According to a report by Securities Times on September 21, there are rumors that Zhao Changpeng, the former richest Chinese and founder of Binance, is about to be released from prison. The reporter confirmed the news from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The reporter learned from the official website of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons that Zhao Changpeng's current location has been updated to the Long Beach Residential Reentry Management (RRM) in central California. This means that he is undergoing preparation and assessment before returning to society. If everything goes well, he will return to society on September 29.
The so-called "Residential Reintegration Administration", also known as the "halfway house", mainly acts as a local liaison between the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the federal courts, the U.S. Marshals Service, state and local correctional institutions, and signs contracts with federal prisons to provide necessary help and support to prisoners who are about to be released to ensure that they can smoothly transition into social life. This may include providing a safe, organized, and supervised environment, providing employment training, psychological counseling, housing arrangements, financial management and other services.
During Zhao Changpeng's imprisonment, Bitcoin fluctuated by more than $20,000. In April this year, when Zhao Changpeng was imprisoned, Bitcoin reached $71,000, and then entered a period of sharp fluctuations, and once fell below $50,000. The latest price is $63,192.
Previously sentenced to 4 months in prison, I said: I am sorry
According to Jiemian News, on April 30 this year, Zhao Changpeng was sentenced to four months in prison in the United States.
Earlier, U.S. prosecutors said in a court document on April 23 local time that Zhao Changpeng should serve 36 months in prison after admitting to violating anti-money laundering laws. Zhao Changpeng resigned as CEO of Binance in November last year, when he admitted to the violation and the company agreed to accept a fine of $4.32 billion.
On November 21, 2023, local time, in Seattle, the United States, Zhao Changpeng left the Seattle court. Image source: Visual China
“You had the ability, financial resources and manpower to ensure compliance with every regulation, and you missed that opportunity,” U.S. District Judge Richard Jones told Zhao in federal court in Seattle.
The sentence for the former head of Binance fell well short of the three-year prison term sought by federal prosecutors. The defense had asked for five months of probation. Sentencing guidelines would have put his sentence at 12 to 18 months.
“I’m sorry,” Zhao Changpeng told the judge before the sentencing, according to foreign media reports. “I think the first step to taking responsibility is to fully recognize your mistakes,” Zhao Changpeng reportedly said in court earlier on Tuesday. “Here, I failed to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program… I now realize the seriousness of this mistake.”
His net worth is still over 230 billion yuan, making him the 50th richest person in the world
Zhao Changpeng was born in Lianyungang, Jiangsu in 1977. When he was 12 years old, he moved to Vancouver, Canada with his family and became a Chinese Canadian. During college, he studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal. In 1997, Zhao Changpeng graduated from college and entered the financial technology industry. He first became a software developer for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and then went to New York to work for Bloomberg, participating in the development of futures trading software. At the age of 27, Zhao Changpeng, known as a programming wizard, became the company's team leader in New Jersey, London and Tokyo.
In 2005, Zhao Changpeng founded Fuxun Information (developing the fastest high-frequency trading system for securities companies) and Bijie Technology in Shanghai, earning his first pot of gold. In 2013, he learned about Bitcoin from a poker friend and began to set foot in this field. In 2017, Zhao Changpeng and his team founded Binance and issued the digital currency "Binance Coin" (BNB). The name of Binance in English is based on the combination of the words binary and finance. It provides transactions for more than 150 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and its BNB token. From September to December 2017, the price of Bitcoin soared from US$3,000 to US$20,000. People began to scramble to enter the cryptocurrency exchange. Binance developed rapidly, with more than one million registered users in three months.
Just half a year after its establishment, Binance attracted 6 million users with a transaction capacity of 1.4 million times per second, with a daily transaction volume of more than 10 billion US dollars, soaring to the first place in the industry and becoming the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, while also creating a new myth in the cryptocurrency industry. In the first quarter of 2018, Binance made a profit of 200 million US dollars. By 2021, Binance had 3,000 employees worldwide, with a daily transaction volume of up to 76 billion US dollars, more than its four largest competitors combined. At that time, Binance's valuation had reached 300 billion US dollars. Binance is not listed and has not directly disclosed the company's profits. However, at the time, some media estimated that in the third quarter of 2021 alone, the company's profits reached 3.2 billion US dollars, equivalent to 20.3 billion yuan.
It is reported that Zhao Changpeng controls most of Binance's shares. According to Forbes data, founder Zhao Changpeng owns 30% of Binance shares. At the end of 2021, against the backdrop of a surge in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Zhao Changpeng became the richest Chinese with a net worth of US$94.1 billion (approximately RMB 634.8 billion), and also ranked among the top ten richest people in the world. However, six months later, virtual currencies such as Bitcoin plummeted, and Zhao Changpeng's wealth once shrank by more than 80% to US$17.4 billion.
In 2023, as the price of Bitcoin rebounded, Zhao Changpeng's wealth soared, far exceeding the fine that Binance agreed to pay to the US authorities. According to the "2024 Forbes Global Billionaires List" released on April 3 this year, Zhao Changpeng ranked 50th with a net worth of US$33 billion (approximately RMB 239 billion).
