Binance

Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, launched Binance in Shanghai in the summer of 2017, funding it with a token of its own, BNB. A few months later China banned crypto trading and the company moved – to Japan, to Malta, and then effectively nowhere. Being stateless was a feature: with no home country, no regulator felt it was their problem.

That lasted until 2023, when Binance admitted to violating US anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules and agreed to pay $4.3 billion. CZ stepped down and served four months in prison. The exchange itself survived, which says something about how big it had become. It had already lost 7,000 bitcoin in 2019, lifted from its hot wallet – the one connected to the internet.