Binance has gone on offense after a fresh round of stories alleged the exchange handled large crypto flows connected to sanctioned Iranian entities. Richard Teng is disputing the reporting outright, saying it is inaccurate, and Binance is pressing for retractions while preparing a compliance submission to the U.S. Justice Department.
The escalation unfolded quickly across Feb. 23–24, 2026, with multiple outlets publishing overlapping claims that intensified political attention in Washington. What started as a set of media allegations has now become a live regulatory and reputational event that desks and treasury teams have to treat as a short-term risk driver.
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
What triggered the dispute
The Wall Street Journal published a story describing internal investigators as tracing roughly $1 billion in transfers to Iran-linked sanctioned entities and suggesting staff who raised concerns were removed. The New York Times followed with related reporting that cited $1.7 billion moving from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities, while Fortune had already seeded the theme on Feb. 13 with claims about sanctions-linked activity and employee departures.
Binance’s response mixed legal escalation with public messaging. Through counsel at Withers Bergman, the exchange sent a letter to WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker on Feb. 23 demanding corrections and a full retraction, calling the article “false, seriously misleading to your readers, and defamatory.” A day later, Teng amplified the stance publicly on X, labeling the coverage inaccurate and defamatory and arguing Binance’s pre-publication responses were not fairly reflected.
Binance’s counter-claims and why they matter
To rebut the narrative, Binance pointed to internal metrics it says show a large reduction in sanctions-related exposure over time and a heavier compliance footprint than it had in earlier years. The company said exposure to sanctioned and high-risk jurisdictions fell about 97% since January 2024, dropping from 0.284% of total exchange volume to 0.009% by July 2025.
Binance also cited a decline in direct exposure to major Iranian exchanges—from $4.19 million in January 2024 to about $110,000 in January 2026—and emphasized scale on the compliance side, saying it now employs more than 1,500 people in compliance, roughly 25% of its workforce. Those figures are being positioned as Binance’s factual counterweight to the reporting’s headline claims.
On the personnel point, Binance rejected the idea of retaliation, saying employees referenced in the stories left voluntarily or were removed for breaches of data-protection and confidentiality rules, not for escalating sanctions concerns. That detail is not cosmetic: it goes to whether the exchange can credibly claim its internal escalation pathways work under pressure.
The regulatory heat is now real
The controversy is landing in a sensitive context, with Binance already carrying the legacy of its 2023 U.S. settlement and the $4.3 billion resolution that followed. Against that backdrop, Senator Richard Blumenthal opened a records-request inquiry on Feb. 24, and Binance said it would submit a detailed compliance report to the Justice Department on Feb. 25.
For traders and institutional treasuries, the practical risk is that scrutiny can translate into sudden changes in controls—tighter monitoring, account actions, or public statements that move sentiment and liquidity quickly. Even if the dispute remains unresolved in the media, the operational reality is that official inquiries and compliance submissions can create catalysts that markets respond to immediately.
What to watch next is procedural, not speculative: the contents and reception of Binance’s Justice Department submission, any follow-on requests from regulators, and whether the reporting outlets amend or stand by their claims. Those steps will determine whether this stays a reputational storm or becomes a deeper compliance event with market structure consequences.