Crypto tycoon is Canada’s richest person, but U.S. prison stay awaits

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Changpeng Zhao is Canada’s richest person, but the crypto tycoon is about to spend four months inside a U.S. prison.

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The 47-year-old Chinese-born businessman, founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency-exchange Binance, ranks 30th in the world with a net worth of $40.5 billion as of Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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Zhao’s family immigrated to Vancouver in the late 1980s when he was 12 after his father, a university instructor in China, was hired by the University of British Columbia.

By 16, Zhao was learning how to code and eventually attended McGill University in Montreal where he majored in computer science.

After graduation, Zhao — also known as CZ — moved to Shanghai in 2005 and founded a technology startup company that automated high-frequency trading platforms and systems for stockbrokers.

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In 2013, he learned about Bitcoin and was so enamoured by its potential that he invested all of his money in the cryptocurrency.

Four years later, Zhao launched Binance and his wealth exploded. He was named one of the richest people in cryptocurrency a year later by Forbes.

However, in March 2023, a federal lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission against Binance and Zhao, which accused the company and founder of breaking rules intended to thwart money laundering operations after alleging transactions by Palestinian militant group Hamas and other suspected criminals were using the crypto exchange.

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Three months later, Zhao and Binance were also sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, accused of 13 violations of securities rules.

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Zhao resigned as Binance CEO after pleading guilty last November to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program. He was sentenced in April to four months in prison.

Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle related allegations from the U.S. government.

“I failed here,” Zhao told a Seattle court Tuesday. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”

Zhao also agreed to a fine of $50 million while avoiding what a U.S. Justice Department’s request for three years behind bars upon conviction.

In a letter to the court, Zhao wrote that there was “no excuse for my failure to establish the necessary compliance controls at Binance.”

“I wish I could change that part of Binance’s story,” he added. “But under my direction, Binance has now implemented the most stringent anti-money laundering controls of any non-U.S. exchange, and those controls have been in place since 2022.”

— with files from the Associated Press.

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