BNB sees gains as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao is set to be released after 118 days in prison

• Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao will be released from custody on Friday after serving time in prison.
• CZ was sentenced to four months in prison in April after pleading guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws.
• BNB rose more than 2%, extending weekly gains to nearly 7%.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao will be released from prison on Friday, two days ahead of schedule, due to federal rules that allow early release over the weekend.

CZ is finishing his prison sentence, set for early release

Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao is set to be released early from prison on Friday after serving a 118-day sentence. The news, first reported by Fortune Crypto, claims that CZ will walk away from custody with over $60 billion in personal wealth.

CZ served a four-month sentence after pleading guilty to charges including failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering measures when he was CEO of Binance. In addition to the prison sentence, the court also ordered CZ to pay a personal fine of $50 million, while Binance received a penalty of $4.3 billion.

The release of Binance’s former CEO has sparked speculation about potential impacts on the cryptocurrency market, particularly Binance Coin (BNB), which has seen gains of nearly 7% in the past 24 hours.

Despite no longer being the CEO of Binance, some analysts have suggested that Zhao’s influence could stabilize or even boost the crypto market as he remains a major influencer among investors.

Meanwhile, Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm will go on trial after a New York district judge refused to dismiss his case.

Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, the founders of Tornado Cash, were both accused of laundering $1 billion in August 2023. They were also accused of supporting a hacking team known as the Lazarus Group in laundering hundreds of millions of US dollars through crypto. mixing platform.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla, who was tasked with the case, denied Storm’s claim that his case should be dismissed because he simply wrote the code for the platform.

Furthermore, recent research by the Social Capital Markets team reveals that crypto-related convictions have increased by 267% over the past five years. The increase, which occurred between 2019 and 2023, shows huge success in the prosecution of crypto-related crimes, analysts noted.

The report also points to a 300% increase in convictions over the past decade, with a combined 272 years in prison given to crypto leaders found guilty.

The rise in crypto-based convictions underscores the recent crackdown on the crypto industry by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DoJ).