Of course there wouldn't had been a bridge of him being convicted but possibilities of paroles may have been considered.
But why don't we think otherwise too if maybe he pleaded the guilty not to prolong the agitations or rumours of the bad image upon the crypto companies exchange (Binance) all to eject himself out to avoiding any forms of contact of his existence still in the company maybe to bear the consequences while the company has to maintain a reliable stability roles to still hold reliances to its clients? Possibly in due time the reality truth may showcase because a trace of prove to the fraudulent accused/agreed guiltiness should had been made known on how goes about such of his journey to the activity.
What if we lives to say sorry to CZ and Binance at large in due time?
There are many hypothesis suggesting that CZ pleaded guilty just to avoid further quizzing and scrutiny. Even this seems plausible, if you juxtapose the advantage of such decision and the disadvantages, you will see that the later outweighs the former. Why will someone deliberately damage such an enviable image he has built for himself in the cryptocurrency space? It does not make any sense to me. If he actually intentionally pleaded guilty to avoid further digging, it means he has more shits to cover than we can imagine.
From someone of the articles I read, his major offense was Binance romance with Iran that have been in the black book of the powers that be. This seems to me like the borne of contention.