Ticker: Crypto exchange allowed money laundering, plea; Home sales at slowest pace in 13 years 

The government dealt a massive blow to the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance as its founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to a felony charge Tuesday related to his failure to prevent money laundering on his platform.

Binance also agreed to a roughly $4 billion settlement with the U.S. over violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and apparent violations of sanctions programs, including failure to put into place a suspicious transaction reporting programs. Zhao has stepped down as the company’s chief executive.

Over the summer, the company was accused of operating as an unregistered securities exchange and violating a slew of securities laws in a lawsuit from regulators. That case was similar to practices uncovered after the collapse of FTX, the second largest cryptocurrency exchange, last year.

“Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in part because of the crimes it committed — now it is paying one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

Home sales at slowest pace in 13 years

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slumped in October to their slowest pace in more than 13 years as surging mortgage rates and rising prices kept many prospective homebuyers on the sidelines.

Existing home sales fell 4.1% last month from September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.79 million, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. That’s weaker than the 3.90 million sales pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

The last time sales slumped this hard was in August 2010.

Sales sank 14.6% compared with the same month last year. They have fallen five months in a row, held back by climbing mortgage rates and a thin supply of properties on the market.