Though Teng’s short tenure as CEO has certainly accelerated Binance’s compliance efforts, the exchange began making an effort to be more compliant with regulators well before Zhao stepped down in November 2023. Tigran Gambaryan, Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, left the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2021 to join the exchange. Noah Perlman, Binance’s chief compliance officer, started in January 2023. In 2023, Binance increased its compliance spend by 36%.