Zhao Changpeng's 4 stalks 'revealed' and was given a light sentence of 4 months. He will change the track and make a comeback

Comprehensive editor: Jordan, PANews

Partial reference: "New York Times"

On April 30, local time, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington was held During the hearing, Judge Richard Jones sentenced former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to four months in prison. At this point, the Changpeng Zhao case that attracted great attention both inside and outside the crypto industry was finally settled.

Why did Zhao Changpeng receive a very low sentence?

In fact, Changpeng Zhao and FTX founder SBF are very different, because neither Binance nor its founder Changpeng Zhao plundered customer funds. In addition, compared to SBF who did not hand himself over to the court but chose to conduct a stupid defense trial, Zhao Changpeng reached a plea agreement very early, agreeing to pay a fine of up to 4.3 billion US dollars and express regret.

During the 2.5-hour sentencing hearing, 47-year-old billionaire Changpeng Zhao was no longer an ordinary criminal defendant, but a philanthropist, do-gooder, first-time offender and A family man, he turned himself in and accepted whatever might happen. Zhao Changpeng's reputation as a "good guy" influenced the judge's final trial. Compared to the U.S. Department of Justice's strong recommendation to sentence Zhao Changpeng to three years in prison, the judge ultimately gave him a very light sentence of four months.

Judge Richard Jones said he read all 161 letters submitted because it was important to know who Changpeng Zhao was. He also mentioned that he had never seen so many letters, not just from family members, but also from Letters from people who have known Changpeng Zhao for a long time. Richard Jones pointed out that these letters portray a character driven by drive, passion and determination. Changpeng Zhao risked his entire net worth just to make Binance successful. The letter clearly shows that Changpeng Zhao is a dedicated family man and cites examples of Binance’s philanthropy.

In the end, Judge Richard Jones rejected the 36-month sentence recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice and sentenced Zhao Changpeng to four months in prison. The U.S. Probation Office will confirm the start time of Zhao Changpeng’s sentence. Zhao Changpeng said in court that he would Accept any day as the start of the sentence.

Compared with FTX founder SBF, Zhao Changpeng’s fate is obviously much better. After being accused of illegally using 8 billion US dollars of customer funds, SBF was found guilty of fraud and sentenced in March this year. 25 years in prison. In this regard, former US Securities and Exchange Commission official John Reed Stark said that a brief prison sentence of four months was a small price to pay for a billionaire like Zhao Changpeng.

Has Zhao Changpeng begun planning for his release from prison?

Zhao Changpeng was sentenced to four months in prison. This may be just a small episode in his life story, because long before the verdict was announced, Zhao Changpeng had already begun to establish a network of contacts across the United States to formulate his plans. next step.

After admitting to illegal money laundering in November 2023, Zhao Changpeng did not sit still and wait for death. Although he was unable to return to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Zhao Changpeng could still walk freely in the United States, which gave him a lot of time to travel throughout the United States and communicate with local people. Entrepreneurs make connections and lay the groundwork for next steps.

According to disclosed information, Zhao Changpeng enjoyed a home-cooked dinner with a former U.S. senator in Montana, visited Telluride, Colorado, and a resort in Utah. Importantly, Changpeng Zhao also met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Last month, Zhao Changpeng announced that he would launch a new project to promote online education. He also expressed interest in investing in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Two people familiar with the matter said that Zhao Changpeng and Sam As early as the end of last year Altman exchanged contact information and discussed the adjustments that startups encounter as they expand globally.

Informed sources revealed that Changpeng Zhao met with Sma Altman about a year ago, and the two contacted again during the leadership battle for OpenAI in November 2023. A month later, in December 2023, Changpeng Zhao had a hot pot meal with Gu Ronghui, a professor of computer science at Columbia University and co-founder of CertiK, in Los Angeles. Gu Ronghui confirmed in an interview that Changpeng Zhao had communicated with Sam Altman, and both of them had Believing that artificial intelligence will be of great help in realizing the development of technology and human knowledge (CertiK is a Web3 security company funded by Binance), Changpeng Zhao revealed that he is currently "looking for opportunities" to invest in large-scale data centers that support AI applications.

So far, Changpeng Zhao and representatives of OpenAi have refused to comment on their meeting with Sam Altman.

On the other hand, Changpeng Zhao revealed in a letter submitted to the court that he had also talked with a number of biotechnology startups in recent months and planned to make disease prevention the focus of the next chapter of his life. Work. Changpeng Zhao said: "I want to help fund small research laboratories with the goal of curing diseases once and for all and using blockchain technology to provide medical services to billions of people around the world."

In March of this year, Changpeng Zhao announced on the The document" stated that the platform will involve artificial intelligence and automation, as well as NFT digital collectibles. It is reported that Giggle Academy is not for profit, and Zhao Changpeng is recruiting a small team to work directly with him - which means that once Zhao Changpeng is released from prison, it will soon It might be possible to put in the work and it might even happen within a year.

How did the market react after Zhao Changpeng was sentenced to four months in prison?

During Zhao Changpeng’s hearing, BNB rose and is currently basically maintained in the $580 range. The decline narrowed to 2.8% in the past 24 hours as of press time.

On the other hand, cryptocurrency exchange Binance itself does not appear to be affected by the Changpeng Zhao trial. Coingecko data shows that Binance is still the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange at the time of writing. Therefore, the transaction volume in the past 24 hours exceeded 23 billion U.S. dollars, which is approximately 4.6 times the second-place Bybit’s transaction volume of approximately 5 billion U.S. dollars. In addition, the monthly visits to the Binance platform reached 101 million, which is approximately 2.5 times the 39.1 million platform visits of the second-placed Bybit.

With the verdict "the boot fell", Zhao Changpeng's case finally came to an end. Perhaps because of his special liking for the number "4", a four-month sentence seems to be an acceptable result for Zhao Changpeng and the wider encryption community. It can even be said to be a "good result."

After the verdict was announced, Zhao Changpeng’s wife He Yi only replied with two words on social media: “Got it.”, which means “get it” in Chinese – maybe , everyone understands.

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