TL;DR
- Binance disputes WSJ report on $1.7 billion in crypto tied to Iran sanctions.
- CEO Richard Teng demands a retraction, citing ignored answers and recycled claims.
- Binance cites a 96.8% drop in sanctions exposure and 1,500 compliance staff.
Few public disputes between a major crypto exchange and a mainstream financial outlet have escalated as quickly as the one now playing out between Binance and the Wall Street Journal. On February 23, 2026, CEO Richard Teng stepped forward to formally contest a WSJ piece that attributed $1.7 billion in crypto activity to entities operating under Iranian sanctions. Binance didn’t stop at a press statement — the exchange sent a legal letter to the publication demanding both corrections and a full retraction.
The article in question accused Binance of breaching Iranian sanctions and claimed the exchange pushed out employees who raised internal alarms about suspicious fund flows. Teng rejected both charges and described the reporting as built on recycled claims from former staff rather than verified facts.
Recently there has been inaccurate reporting about our compliance program.
The Wall Street Journal published defamatory claims, and despite our efforts to set the record straight, the journalist failed to acknowledge any of our corrections on the allegations. We have sent the… pic.twitter.com/rgl7KrwqUL
— Richard Teng (@_RichardTeng) February 24, 2026
He added that the exchange had answered 19 detailed pre-publication questions from the WSJ reporter, and that none of those answers made it into the final piece. Former CEO Changpeng Zhao had already gone public with similar pushback the week before.
Binance’s position on the staff dismissals rests on a specific counter-narrative: the employees in question left following internal reviews connected to breaches of data protection and confidentiality obligations.
Numbers Binance Uses to Counter the Narrative
Defending its record with data rather than rhetoric, Binance pointed to a 96.8% drop in sanctions-related exposure between January 2024 and July 2025 — from 0.284% of total platform volume down to 0.009%. Direct exposure to four Iranian crypto exchanges fell from $4.19 million to $110,000 over roughly the same period, a decline the company pegs at more than 97%.
More than 1,500 people carry compliance responsibilities at Binance as of early 2026, accounting for about a quarter of the entire global workforce. Of those, 593 hold full-time positions inside the dedicated Compliance unit, and 978 others support related functions across separate departments.
Binance reports investing hundreds of millions of dollars into personnel and systems over recent years, and currently holds licenses or authorizations in 20 jurisdictions, including a recent approval under the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority.
Two accounts at the center of the WSJ report drew a specific response from Binance
The company says neither account appeared on any sanctions list at the time, and neither set off alerts from the monitoring tools the exchange ran during that period.
Binance says it opened formal investigations in mid-2025 after law enforcement provided information, ultimately closing both accounts and handing relevant data to authorities. Teng called the outcome evidence that the system worked as designed.
One technical reality shapes how Binance — and every public blockchain exchange — handles scenarios like the one described. Anyone can send funds to a deposit address on a public chain without the platform’s advance consent.
Pre-transaction blocking isn’t feasible in the same way it is in traditional banking. Exchanges instead depend on real-time surveillance, post-receipt controls, and cooperation with regulators to catch exposure after the fact.
Binance continues to press for corrections. Whether the WSJ moves on the retraction request remains to be seen, but the exchange has made clear it doesn’t plan to let the story stand without a documented fight.
