CZ is wise, the opposite of SBF. He willingly pled guilty and got to keep his Binance majority stake worth tens of billions. He didn't run his mouth endlessly and gift a case to prosecutors like SBF did. Most importantly, he let people trade shady shitcoins but never stole customer funds.
He'll spend just four months in a minimum security prison, come out and sail into the sunset with his billions. If you make things easy for prosecutors, especially as a first-time offender, they'll make things easy for you.<p>I don't admire crypto, but CZ played his cards well. Bloomberg quipped that he'll hold the title of richest inmate in the US, lol
>“Zhao bet that he would not get caught, and that if he did, the consequences would not be as serious as the crime,” the memorandum stated. “But Zhao was caught, and now the Court will decide what price Zhao should pay for his crimes.”<p>4 months, 50mn in personal fines, and 4.3bn in fines by Binance corporate.
Related Roger Ver was also indicted and arrested today:<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/early-bitcoin-investor-charged-tax-fraud" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/early-bitcoin-investor-charge...</a><p>The real crime there was selling 131k Bitcoin at ~$800 in order to back Bitcoin Cash. That's a ~$7B upside he missed because of block size politics.
> Binance’s billionaire founder Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday, after pleading guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at his crypto exchange.<p>Will CZ be the richest person ever sent to Federal prison? Forbes says his networth is $33 billion (though given crypto volatility that could be anywhere from 1/10 to 10x that on a daily basis...).<p>Imagine the security protocols for something like that. For sure he's not going to be the general population.
(edit) Seems the discussion is here vs <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40215052">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40215052</a>