Changpeng Zhao, or ‘CZ’ as most people know him, is about to get out of prison in 13 days. He’s set to be released on September 29, after serving a four-month sentence.
CZ went to jail on April 30 when he pleaded guilty to breaking U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
The whole thing started after the Department of Justice investigated Binance and found that the exchange wasn’t doing a good job at stopping illegal activities like money laundering, cybercrime, and sanctions violations from happening on their platform.
In November 2023, CZ and Binance both admitted guilt to several charges. To settle with U.S. authorities, Binance agreed to pay over $4.3 billion in fines.
Initially, CZ was looking at a three-year prison sentence, but thanks to his lawyers, who argued he wasn’t directly involved in the illegal activities, his sentence got reduced to just four months.
His reputation as a person also played a role in getting the Judge to be lenient. Right now, CZ is in the Long Beach Residential Reentry Management facility in California, which is more like a halfway house.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that he’ll be out as scheduled. After his release, he’s expected to head to the UAE to be with his family.
Getting out of jail doesn’t mean Binance’s legal headaches are over. There’s a new class-action lawsuit filed against Binance in Washington state.
The plaintiffs in this case aren’t even Binance users.
But they claim that their stolen funds were washed through Binance because the platform didn’t have strong Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering measures in place.
CZ’s upcoming release has everyone talking about what it could mean for Binance and its token, BNB.
Some folks in the community seem to think his return could boost Binance’s standing in the market and maybe even lead to more activity on the platform.
Meanwhile, Richard Teng (the man who took over for CZ as CEO), has said that the founder is actually banned from ever running the company or even holding an official position in it.
Since his arrival, Richard has been focusing on regulatory compliance and has secured 19 new licenses in places like India, Dubai, and Thailand.
The company spent $158 million on compliance in 2022, and that number jumped to $213 million in 2023.
Under Richard, the exchange has moved away from being a founder-led company. It’s now run by a board of directors and a team of senior executives.
Binance has hit 200 million users worldwide, which is a big jump from 170 million in 2023 and 128 million in 2022. That means they’ve added about 72 million users in just two years, a 56% increase since 2022.
They’re still the top dog in the crypto exchange market, holding 43.8% of all trading volume. This makes them the biggest exchange in the world by trade volume, leaving their competitors far behind.
As for the numbers, Binance handles around $19.38 billion in daily trading.
In 2023, Binance’s total crypto trading volume was about $4.4 trillion, down from $5.2 trillion in 2022. Regulatory pressure has been a big factor in that dip, but it’s still a huge amount of trading.
When it comes to their users, 65% of them own Bitcoin, with most keeping anywhere from 1% to 20% of their portfolio in it.
