Last year, he was fined more than 30 billion yuan! The richest Chinese in the past will be sentenced to 36 months in prison?

National Business Daily

2024-04-25 08:47Published on the official account of Sichuan Daily Economic News

Edited by: Bi Luming

According to Jiemian News, U.S. prosecutors said in a court document on April 23 local time that Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, should serve 36 months in prison after admitting to violating anti-money laundering laws. Changpeng Zhao, who is expected to be sentenced in Seattle on April 30, resigned as Binance's chief executive in November last year, when he pleaded guilty to violations and the company agreed to accept a $4.32 billion (31.4 billion yuan) fine.

According to the Securities Times, Changpeng Zhao is expected to be sentenced in Seattle on April 30. In November, Changpeng Zhao reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, agreeing to plead guilty to criminal and civil charges and resign as Binance's CEO in exchange for Binance to continue operating in the United States. Meanwhile, Binance pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a total of $4.32 billion in fines.

After pleading guilty, Changpeng Zhao was released on $175 million bail and was allowed to return to the UAE on bail. Previously, the U.S. federal sentencing guidelines set Changpeng Zhao's maximum sentence at 18 months, and he agreed not to appeal sentences longer than 18 months. U.S. authorities said Binance failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions with designated terrorist groups such as Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Last year, he was fined more than 30 billion yuan! The richest Chinese in the past will be sentenced to 36 months in prison?

On November 21, 2023 local time, in Seattle, USA, Changpeng Zhao left the Seattle courthouse. Image source: Visual China

In November 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement agreement with Binance and Changpeng Zhao. According to a statement issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, Binance pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering, sending money without a license, and violating sanctions and will pay a fine of $4.316 billion, while Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws and agreed to pay a fine of $50 million and resigned as CEO. The settlement agreement allows Binance to continue operations.

Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty and was released on $175 million bail, but he could not leave the United States. According to the court's ruling, Mr. Zhao faces up to 18 months in prison. He will remain in the United States until the sentencing is pronounced on February 23, 2024. As a result of his voluntary confession, his final sentence is expected to be no more than 18 months.

On December 18, 2023 local time, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced another $2.85 billion penalty on cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao. At that time, Binance and Changpeng Zhao had been fined a total of $7.216 billion.

Changpeng Zhao was born in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province in 1977, and at the age of 12, he moved to Vancouver, Canada, with his family, and became a Chinese Canadian. During his college years, he studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal.

In 1997, after graduating from university, Changpeng Zhao entered the fintech industry, first as a software developer at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and then moved to New York to work for Bloomberg, where he participated in the development of futures trading software, and at the age of 27, Changpeng Zhao, known as a programming wizard, became the company's team leader in New Jersey, London and Tokyo.

In 2005, Changpeng Zhao successively founded Fusion Information (the fastest high-frequency trading system developed for brokers) and Bjet Technology in Shanghai, and earned the first pot of gold. In 2013, he learned about Bitcoin from a poker friend and began to venture into the space. In 2017, Changpeng Zhao and his team founded Binance and issued the digital currency "Binance Coin" (BNB).

Binance's name is based on a combination of binary and finance, and offers trading in more than 150 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and its BNB token. From September to December 2017, the price of Bitcoin soared, from $3,000 to $20,000, and people began to scramble to enter cryptocurrency exchanges.

Just half a year after its establishment, Binance attracted 6 million users with a trading capacity of 1.4 million transactions per second, with a daily trading volume of more than $10 billion, soaring to the first place in the industry in one fell swoop, becoming the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and also creating a new myth in the cryptocurrency industry. In the first quarter of 2018, Binance made a profit of $200 million.

By 2021, Binance had 3,000 employees worldwide and a daily trading volume of $76 billion, more than its four biggest competitors combined. At that time, Binance was valued at $300 billion. Binance is not publicly listed and does not directly disclose the company's profits. However, at that time, some media estimated that in the third quarter of 2021 alone, the company's profit reached 3.2 billion US dollars, equivalent to 20.3 billion yuan.

It is reported that Changpeng Zhao controls a majority stake in Binance. According to Forbes data, founder Changpeng Zhao owns 30% of Binance shares. At the end of 2021, against the backdrop of the sharp rise in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Changpeng Zhao became the richest man in China with a net worth of 94.1 billion US dollars (about 634.8 billion yuan), and also ranked among the top ten richest people in the world. However, half a year later, virtual currencies such as Bitcoin plummeted, and Changpeng Zhao's wealth once shrank by more than 80% to $17.4 billion.

In 2023, Changpeng Zhao's fortune grew by $25 billion as the price of Bitcoin recovered, more than five times the $4.32 billion fine that Binance agreed to pay to U.S. authorities, and his wealth came mainly from a controlling stake in Binance, which he founded.

As of April 14, Changpeng Zhao's latest net worth is about $42.6 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ranking 29th in the world. On the Forbes billionaire real-time list, Changpeng Zhao's net worth is $33 billion, ranking 50th in the world.

Daily Economic News, Comprehensive Interface News, Securities Times

National Business Daily

View original image 478K