The Binance chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, has resigned after pleading guilty to money laundering violations.

“I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility. This is best for our community, for Binance, and for myself”, he said in a post on X.

The Justice Department said it was requiring Binance, the largest crypto-exchange in the world, to pay $4.3bn (£3.4bn) in penalties and forfeitures.

It said Binance had helped users bypass sanctions across the world.

“Binance enabled nearly $900 million in transactions between US and Iranian users, and facilitated millions of dollars in transactions between US users and users in Syria, and in the Russian occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk”, a spokesperson said.