When will Zhao Changpeng be released? Is he still in prison?

Author: Sander Lutz, Decrypt; Translator: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

Changpeng Zhao will be the first to rebuke those who spread misinformation, so everyone must always remember the number 4 - the embattled founder of Binance has been serving a sentence of 4 months in a US prison for violating US money laundering laws since the end of May.

Tell crypto Twitter users, though, that they were wrong to celebrate the crypto entrepreneur's freedom prematurely on Thursday. In fact, Changpeng Zhao is set to be released on September 29, according to the US Bureau of Prisons.

The confusion may be partly due to the fact that Changpeng Zhao appeared to have been transferred this week from a minimum-security prison in Southern California to RRM Long Beach, a boarding program that prepares inmates who are about to be released from prison to return to society.

RRMs, or Residential Reentry Management offices, are often colloquially referred to as “halfway houses.”

Technically, some Twitter users are correct in claiming that Zhao is out of jail. But he is certainly still in the custody of the U.S. government and cannot move freely or do what he wants.

By the end of September, Zhao should be able to move around and likely return to his wife and two children in Dubai. He has been staying in the U.S. since pleading guilty to U.S. criminal anti-money laundering violations in November to keep his company, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, afloat.

A federal judge in Seattle has since denied Zhao’s request to return to his family while he awaits sentencing — so the crypto billionaire has been forced to spend several months of awkward vacations in the Pacific Northwest.

Even after reaching a settlement with the US government, Zhao Changpeng remains the richest person in the cryptocurrency space, with the latest statistics showing that his net worth is as high as $47.7 billion.

However, as part of the settlement, Zhao Changpeng was also banned from operating or managing Binance for three years. The entrepreneur said he intends to use this time to focus on other businesses such as education and passive investing.

If he is curious about other options in the future, Zhao Changpeng can now get job placement assistance and life skills training at RRM Long Branch.