Tomorrow will be judgment day for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of the Binance exchange, by far the biggest player in the $2.5 trillion cryptocurrency market. US prosecutors are seeking 3 years in prison for the 47-year-old executive, also known as CZ. On the other hand, CZ’s lawyers state that no prison sentence should be given because he pleaded guilty, paid a large fine and committed the crimes he admitted to for the first time.

He admitted the allegations and apologized

As it will be remembered, CZ formally admitted the charges against him in November. In addition to paying a $50 million personal fine, Zhao was banned from leaving the US and quit as CEO on the same day.

While an 18-month prison sentence was requested for CZ after the fines were paid, prosecutors claimed last week that this period should be 36 months. Prosecutors said, “The message here is not only to CZ, but to the whole world. Zhao made enormous profits by breaking US law. He should be punished severely,” the prosecutors said.

CZ, however, wrote a letter to the judge in February saying, “I am fully responsible… I made bad decisions. There is no excuse for that. I regret that I made the decisions that brought me to this court.”

Yellen spoke harshly too

As a result of the lawsuit against Binance and CZ, the exchange was also fined $4.3 billion. While the exchange’s fine made headlines in the US, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also spoke on the issue and said:

“Binance has regularly violated US law. Treasury prosecutors have been following them for 3 years. They have allowed illegal transactions to freely take place on the platform. Binance has posed a grave danger to the US financial system.”

In June 2023, the SEC also sued the Binance exchange for selling unregistered securities.

SBF took 25 years

In recent weeks, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, a major stock exchange, was found guilty of all the allegations against him and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The 30-year-old executive also admitted to making mistakes but said he did not steal customer funds. SBF stated that the US branch of FTX had the power to repay all customer payments.