Crypto Billionaire Pardoned In Prison By Trump Just Wrote a Memoir (forbes.com) 39
Forbes estimates he's worth roughly $110 billion, "placing him ahead of Bill Gates."
And now Changpeng Zhao, the 49-year-old billionaire founder of Binance, "has written a memoir..." It arrives with the unmistakable timing of a man determined to tell the world his version of his meteoric crypto rise and fall, and foreshadow his comeback. The book, Freedom of Money: A Memoir of Protecting Users, Resilience, and the Founding of Binance, runs 364 pages, self-published in English and Chinese.... Zhao also recounts Binance's long battle with U.S. regulators, the company's record $4.3 billion settlement for fostering unscrupulous money launderers, his four-month prison sentence in California, where he says he began writing the book, and his recent pardon by President Trump...
In Zhao's telling, the case brought by multiple U.S. agencies was less about what Binance had done than about what it had become... "It didn't make sense to me, or any of my lawyers. Other than the fact that we were the biggest in the industry." The U.S. government alleged something more specific: that Binance failed to implement programs to prevent or report suspicious transactions — including those tied to Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades, Al Qaeda, and ISIS — while also processing trades between U.S. users and those in sanctioned jurisdictions like Iran, North Korea, and Syria. In total, regulators alleged the exchange willfully failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions, including those involving terrorist organizations, ransomware attackers, child sexual exploitation material, frauds and scams... The final settlement amount — $4.3 billion, split across the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission — was the largest corporate penalty in the history of nearly each agency involved. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at the time of the announcement: "Binance became the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in part because of the crimes it committed."
The prison passages are among the most vivid in the book. Zhao says he was worried about extortion because the media had reported he was the richest person in U.S. prison history, but then realized no one read the WSJ or Bloomberg or recognized him. Zhao also writes about the food, the routines and the specific indignity of confinement, including sharing a cell with a man serving 30 years for killing two people... Writes Zhao of his cellmate, "Soon, I discovered that the most lethal thing about him wasn't his murder conviction, it was his snoring. He snored more loudly than thunder strikes, the sound of which rose even above the constant toilet flushings."
Binance at one point held a roughly 20% stake in Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX and about $580 million in FTT tokens, the article points out. "As FTX neared collapse in late 2022, Zhao writes, Sam Bankman-Fried called to ask for a couple of billion dollars 'nonchalantly, as if he was asking for a bologna sandwich.'
"Some believe that Binance's brief show of interest in acquiring FTX, followed by its abrupt withdrawal from the deal, hastened FTX's spiral into bankruptcy..."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader destinyland for sharing the article.
And now Changpeng Zhao, the 49-year-old billionaire founder of Binance, "has written a memoir..." It arrives with the unmistakable timing of a man determined to tell the world his version of his meteoric crypto rise and fall, and foreshadow his comeback. The book, Freedom of Money: A Memoir of Protecting Users, Resilience, and the Founding of Binance, runs 364 pages, self-published in English and Chinese.... Zhao also recounts Binance's long battle with U.S. regulators, the company's record $4.3 billion settlement for fostering unscrupulous money launderers, his four-month prison sentence in California, where he says he began writing the book, and his recent pardon by President Trump...
In Zhao's telling, the case brought by multiple U.S. agencies was less about what Binance had done than about what it had become... "It didn't make sense to me, or any of my lawyers. Other than the fact that we were the biggest in the industry." The U.S. government alleged something more specific: that Binance failed to implement programs to prevent or report suspicious transactions — including those tied to Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades, Al Qaeda, and ISIS — while also processing trades between U.S. users and those in sanctioned jurisdictions like Iran, North Korea, and Syria. In total, regulators alleged the exchange willfully failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions, including those involving terrorist organizations, ransomware attackers, child sexual exploitation material, frauds and scams... The final settlement amount — $4.3 billion, split across the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission — was the largest corporate penalty in the history of nearly each agency involved. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at the time of the announcement: "Binance became the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in part because of the crimes it committed."
The prison passages are among the most vivid in the book. Zhao says he was worried about extortion because the media had reported he was the richest person in U.S. prison history, but then realized no one read the WSJ or Bloomberg or recognized him. Zhao also writes about the food, the routines and the specific indignity of confinement, including sharing a cell with a man serving 30 years for killing two people... Writes Zhao of his cellmate, "Soon, I discovered that the most lethal thing about him wasn't his murder conviction, it was his snoring. He snored more loudly than thunder strikes, the sound of which rose even above the constant toilet flushings."
Binance at one point held a roughly 20% stake in Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX and about $580 million in FTT tokens, the article points out. "As FTX neared collapse in late 2022, Zhao writes, Sam Bankman-Fried called to ask for a couple of billion dollars 'nonchalantly, as if he was asking for a bologna sandwich.'
"Some believe that Binance's brief show of interest in acquiring FTX, followed by its abrupt withdrawal from the deal, hastened FTX's spiral into bankruptcy..."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader destinyland for sharing the article.
Delicious (Score:5, Insightful)
So, this greasy fuck, makes billions in ill gotten gains, buys his way out of prison, enriches Trumpenstein...
The only losers are the peasants using or invested in his scheme.
Re:Delicious (Score:5, Interesting)
That's how it goes - you can buy pardons these days. It's part of the scheme Pam Bondi had with her brother Brad Bondi who somehow managed to get more people off the hook if the right "fees" were paid.
I'm sure Maduro's lawyers are basically trying to figure out how how to funny a few million dollars to Trump to drop everything as well. It'll just be another of the dozen drug kingpins Trump has pardoned in the past year.
Re: (Score:2)
" funny a few million dollars" I am guess you meant " funnel a few million dollars", but your locution is spot on.
Crime pays (Score:5, Insightful)
In the United States...
Legitimate gains (Score:3)
No dodgy dealings, tax evasion, bribery or preloaded cryptocrap dumps. That's why Trump pardoned him. He's just that innocent.
Remember, when you buy the "store of value" crypto you are letting nice, hard working people like this cash out by creating exit liquidity. Thank you in advance.
Re: (Score:3)
That's why Trump pardoned him. He's just that innocent.
Ignoring the jokes, I'll note that he and Binance both plead guilty, for those unfamiliar.
Criminal allegations and sanctions [wikipedia.org]
Trump pardoned him because he doesn't think white-collar crime is crime. Of course, the bribe(s) he got helped -- also not a crime in his mind or, now, in the minds of SCOTUS for a sitting President. (sigh) That Zhao was convicted under Biden was sauce for Trump's pardon goose.
The Party of Law & Order (Score:5, Informative)
For as much as this guy trashes criminals and democratic states for being sanctuaries for criminals, he sure seems to be doing his best to pardon drug lords and other kingpins.
As always with Trump, every accusation is an admission.
Meanwhile he is trashing the economy due to the Trump Iran Crisis.
Congress... Do your job already. He is ruining the country for decades to come. And that's not even mentioning the brain drain he is causing in the country with doctors and scientists and other specialists leaving for foreign jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, Fetterman is too busy gobbling his knob.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's not forget that JD Vance was in Hungary shilling publicly at election events in support of Viktor Orban, an authoritarian ruler also heavily supported by Putin. How did we end up aligned with with Russia on such political issues?
Then Vance is in Iran and is supposed to be negotiating some sort of end to this needless conflict and as he's telling the press that negotiations have failed the President and the fucking Secretary of State are attending a UFC fight. Something something Nero and fiddles.
Congress... Do your job already.
13
Re: (Score:2)
"How did we end up aligned with with Russia on such political issues?" Putin owns la Presidenta, that's how.
Re: The Party of Law & Order (Score:4, Informative)
Biden looks awfully different in this photo. https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfr... [cloudfront.net]
Also this https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media... [guim.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
Even if that was true Biden was still a far better President. Better negotiator and according to what else Republicans accuse him of a better businessman and criminal as well. Total package! Truly under Biden was America the hottest.
Re: (Score:2)
Then Vance is in Iran and is supposed to be negotiating some sort of end to this needless conflict and as he's telling the press that negotiations have failed the President and the fucking Secretary of State are attending a UFC fight. Something something Nero and fiddles.
As a comedian noted, after 20+ hours of talking with Vance, Iran said they'd rather go back to being bombed 24/7.
Re:The Party of Law & Order (Score:4, Funny)
You mean the Epstein-Iran Crisis.
Re: (Score:2)
Operation Epstein tantrum
Re: (Score:1)
Biden was fine? Some did die when he suspended* Operation Warp Speed because it was a Trump program. And then waited a few months until his constituency forgot before delivering vaccines.
*To be fair, Biden probably had no clue as to what was going on.
Re:The Party of Law & Order (Score:4, Funny)
But what kind of law and order? We are coming out of an administration that cultivated an image of the kindly old man who was sort of doddering. While pushing private businesses to implement policies that make Laverentiy Beria look like a friendly town constable. In some cases, worse than Mussolini's "Everything for the state."
Those sure were dark times. I recall Target asking you to wear a thin paper mask. Did you ever recover from that psychological trauma?
Re: (Score:2)
Did you ever recover from that psychological trauma?
Shopping at Target?
Keep a close eye on your grandparents' finances (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump has sold around 2 billion dollars in pardons. That is a real sentence I just wrote and it is factually correct. It is now common knowledge among criminals that if you just put $2 million dollars aside to bribe Trump you can do basically anything as long as you make sure it's a federal crime and not state. Even State crimes can be moved to federal cour
Double jeopardy (Score:2)
This is why it's important to commit your crimes in a red state. It's easier enough to buy off the Texas attorney general and dirt cheap to buy off of Mississippi attorney general. Honestly you probably don't have to because t
Crime is legal (Score:2)
In order to illustrate the filth that gravitates around crypto, there's no need to conjure these exotic boogeymen, when you have local actors like the president [cnbc.com] and his buddies [time.com]. Also, Al Qaeda affiliates are good now [washingtonpost.com], as they used to be in the 80s [independent.co.uk].
" Ahead of Bill Gates" (Score:2)
"Well, if you count the number of stainless steel toilets he's got, I guess the headline is pinpoint accurate"
Forget checks and balances (Score:2)
These days, it’s about who writes the checks.
Hhh (Score:1)
Zhao pardoned after investing in Trump's crypto (Score:2)