Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other agencies in November last year, pleading guilty and agreeing to pay a $4.3 billion fine. Founder CZ(CZ) admitted He was charged with violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws, resigned as CEO of Binance, and successfully released bail after paying $175 million.
On Tuesday (4/30) local time, CZ will have his final sentencing hearing, and the verdict will determine his prison time. (The exact time is not yet clear, but Seattle time is 15 hours behind Taiwan, so the results are expected late today or the morning of the 1st)
The U.S. Department of Justice calls for CZ to be sentenced to three years in prison
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice requested in a sentencing memorandum that the judge should sentence CZ to 36 months in prison and fine him $50 million to demonstrate its strict regulatory attitude towards combating money laundering activities involving cryptocurrency, law firm Kudman Trachten Tama Kudman, partner at Aloe Posner LLP, said:
U.S. authorities hope that such a verdict will serve as a warning to those in the cryptocurrency industry that they cannot violate U.S. anti-money laundering regulations at will.
However, Tama Kudman also added that although the sentence for CZ in the previous plea agreement was about 18 months, both the Ministry of Justice and CZ can appeal to extend or shorten the sentence:
Generally speaking, when we negotiate, we discuss both sides' perspectives, and I don't see anything in the court documents that says the sentence has to be 18 months.
This goes both ways, with the Justice Department able to ask for a longer sentence and the defense asking for a shorter sentence based on the guidelines.
Probation Office: CZ should be sentenced to five months probation
As the sentencing time approached, the U.S. Probation Office recommended that CZ should be sentenced to five months of probation; this was completely different from the recommendation of the Department of Justice.
Some lawyers also said that CZ active confession and cooperation with the review may win favor with the judge and thus obtain a favorable result for him in the judgment:
There is a huge difference between someone trying to evade capture and someone coming forward to plead guilty, and he (CZ) will receive huge kudos.
However, some lawyers said that although CZ Changpengfang has the ability to appeal against his sentence, it may be difficult for him to succeed:
Circuit courts rarely overturn district court decisions, even if they appear to be excessive.
Be careful about BNB facing violent fluctuations
After the news that Binance and CZ reached a settlement agreement with the Ministry of Justice in November last year, the Binance platform currency BNB experienced huge fluctuations. At the upcoming sentencing hearing, a reasonable judgment on the price of BNB is likely to be affected by the verdict. Although it is not easy to judge whether it is going up or down due to fluctuations, the moving zone reminds BNB investors to pay careful attention to possible market changes that may occur next.
At the moment of writing, Binance platform currency BNB is temporarily trading at $592.8, down 1.6% in the past 24 hours.
