Changpeng Zhao's wife He unanimously believes to the American judge: what is a more real Changpeng Zhao

Deep Tide TechFlow

2024-04-26 21:41Posted in American tech creators

Note: On April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice said that Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao should serve three years (36 months) in prison, and based on the reasons given, U.S. Department of Justice lawyers believe that Changpeng Zhao helped Binance violate federal sanctions and money laundering laws, and said that he must pay a greater price and should increase the sentence.

Just before the trial, CZ wrote to Judge Richard J. Brown, who was in charge of the case. A · In a letter, Jones apologized for his "wrong decision" and admitted full responsibility for his actions.

In addition to CZ's apology letters, there are 161 letters of support from his family, friends, and others, recreating the real CZ Changpeng Zhao from different angles. CZ's sister, Jessica Zhao, a former managing director at Morgan, said that despite her brother's mistakes, he strives to be helpful to others in his life, while she referred to the FTX incident, emphasizing that CZ ensures that Binance has never misused any customer funds. Changpeng Zhao's children, Rachel and Ryan, who are studying at a U.S. university, hope that the judge will not define Changpeng Zhao's personality through this incident alone.

One of the most special letters came from He Yi, co-founder of Binance and mother of three, who wrote:

"If the crypto industry is compared to the Wild West, then CZ is the guardian of this wilderness. ”

"For CZ, whether he is rich or poor, he takes charity seriously and takes social responsibility seriously, because he is kind and humanitarian. ”

In the end, He Yi said, "Today, it is a sense of responsibility that makes him choose to face the trial, but he should never be regarded as the same kind as those evil murderers, robberies, and fraudsters, and sincerely hope that Judge Jones can open God's eyes, be omniscient, and make a fair judgment after seeing a more complete CZ." ”

The following is the full text of Ho Yi's letter:

Dear Judge Jones,

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, I am a working partner at Changpeng Zhao and a mother of three children. I hope this letter can help Mr. Judge understand a more real Changpeng Zhao.

In the spring of 2014, I met Changpeng Zhao at a public blockchain event at a school, and everyone called him CZ, which is an acronym for his real name, which is different from the anonymous name used by many people. Immediately after CZ arrived that day, he was invited to the stage to improvise and share, as the organizers found out that he was working for the most popular Bitcoin wallet (blockchain.info) of the time. He enthusiastically explained blockchain technology and the principles of Bitcoin, when he had just sold his house to buy Bitcoin, and his assets had shrunk significantly due to the fall in the price of Bitcoin, but this did not dampen his obsession with blockchain technology, and his speech was full of idealism about the positive changes that blockchain technology can bring to the world, which also greatly influenced and inspired me. Later, CZ chose to venture into the crypto space and founded Binance, of course, he wanted the company to be successful, but he was not a person whose ultimate goal was to make money, he sincerely wanted to use technology to advance the world.

In the summer of 2014, CZ's background in matchmaking and trading technology could not be used in Blockchain, and after I was invited many times, he joined OKCoin, the crypto trading platform I worked for. At that time, the currency circle had entered a downward cycle, and in the midst of the wailing of the industry, a community member unfortunately suffered from leukemia, and he could not afford his own medical expenses, so he publicly launched a fundraiser. CZ also actively participated in the donation despite the fact that his personal assets were greatly reduced, but unfortunately this community member passed away in the end. Inspired by this incident, CZ and I co-launched the "Love BTC" charity project, he built a website and a public Bitcoin wallet address, we raised money through social media auctions of clothes, etc., and then exchanged BTC directly for items to the beneficiaries. To this end, CZ has also written a paper on how blockchain technology can enable 100% transparent philanthropy, ensuring that the ultimate beneficiary receives 100% of the benefits and that no donations are eroded by middleman management fees. The paper can be found on Github with a timestamp of April 2014, which is the predecessor of Binance Charity.

This was three years before Binance was founded, and CZ wasn't wealthy at the time. Many people think that charity is just a way to gain fame, some people use it as a means to offset taxes, and some people will say that they will do charity when they are financially free, and for CZ, no matter whether he is poor or rich, he is taking charity seriously and taking social responsibility, because he is kind and humanitarian.

In August 2017, my first month on Binance, a young user approached me and said that he had sent thousands of dollars to Binance's wallet address, but Binance didn't support the token, so Binance couldn't receive it, which was a common mistake in the early days of the industry.

According to the practice of the industry at that time, you need to bear the mistakes you make. However, for this child in his early 20s, those thousands of dollars may be his family's annual income, his year's college tuition, and his hope for the future. After a brief discussion with CZ, he mobilized our already stretched development resources to quickly help the user recover the asset, which was the first case in the industry to help the user recover the asset with the wrong address. With the first time, there are countless subsequent ones, and under CZ's guidance, Binance has helped more than 180,000 users recover assets totaling more than $441 million. It's a resource-intensive project that isn't worth it in terms of ROI, but we can ignite hope in the midst of despair for our users. To this day, on publicly listed exchanges such as Coinbase, they still do not support this service. In this emerging Wild West, countless practitioners are playing the role of predators, and CZ has always insisted that we should do the right thing: protect users.

At the beginning of 2018, when the price of Bitcoin rose by more than $20,000, and the enthusiasm of investors also bred a lot of fraud, one day a group of Chinese users approached me and pointed out that they were lured by an account on social media to invest in a project, and the person then disappeared after the money, but according to the public on-chain information tracking, the money had just been transferred to Binance. According to the law enforcement process of most platforms today, users need to find the police first, and the police can provide a letter of assistance before they can freeze it, and at that time, China banned cryptocurrency trading, and the Chinese police did not accept such cases. CZ said to us, "Do the right thing", we temporarily froze the stolen money, and then organized multiple phone calls between the victim and the scammer, and finally the scammer returned the money to the user, and the scammer closed the account. This is just one of the countless examples of CZ's insistence on cracking down on evildoers, and in the past 2023, Binance cooperated with law enforcement agencies in various countries to more than 58. 000 case investigations, many of which were initiated by Binance to open an investigation by law enforcement, which is why although the mainstream media tries to portray CZ as an evil bad guy, and millions of community users and ordinary people regard him as a hero of the industry, because CZ has always had his own insistence on justice, if the cryptocurrency industry is compared to the Wild West, then CZ is the guardian of this wasteland.

Since 2019, the company's personnel has begun to grow rapidly, and the team composition is very global and full of diversity; During this period, there are Wall Street elites who graduated from Ivy League universities, dropouts from Europe, female NGO fighters who are active in Africa, and young men in Southeast Asian villages who do not want to be fishermen. Whether it is a fire in the house of a junior employee in Southeast Asia, or the shortage of epidemic prevention materials caused by Covid sweeping the world, or even the danger brought to employees by the war between Russia and Ukraine, CZ is helping employees regardless of the cost; For the boss of a business, it is not uncommon to spend millions of dollars to help those scarce talents who are facing difficulties to lead their families out of the unstable living environment, and continue to pay allowances, and CZ did not consider their background and rank when deciding on these, which also covers a large number of fledgling junior employees, these employees are generally easy to find replacements, but CZ makes decisions for only one reason: they need support.

CZ's leadership style may not be in line with traditional expectations of a good CEO. His commitment to transparency and fairness at Binance often clashes with the power expectations of a small group of employees accustomed to an elitist-hierarchical corporate environment. This led some employees to leave the company with a grudge and make false accusations to the media. While these reports have frustrated me at times, CZ has always shouldered this burden and continues to support justice and equality because he understands that true fairness is sometimes unfair to the privileged.

One weekend in November 2022, when FTX was facing a crisis, Sam (SBF)'s last distress call was to CZ. Before getting any valid reports and documents provided by SBF, CZ convened a management meeting to decide whether to bail out FTX, saying, "We don't need FTX as a company, we saved FTX to save the industry, and we should save FTX." Although he finally had no choice but to abandon the transaction, the information disclosed after the incident showed that a number of FTX-affiliated companies were misappropriating user assets, which made CZ jaw-dropping. CZ believes that transparency is a better solution, so he has made Binance's trading platform wallet address public, and launched a product that allows users to self-verify their account funds and online wallet addresses to demonstrate Binance's transparency, which further promotes self-discipline in the industry.

So far, CZ and I have experienced ten years of ups and downs together in this industry, this decade is a decade of upheaval in the industry, this decade Bitcoin has risen from hundreds of dollars at the trough to more than $40,000 now, we have seen countless former celebrities lose their reputation, and we have also seen countless well-known institutions collapse in an instant, most of the time these people are self-proclaimed smart, they are talented, but they see the law as nothing, think they can deceive the public, or get away with the law, but CZ is not: he is honest, kind, Sincere, smart and very, very hard-working; CZ underwent two spinal surgeries in 2020 alone due to his work, and he did not stop working a day even during the 18 months he spent in a hospital bed. In the past 6 years, as the CEO and largest shareholder, he has received a salary lower than the company's subsequent introduction of multiple executives, and has not paid dividends and realized it to himself. This time, in order to allow Binance to operate, he chose to take the initiative to fly to the United States to plead guilty; Between his personal interests and the public interest, CZ will always choose to sacrifice himself to achieve Binance, and when it is between Binance and users, he will choose users.

As a partner at CZ, I know exactly how CZ earns the respect of the community; It may be that when the Chinese government banned the bitcoin trading platform, when other project parties took the opportunity to make a profit, CZ chose to clear the user at a higher price: it could also be that there was a theft incident on Binance, and CZ disclosed the information as soon as possible and took full responsibility, or it was more likely that when countless project parties issued coins just to sell coins to become rich, and CZ was helping users track down scammers and hackers in the industry, and some cases had nothing to do with Binance, just because of his sense of mission and responsibility for the industry.

As CZ's life partner, I have known CZ for nearly ten years, so I know more about his unknown side, he doesn't know anything about the jewelry, luxury goods, luxury cars, art auctions that the rich are keen on, he lives a simple life, he buys affordable clothes on Amazon, he rides a balance bike to meetings, he enthusiastically shows his Toyota 6-seater van to reporters and was later publicly ridiculed by reporters, he buys things out of efficiency and interest, he has no fanatical desire for money, fame, and enjoyment, he wants to live a meaningful life.

At the same time, he always tries to take care of his friends' feelings as much as possible, regardless of their profession and social status: he also tries to take time out of his busy work schedule to maintain a high-quality interaction with his 3 young children, who are very close to him and now they are always asking: why is Daddy not at home?

Of course, I'm not saying here that CZ didn't make mistakes, but his biggest mistake was ignorance. As a startup without a flashy background, the founding team members have no legal background, and even most of the early management team members can't even read English except for CZ, such as myself. With a lack of experience and legal knowledge, CZ has won users with fairness, integrity, and a sense of responsibility to the industry, but also made mistakes. In any case, the bug has been minted, and both Binance and CZ have paid a huge price.

CZ has said before: "No one wants to be a hero because no one is born to be at the front of the line, heroes just have to protect their families, communities, ethnic groups, and land to do the right thing in that position, and they have to be heroes in the process." ”

I humbly hope that Judge Jones will take into account the fact that in the early and chaotic days of the cryptocurrency industry, even how the industry is regulated and how to define the United States is not decided, as a founder who has never managed a company of this size, he will definitely encounter blind spots, and if CZ knows the severity of the matter, he will definitely be strict from day one and block any American users. He doesn't want to be a hero, and certainly doesn't want to be a criminal, and all the logic of his actions follows universal humanitarian norms and does the best he can.

Today, it is a sense of responsibility that makes him choose to face the trial, but he should never be regarded as the same kind as those evil murderers, robbers, and fraudsters, and sincerely hope that Judge Jones can open God's eyes, know everything, and make a fair judgment after seeing a more complete CZ. If you need to, you can contact me at any time for more details.

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