Zhao Changpeng's 4 jokes "appeared": sentenced to 4 months in prison, will change the track to make a comeback

Source: New York Times; Compiled by Jordan, PAnews

At a hearing held at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on April 30, local time, Judge Richard Jones announced that former Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng was sentenced to four months in prison. At this point, the Zhao Changpeng case, which has attracted great attention from both inside and outside the crypto industry, has finally come to an end.

Why did Zhao Changpeng receive an extremely low sentence?

In fact, Zhao Changpeng and FTX founder SBF are very different, because neither Binance nor its founder Zhao Changpeng plundered customer funds. In addition, compared to SBF, who did not hand himself over to the court but chose to conduct a stupid defense trial, Zhao Changpeng reached a plea agreement very early, agreeing to pay a fine of up to $4.3 billion and express regret.

During the 2.5-hour sentencing hearing, the 47-year-old billionaire Zhao Changpeng was no longer an ordinary criminal defendant, but a philanthropist, do-gooder, first-time offender and family man who turned himself in and accepted whatever might happen. Zhao Changpeng's reputation as a "good guy" influenced the judge's final verdict, and compared to the three-year sentence strongly recommended by the US Department of Justice, the judge finally gave Zhao Changpeng a very light sentence of four months.

Judge Richard Jones said that he read all 161 letters submitted because it was important to understand who Zhao Changpeng was. He also mentioned that he had never seen so many letters, not only from family members, but also from people who had known Zhao Changpeng for a long time. Richard Jones pointed out that these letters portrayed a character driven by motivation, passion and determination, and Zhao Changpeng risked all his net worth just to make Binance successful. The letters clearly showed that Zhao Changpeng was a man dedicated to his family and cited the example of Binance's philanthropy.

Finally, Judge Richard Jones rejected the 36-month sentence recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice and sentenced Zhao Changpeng to four months in prison. The U.S. Probation Office will confirm the start time of Zhao Changpeng's sentence. Zhao Changpeng said in court that he would accept any day as the start time of his sentence.

Compared to FTX founder SBF, Zhao Changpeng's fate is obviously much better. Due to allegations of illegal use of $8 billion in customer funds, SBF was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison in March this year. In this regard, former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official John Reed Stark said that a short jail term of four months is a small price to pay for a billionaire like Zhao Changpeng.

Has Zhao Changpeng started planning for his release from prison?

Zhao Changpeng was sentenced to four months in prison, which may be just a small episode in his life story, because long before the verdict was announced, Zhao Changpeng had already begun to build a network of contacts across the United States to plan his next move.

After admitting to money laundering violations in November 2023, Zhao Changpeng did not sit still. Although he could not return to Dubai, UAE, Zhao Changpeng could still walk freely in the United States, which gave him a lot of time to travel around the United States, establish connections with local entrepreneurs and lay the foundation for his next move.

According to the information disclosed, Zhao Changpeng enjoyed a home-cooked dinner with a former US senator in Montana, visited the town of Telluride in Colorado and a resort in Utah, and more importantly, met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Last month, Zhao Changpeng announced that he would launch a new project to promote online education. He also expressed his interest in investing in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Two people familiar with the matter said that Zhao Changpeng exchanged contact information with Sam Altman as early as the end of last year, and discussed the adjustments encountered when the startup company expanded globally.

People familiar with the matter revealed that Zhao Changpeng met with Sma Altman about a year ago, and the two contacted again during the leadership battle of OpenAI in November 2023. A month later, in December 2023, Zhao Changpeng and Columbia University Computer Department Professor and CertiK co-founder Gu Ronghui had a hot pot in Los Angeles. In an interview, Gu Ronghui confirmed that Zhao Changpeng had communicated with Sam Altman. Both believed that artificial intelligence would greatly help realize the development of technology and human knowledge (CertiK is a Web3 security company funded by Binance). Zhao Changpeng also revealed that he is currently "looking for opportunities" to invest in large data centers that support AI applications.

So far, Zhao Changpeng and OpenAi representatives have declined to comment on their meeting with Sam Altman.

On the other hand, Zhao Changpeng revealed in a letter submitted to the court that he had also talked with some biotechnology startups in recent months and planned to focus on disease prevention as the next chapter of his life. Zhao Changpeng said: "I want to help fund small research laboratories with the goal of curing diseases once and for all and using blockchain technology to provide medical services to billions of people in the world."

In March of this year, Zhao Changpeng announced on the X platform that he was launching a project called Giggle Academy, a free online learning platform for children. A seven-page "concept document" has been published on the Giggle Academy website, saying that the platform will involve artificial intelligence and automation, as well as NFT digital collections. It is reported that Giggle Academy is not for profit, and Zhao Changpeng is recruiting a small team to work directly with him-this means that once Zhao Changpeng is released from prison, he is likely to devote himself to this work, and it may even be realized within a year.

How did the market react after Zhao Changpeng was sentenced to four months in prison?

During Zhao Changpeng's hearing, BNB rose and is currently basically in the $580 range. The decline in the past 24 hours as of press time has narrowed to 2.8%.

On the other hand, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance itself does not seem to be affected by Zhao Changpeng's trial. According to Coingecko data, Binance is still the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world at the time of writing, with a trading volume of more than $23 billion in the past 24 hours, which is about 4.6 times the trading volume of the second-place Bybit of about $5 billion. In addition, the monthly visits to the Binance platform reached 101 million, which is about 2.5 times the 39.1 million visits to the second-place Bybit platform.

 
With the verdict "landing", Zhao Changpeng's case has finally come to an end. Perhaps because of his special liking for the number "4", a four-month sentence seems to be a result that Zhao Changpeng and the wider crypto community can accept, and it can even be said to be a "good result."

After the verdict was announced, He Yi only replied with two words on social media: "Got it.", which means "get it" in Chinese - perhaps everyone understands it.