The CEO and founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, also referred to as “CZ,” was given a four-month prison sentence.
A 36-month jail term, “well above the possible 18 months laid out in his plea agreement,” was what the US Department of Justice had suggested Zhao get six days prior, according to
Zhao gave up his position as leader in November of last year and entered a guilty plea to several charges brought against him by the Department of Justice and other American authorities.
The DOJ announced at the time that Binance had “engaged in anti-money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations,” and that it had reached the “largest corporate resolution” that included an executive facing criminal charges. Zhao entered a guilty plea for neglecting to keep up an anti-money laundering initiative.
According to a filing on the accusations, Binance, Zhao, and other connected parties “knowingly failed to register as a money services business” and broke the Bank Secrecy Act by neglecting to put in place an anti-money laundering program. It went on to say that the respective parties disregarded American laws and broke U.S. economic sanctions “in a deliberate and calculated effort to profit from the U.S. market.”
After debuting in June 2017, Binance grew to become the biggest cryptocurrency exchange globally in just 180 days. According to CoinMarketCap data, it recorded a trade volume of nearly $22.7 billion in the last 24 hours, which was much more than the $3.1 billion recorded by Coinbase, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange
