Binance

Since emerging out of nowhere in 2017 to become the worldís biggest crypto exchange, Binance has remained number one through a mix of innovation and audacity. In recent years, though, Binanceís free-wheeling ways caught up to it. In 2023, the crypto exchange agreed to a landmark $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. government and saw its iconic founder Changpeng Zhao resign and serve a brief prison sentence.

Today, Binance is on more stable ground as its co-CEOs, Yi He and Richard Teng, have pledged to adopt a path of compliance and regulation. Despite a recent setback that saw the company accused of facilitating crypto flows to Iran, Binance has not lost its ability to move nimbly. In June, the company announced that it is giving its millions of offshore customers access to more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs and, more notably, the ability to tokenize many of those stocks on the companyís BNB blockchain.