The founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in federal prison after he and Binance admitted to money laundering charges in a deal reached with prosecutors.
The guilty plea resulted in fines of around $4.3 billion for Binance and $50 million for Zhao, which is unlikely to put a dent in his budget as he was ranked 42nd in the Bloomberg financial service's list of billionaires on Wednesday, with an estimated fortune of just over $36 billion. It mainly consists of his stake in Binance
Zhao is likely to become the richest inmate in a US prison.
As part of the deal with the US Department of Justice's Western District of Washington in Seattle, Zhao, 47, gave up all posts in the company.
Exactly when Zhao will start his prison sentence remained unclear at first. Judge Richard Jones recommended imprisonment in the Seattle region.
Jones recognized that Zhao had come to the United States voluntarily despite the threat of punishment and had cooperated with the investigating authorities. Zhao, a native of China, moved to Canada with his family as a youth and has Canadian citizenship.
The judge considered it unlikely that the Binance founder would commit crimes in future, but at the same time the sentence should also have a deterrent effect.
Zhao said he wanted to build an online education platform in the future.
Binance is a trading platform for digital currencies such as Bitcoin. In terms of trading volume, it is the largest marketplace of its kind. After years of investigations, the US judiciary accused Binance and Zhao of circumventing money-laundering and sanctions laws.