Nov 22 Reuters Investors pulled about 956 million from crypto exchange Binance over the past 24 hours, market data showed, after its chief, Changpeng Zhao, stepped down and faced prison time after pleading guilty on Tuesday to settle a yearslong U.S. illicit finance probe.

The deal, in which Binance will pay 4.3 billion to U.S. authorities, raises questions over the future of the world39;s largest crypto exchange and marks another blow for an industry beset by scandals. Zhao has been replaced by Richard Teng, a senior Binance executive who joined in 2021, the company said.

It remained unclear on Wednesday how much jail time, if any, Zhao would ultimately serve, and how much influence he as Binance39;s founder and major shareholder could continue to exert on Binance under the terms of the settlement.

Some analysts also noted that the deal was unlikely to end the exchange39;s U.S. legal woes, with Securities and Exchange Commission charges alleging Binance broke U.S. securities laws still unresolved.

Binance is not entirely out of the woods. The ongoing civil lawsuit with the SEC remains a concern for the exchange, which is likely to result in further fines, wrote Robert Le, a crypto analyst at data firm PitchBook.

Data from crypto analytics platform Nansen, which does not include bitcoin flows, signaled some investors had been rattled by the news, pulling 956 million from the exchange. Still, the outflows were small relative to the more than 65 billion of assets…