Bloomberg noted that Binance is under scrutiny from both lawmakers and blockchain analysts due to indications that accounts linked to Iran used the platform to avoid U.S. sanctions.

One source told the news outlet that the Department of Justice has been investigating flows of crypto funds to Iran, though they did not specify which companies were involved. Binance said it is unaware of any investigation.

Binance and its co-founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain anti-money-laundering standards. Zhao, who later stepped down from the company, served a short jail term before being pardoned by President Donald Trump in October.

More recently, Binance and Zhao won a legal victory earlier this month when a federal judge dismissed a suit accusing the company and its founder of facilitating the transfer of funds to terrorist groups. The judge found that the plaintiffs in the case had not proven an association between Zhao and Binance and terrorist activity.

“This dismissal is a complete vindication of all false allegations,” Binance General Counsel Eleanor Hughes said in a news release after the ruling.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year that compliance had become the crypto sector’s “cost of doing business” as the industry evolves.

“For crypto firms, the operational implications of the growing compliance-first pivot are significant. Compliance teams must scale. Data systems must mature,” that report said. “Jurisdictional differences must be navigated with care. The cost of doing business will rise, particularly for smaller players. But so will the barriers to entry, which may ultimately reduce the prevalence of fly-by-night operators that have long plagued the industry’s reputation.”