Binance’s billionaire founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao has resigned as a director of two Irish companies at the centre of a regulatory lawsuit in the US where he is accused of failing to supervise the group’s activities amid a slew of explosive allegations about its operations.

Mr Zhao – colloquially known as CZ – left his role as director of both Binance Services Holdings and Binance Holdings IE before the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed its landmark legal action against the crypto asset exchange at the end of March, documents filed this week with the Companies Registration Office (CRO) in Dublin reveal.