Former Binance CEO CZ Case Sees Unexpected Turn: Details

Chinese cryptocurrency blogger Colin Wu has published a tweet, sharing news about the founder of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its former CEO.

Changpeng Zhao (known to the whole crypto community simply as CZ) was forced to step down from his leading position on charges of money laundering in the US. For his cooperation with the court and Binance paying a $4.3 billion fine, he was sentenced just to four months in prison. The sentence was made on April 30 this year.

The day when CZ was expected to leave prison was August 30. Now, unless his situation changes, that will not happen so soon.

CZ likely to stay in prison longer, here’s why

Colin Wu cited an article by Protos, which stated that unless any significant alterations arise in CZ’s current situation, he will walk out of the FCI Lompoc II low-security prison (FCI standing for “Federal Correctional Institution”) in Seattle month later than expected – on September 29.

Protos: Unless CZ’s situation changes, he won’t be leaving FCI Lompoc II on August 30. Rather, his current release date is scheduled for September 29. CZ is in Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc II, a low-security federal prison three hours north of Los Angeles.…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 26, 2024

The thing here is that CZ’s lawyers from a major law companies Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Davis Wright Tremaine, and Latham & Watkins initially announced that they would try to get CZ extra several weeks of freedom. However, Changpeng Zhao did not start serving his short time on April 30 as was planned.

He eventually went to prison at the end of May, almost a month later. CZ has become the richest person to ever do a jail time in the US. Initially, the prosecutors insisted on him getting a three-year prison sentence but the judge reduced that to just four months eventually.

CZ’s most recent business ventures and plans

After CZ resigned as Binance boss in November last year, he first announced his plans to try and combine crypto and biotech. However, later he rejected that idea and started developing an online school called “Giggle Academy” where he planned to give free educational courses to children and teenagers in a playful form, using modern tech.

One of the projects CZ worked on in this project was teaching English. After the sentence was announced in April, the former Binance boss teased on X that he might write a book since he would be getting some free time coming up to him.

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