It's official CZ pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating money laundering laws. CZ's on bail at $175M. He's replaced by Richard Teng after he resigned as CEO of Binance. The exchange's got to pay $4.3B to settle the case.
Did we consider Sam Bankman Fried & Changpeng Zhao would've been convicted criminals in 2023? They're going to be sentenced next year.
I'm not sure how you can put CZ and SBF on the same level: CZ didn't follow some money laundering laws, which is not something that uncommon, of course if you are the biggest exchange in the world and the US hate you, well, it's a serious problem. On the other hand we have SBF who created an exchange just to scam people, because that was his final goal. I would say that there is quite a big difference.
I completely support your point of view, I don't understand why many people compare CZ with SBF when they are completely different. Maybe CZ is not a good person and he also contributed to market manipulation for his own gain, but he never defrauded investors the way SBF did. So it wouldn't be fair to CZ if we compare the two. When it comes to bitcoin, CZ has made no significant contributions but when it comes to the cryptocurrency industry, he has created a large and fair playing field for all of us. SBF is not worthy or qualified to be compared to CZ.
At the end of the day I like CZ, I like Binance, and I own some BNB, but I'm sure that CZ is not "a good person" just like many other millionaires/billionaires out there: if you want to get to that level, you have to do some unethical stuff. Or does any of you think that all those people made money following every single rule and being kind with everyone? Of course not. But CZ is not SBF at all.