Waving goodbye-nance… The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, bade adieu to CEO Changpeng Zhao, who stepped down and pleaded guilty to money-laundering-related charges. Binance itself also pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $4.3B in fines. It’s a mega shakeup of the crypto world, but analysts cheered because it resolved one cloud of legal uncertainty that had hung over the biz. Still, there could be another storm brewing: the SEC’s accused Binance of mishandling customers’ $$, and the regulator wasn’t involved in last week’s settlement.
Pens on chains, unite… Tellers, wealth-management employees, and other workers at two Wells Fargo branches last week filed for what would be the first-ever union elections at a major US bank. The workers, who want higher wages and staffing levels, began the union campaign at America’s fourth-largest bank in 2021. 1K+ Wells Fargo employees across the US have signed on in support, and organizers say more elections could be on the way. Just ~1% of finance-sector employees were part of a union last year, compared to 10% of the full US workforce.