Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison for violating U.S. money laundering laws.

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Crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, has been sentenced to four months in prison for federal money laundering charges. However, he remains positive and has thanked supporters, stating that he will focus on education after his sentence is served. Zhao plans to focus on his Giggle Academy project, a free online education platform for students from first grade through high school. He has also praised Binance for being "under the microscope" during the legal process and reinforcing the importance of compliance and protecting users.

CZ's number of followers on X platform has exceeded 9 million. CZ wrote: "Thank you for your support. I will continue to work hard and learn from many excellent teachers and developers."

CZ, the founder of Binance, announced on X platform that a new project will be launched soon. However, this project does not involve any new tokens. It is an educational project and more detailed information will be announced soon.

As the April 30th trial date approaches, the crypto community has launched the "CZ Concept Coin" project CZOLANA (CZOL) to support former CEO of Binance, Zhao Changpeng, who is facing a lawsuit in the United States. The project is based on the Solana blockchain with a total supply of 9,999,443,793 coins. The smart contract has been declared abandoned, which means that no new tokens can be minted. According to CoinMarketCap data, the current price of the token has exceeded 0.001 US dollars, with a 7-day increase of 100.63%.

CoinGape reported that based on a protective order motion filed on February 20, considering the sensitive information in CZ's lawsuit, a US lawyer applied for entry into the protective order. The Department of Justice stated that defendant CZ and defense lawyers did not oppose the request for a protective order. According to US prosecutors, CZ admitted to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. The evidence provided includes interviews with sensitive witnesses, third-party financial records, and third-party internal business records. The Department of Justice proposed an order in this motion to restrict public access to any information. "The proposed protective order will not be disseminated or distributed to anyone other than defense counsel, defense team members, and the defendant," the document said. In addition, the identities of sensitive witnesses will not be disclosed in public documents. Similar to recent sealing of unredacted letters and medical records, the identities of these witnesses will remain sealed.

A US federal judge has rejected a request by Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the founder and former CEO of Binance, to travel to the United Arab Emirates. Despite offering to post $4.5 billion of his Binance US equity as assurance that he would return, Zhao was denied permission to go to Abu Dhabi to be present for the hospitalization and surgery of an unnamed associate. Prosecutors argued that Zhao posed a flight risk given his substantial wealth abroad and his minimal ties to the United States. Binance has faced warnings and enforcement actions by regulators across the globe over compliance with anti-money laundering laws.

On December 30th, according to The Block report, the Western District Court of Seattle, Washington, USA, once again rejected CZ's "travel permit request" on Friday.

Binance, Binance.US, and Changpeng Zhao have filed a reply to the SEC's lawsuit, arguing that the regulator did not meet the requirements of the "Howey Test." The filing states that the SEC did not show that the exchanges' U.S. customers had any contracts that would meet the definition of an "investment contract." Binance also pushed back against the SEC's adding the exchange's guilty plea with the DOJ and consent order with FinCEN, or Zhao's own DOJ plea, in the ongoing case. The filing argues that securities laws wouldn't apply the same way the Bank Secrecy Act or International Emergency Economic Powers Act did.