Like there was news reports of like I'm going to be the richest person ever to be in prison, so that doesn't help me from a safety perspective. Changpeng Zhao, AKA CZ, the former CEO and founder of Binance, sat down with me for his first public interview since being released from prison. Finance founder CZ sentenced to 4 months in prison on anti-money laundering charges, and you won't believe his story. I did have a couple of guards recognize me and then ask me like what coin should I buy. All this at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai. So I'm the only one who went to jail for this in US history. In this historic interview, I ask CZ the tough questions: do you think it was a fair sentence? What is your relationship with Binance now? We also discuss his Bitcoin outlook for 2025. Historically, Bitcoin has went through very clear four-year cycles. Watch today's whole conversation. The perspective that CZ shares is massive. I love it, I respect it, and I love it. Yeah, give it up. Click subscribe to Altcoin Daily to stay in tune with the cryptocurrency market, and let's start.
Yeah, it's good to see a lot of familiar faces. Yeah, thanks for being here.
So CZ, honored to be here. First question: how was your summer?
Um, that's actually much less work to do, so I'm pretty relaxed.
Yeah, well today I want to get into Binance, I want to get into what's next for you, maybe a little crypto talk. But before that, the elephant in the room: I want to learn about your experience. By the way, I'm Austin of Altcoin Daily. CZ, your first interview back. What was your experience like in prison?
It's not good. It's less fun than now. So I think the whole experience is just very limiting in a lot of ways, right? So your freedom is taken away, and you have nothing to do, so it gives you a lot of time to reflect. I actually learned a lot of really important lessons. For example, when everything is taken away from you, what you miss the most? What I found is actually it's the human connection that I miss the most. So I miss my kids, my family, my friends, my colleagues, and the community. There's a lot of other things I miss, but not nearly at the same level of degree that I miss the people. So you know, you miss the food, you miss the nice bed, but those things don't bother me that much. I think it helped me to refocus my priorities in life.
Do you think it was a fair sentence?
Oh, that's a very subjective one. If you ask opinions from anybody, they all say different things, right? So let me caveat with a couple conditions. There's a plea agreement which I agreed to, and in part of the plea agreement I cannot say anything bad about the plea agreement, and I don't intend to. I think look, you enter into a deal and that's the deal. Separate from that, there's a sentencing which I got four months for incarceration, and then there was the process going through the prison experience. In terms of sentencing, the judge has a really tough job, right? So if you ask one side, they will say it's too lenient; if you ask the other side, it would be too harsh. I don't care, I don't think about whether it's fair or not. I can give you a couple data points for people to benchmark. For this particular violation, which is a Banking Secrecy Act violation, we didn't register a financial company in the US when we had US users, and we failed to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program. For this particular violation, no one ever went to jail for a single violation, which is my charge. So I'm the only one who went to jail for this in US history. And just two weeks ago, there was TD Bank got fined for like 1.8 billion. And when I was reading that, there were cases where executives were taking money to facilitate transactions, and no one was named, just the company was fined 1.8 billion. But you know, fair or not doesn't matter that much. And then the judge also said a bunch of really nice things about me in court, right? He said he'd never seen that many support letters, seemed like a nice, standing guy. But then he said he doesn't have to follow precedent. That's when I knew things were not good. But then when I got into prison, I found out actually four months is a really short sentence. Everyone else there is like 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 8 years. They're all in years. Nobody gets a few months sentence. So from that perspective, I was pretty lucky. So I think in the judge's mind, he treated me very leniently. Again, it's a very subjective opinion. I try not to think about it. I think everyone here will have their own opinions, but I just want to move on. I think it is what it is. I did the time, I addressed it, I just took it head on, and now I can move on.
Yeah, let's talk about Binance. Two final questions on this though, just personal question: do you make friends when you're in there, or is it just?
Yes, so you pretty much have to make friends. Otherwise, if you're alone, if you have no community, then you don't end up well, I think. No financial advice. The guards didn't ask you? The guards didn't ask you for altcoin picks?
Actually, I did have a couple of guards recognize me and then ask me like what coin should I buy. I'm like, I better not pick the wrong coin. No, I told him, look, I'm inside, I don't have any access to information, right? There's no internet. All my information is through some limited length messages my friends and family sent me, and we don't talk about crypto. So I did get a few guys ask, I did get a few guards ask me that. I did make a couple friends who I still keep in touch with. Actually, yeah. But everywhere you go, to be honest, I think they're very nice people in prison. People are very chill. I think a decent portion of them has no reason to be there, right? They were in there for the wrong reasons. They're super nice guys, they may have stepped in some area here or there, but some of them are for very minor violations and they're there for a very long time. Many of them are there for like 8, 10 years for very minor offenses. Some of them that are supposed to be there, many of them are there for way too long. But in prison, they're very nice people. I didn't have any trouble from any of the inmates. Some of the guards treat us a little bit harshly, but also didn't have any issue from any guards. So from that perspective, I was very lucky that there was no physical harm. I was never extorted. Before I went in, my prison consultants — and that's the industry, prison consulting — well, there's 2 million in the US alone, 2 million people in prison. It's one of the highest prison per capita populations, right? So this is a burgeoning industry, it's growing when it's supposed to be shrinking. And the prison consultants, like right before I went, there was news reports that I'm going to be the richest person ever to be in prison, so that doesn't help me from a safety perspective. But I think the journalists don't care, they just want a quick buck. But my prison consultants scared me, saying like you don't deposit too much money on your commissary account, just default of 50 bucks. And when I go there, every other guy had like 200 bucks on their account, so I was like I'm the poor guy. So overall, no issues, and I met a few friends who I still keep in touch with, and I'm trying to help a few of them to fight their case through legal means, hopefully to get them out earlier. And some of the guys there, one guy I think Michael is probably somewhere. Yeah, Michael's right there. Michael Santos, he did 27 years in prison for moving some marijuana 40 years ago, right? But now marijuana is like legal. And he also got a university degree while he was in prison, he wrote six books. So there are guys who really push, and it's a very difficult environment to do that. I get access to a computer for 15 minutes each time, and every 15 minutes I get kicked off. And within that 15 minutes on that computer, there's no cut and paste, there's no paste function. So whatever, if I write a paragraph and I move one paragraph on top of the other, I cut it out, I have to retype everything. So the tools that in Michael Santos' days, they don't even have computers. But there are a lot of people who are there buying books, reading, learning, getting degrees, etc. So there are a lot of really nice people there.
Yeah, CZ, my brother and I have been at this conference, Binance Blockchain Week, for two days now. The energy is electric. I want to talk about Binance and the biggest question on everybody's mind: what is your relationship with Binance now?
So yeah, I have stepped down from the CEO role. I am not supposed to be involved in any day-to-day operations of the company. My shareholder rights, as far as I know, are not impacted. So I'm still, today I'm still a large shareholder of Binance. I believe I can still request for information, etc. I just cannot make decisions or give orders. And the relationship is actually a pretty good one, given that now there's other guys working really hard and I'm forced to retire. So when that first happened, the first month was a bit difficult. It was emotional, it was difficult to detach. It's a company that I put my heart and soul into for seven years, etc. But I always thought a CEO should not be in the post for more than 10 years, because the world changes. Right now there's AI. I didn't spend a lot of time learning about AI before, I didn't have a lot of time to look at even DeFi in a lot of detail, right? So now I actually have more time to look at all of those things. So I think it's good. Looking back now, there's a lot of good stuff about being forced to step down. If I step down myself, if I say hey look guys, I'm quitting, a bunch of you guys will be pissed off and think this guy ran out of stamina. So now I'm forced to step down, and I'm like well, this is not my choice, but I actually now have a lot of time. And also, just looking back, I think I'm actually very, very fortunate for a number of reasons. I still have a little bit of funds left to deploy, to be able to do stuff, so that's a strong enabler. I think my reputation is changed, but I'm not trying to minimize the offense. I think that's a serious Banking Secrecy violation, it's a serious offense. But it's also validation that there's no fraud, no users lost money with us. So in some regards, I believe if you ask anybody in the room, my reputation is still pretty strong. And on top of that, as I said, now I'm really lucky that I actually have a lot more time now. And I'm not super young, but I'm not also super old, so I still have energy to do more stuff. Very few people are in this fortunate position to be able to do the things that I can do now.
I read a headline that there's a lifetime ban on managing any crypto exchange. Is that true, and will you still be investing in crypto projects?
Sure. So the first question is, based on the best of my knowledge, there's no word saying 'lifetime' or 'ban'. Those two words don't exist in my plea agreement with the government. What is in the agreement is I step down as CEO. I don't think there's any timelines for it. But you know, everything changes, agreements can be updated with new agreements, even governments change. But I have no plan to go back to be the CEO. I finally got away from that post, and I think the team's doing a good job. So I don't have any need to go back, I don't have any wish to go back. Even today, if I was allowed to go back, I probably won't. And I think the lifetime ban is just creative journalism where they invented two words to make it more sensational. Is it wrong? We're not sure. Is it right? Those words were not in the agreement. The agreement is public, so it's a public agreement. That's to the best of my knowledge. What was your second question? Will you still be investing in crypto? Oh yeah, absolutely. So right now, I'm really only doing two things: I'm working on Giggle Academy, and then I'm doing investments. And on the investments, there's really three sub-parts: there's blockchain, there's AI, and there's biotech. Very simple. And both those are three big areas. So I no longer want to lead any project myself. I don't think I have the energy to do that anymore, and I'm not as hungry either. I'm not as hungry as I was seven years ago. So now I want to be a mentor, I want to help other entrepreneurs to build their own companies. I can help them with funding, with advice, with coaching, mentoring if they want it, with access to other resources, connections, etc. So that's what I want to do. I have a few mentors who I value really strongly, and I would like to become a mentor myself for those who want to.
I'm sure a lot of people in this room would love you as a mentor.
I want to talk about Giggle Academy. I have plenty of questions, but before that, on Altcoin Daily, me and my brother we speak to an audience of over 3 million across all social platforms, and one of the number one questions we get is outlook for crypto in 2025. Are you still just as bullish on crypto next year?
Okay, I'll try not to give any financial advice. And also, history doesn't predict the future, but I can analyze the history. Historically, Bitcoin has went through very clear four-year cycles. So 2013 was a bull year, 2017 was a bull year. Actually, 2012 was a recovery year, I think most people don't look back that far. And then 2013 was a bull year. 2016 was a recovery year. 2014, 2015 were tough. 2017 went all the way. And then 2020 was a recovery year, and then 2021 was a bull year. And this year, we're kind of back to the previous all-time highs. So 2024 is a recovery year based on the current analysis, based on the current prices. Next year, I don't know what's going to happen. But overall, long term for the industry, I think there's so much more that has to be built, that needs to be built, and that will be built. So I think the industry will get bigger, more and more people will use crypto. And with more people using crypto, the utility value will increase. So long term, I'm still very, very bullish. Short term, it's very hard to predict.
In a couple sentences, what aspects of crypto are you most bullish on? Is it DeFi, is it meme coins?
