Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has revealed that his trial was more about the U.S. government trying to stifle crypto development than his legal offenses.
In a recent interview pushed out by the All-In Podcast, the founder of Binance, CZ, explicitly stated to host Chamath Palihapitiya that he believes his prosecution was “highly aggressive” under the Biden administration’s DOJ.
Was the Biden DOJ’s prosecution of CZ a ‘political war’ on crypto?
The All-In Podcast recently released an episode in which Changpeng Zhao characterized the Biden administration’s Department of Justice as being “uniquely aggressive.”
“Before me, nobody got put in jail,” CZ told his host Chamath Palihapitiya. Many major global banks with similar compliance failure cases were made to pay billions in fines for anti-money laundering (AML) failures, rather than having their executives face prison time.
CZ served a four-month sentence in a federal facility in 2024 before his eventual high-profile pardon by President Trump in October 2025. He argued that the DOJ’s pursuit was less about his specific legal charges and more about a “war on cryptocurrency” intended to restrict the industry’s growth in the U.S.
In November 2023, Binance agreed to a historic $4.3 billion settlement, and CZ stepped down as CEO and pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective AML program. In the interview, he admitted that while mistakes were made in the exchange’s early “hyper-growth” phase, the government had a strong desire to see him behind bars.
Since the 2025 change in administration, however, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has notably omitted digital assets from its 2026 examination priorities list.
Did FTX collapse because of CZ’s personal feud with Sam Bankman-Fried?
CZ gave a detailed account of his relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) during the interview, explaining that they first met in 2019 when Binance invested early in FTX.
However, CZ revealed that the relationship broke down when SBF began poaching his employees, attempting to poach high-profile clients from Binance, and also using his significant political influence in D.C. to lobby for regulations that would essentially “carve out” Binance from the American market.
CZ clarified that the November 2022 tweet where he announced Binance would sell its remaining FTT tokens was not a premeditated attack to destroy a competitor. He was stunned by the total lack of liquidity at FTX, stating he had no idea that SBF was allegedly misusing customer funds on the scale that was later revealed in court.
Sam Bankman-Fried remains in federal prison, currently serving the early years of his 25-year sentence. Current reports from the FTX bankruptcy proceedings show that most creditors have now been repaid in full, thanks to the surging prices of the estate’s holdings in 2025 and 2026.
CZ confirmed that while he is barred from the day-to-day management of Binance as part of his plea agreement, he remains the majority shareholder and a passive advisor. He stated that Binance is “healthier now than it ever was” under the leadership of the current CEO, Richard Teng.
CZ is now focused on his new project, Giggle Academy, which aims to solve the problem of global illiteracy by providing free, gamified learning tools to children in developing nations.
Binance is now fully monitored by U.S.-appointed firms, including Sullivan & Cromwell.
