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.
Rules are meant to be broken and even challenged and even questions regarding their fairness if they are retroactively applied.
CZ could have had pled guilty because he new that he violated laws that were clearly applicable to him and/or his company, or he may have plead guilty based on the practicality of the whole matter and being able to reach some kind of an acceptable settlement agreement that helps him and Binance to move on but also they have an agreement that surely the US Government likes too, which is to both send a signal but also to be able to spend some time monitoring CZ and/or the company.. perhaps for the next 5 years, perhaps longer.
Whether something is ethical or not does not necessarily make it illegal, and there can be draconian laws and/or draconian applications of the law, so for sure the US Govt (and the various agencies that were involved in various investigations) had a sufficient amount of evidence that would either muddy the waters or it might even be able to convict CZ and/or the company in a trial process. Frequently the pleas are going to require some level of admission of wrongdoing, so CZ and the company already went over those grounds by agreeing that they both did some wrongdoing (that is likely described in the plea agreement), but they also agreed that the amount of punishment is suitable, too.. even though they might not like it, they might have had conceded in their own internal discussions that it is likely close to the best that they would be able to get and to also have some certainty of having entered into the plea agreement versus the various uncertainties of potentially fighting the matter for a considerable amount of time, and maybe CZ might have felt also that he is too well known, so that he would end up getting arrested sooner or later if they had not worked out a deal... which again looks better for him to enter into a deal instead of being potentially perceived as a fugitive of the law and then maybe getting harsher sentencing based on fighting the matter rather than settling.. so whether he is actually wrong or not might be another question, even though for practical purposes, he has admitted to being wrong on behalf of himself and his company.