Zhao was born in China before moving to Canada in 1989 at age 12, two months after China's Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, he wrote in a blog.
Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, was sentenced to four months in prison on April 30 after pleading guilty to violating US money-laundering laws at the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Once considered the most powerful person in the crypto industry, Zhao, known as "CZ," is the second major crypto boss to be sentenced to prison. In March, Sam Bankman-Fried received 25 years behind bars for stealing $8 billion from customers of his now-bankrupt FTX exchange.
Zhao had been free on a $175 million bond, and agreed not to appeal any sentence within federal guidelines. Zhao also paid $50 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Zhao stepped down in November last year and pleaded guilty to breaking US anti-money laundering laws as part of a $4.3 billion settlement resolving a years-long probe into the world's largest crypto exchange, prosecutors said.
Zhao was born in China before moving to Canada in 1989 at age 12, two months after China's Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, he wrote in a blog.
The tycoon crisscrossed the globe in his quest for success, working in Tokyo and New York before moving to Shanghai, where he embraced crypto and founded Binance.
Its expansion was dramatic. Binance became the world's biggest crypto exchange within six months.
While its market share has slipped this year, it still accounts for about half of global crypto trading volumes, according to research firm CCData.
From the company's earliest days, Zhao kept a tight grip on Binance, as a powerful leader committed to secrecy and focused on market domination, a Reuters report last year found. As CEO, he remained in control of minute operational detail, at the same time posting social media selfies with world leaders and city mayors.
Zhao installed a tight circle of associates, many of whom had worked or studied in China, into top jobs. Co-founder Yi He now runs Binance's venture capital arm, as well as other key departments.
As Binance hired more widely from traditional financial and regulatory worlds, Zhao's tight control over his company was undiminished. Zhao's net worth is said to be Rs 3,59,058 crore
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