When will Binance founder Zhao Changpeng be released from prison?

Recently, some Binance fans excitedly shared news on the X platform that Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) will be released from prison on August 30. However, this is not the case.

On April 30, U.S. District Judge Richard Jones sentenced CZ to four months in prison, recommending that he serve his sentence at SeaTac Federal Prison in Seattle. Many people seem to have mistakenly assumed that CZ was jailed that day, and therefore concluded that his release date would be August 30. But in fact, CZ's legal team - including the law firms Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Davis Wright Treman, and Latham Watkins - worked hard to buy him a few extra weeks of freedom.

As of May 16, CZ had not yet entered the Bureau of Prisons' holding facility, and it was not until several days later that CZ, his attorney, and the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services set a jail date in late May.

A current check of the Bureau of Prisons database also shows that CZ is not at the Seattle airport but is being held at Federal Correctional Institution II in Lompoc, a low-security federal prison three hours north of Los Angeles.

When will CZ be released from prison?

Unless CZ's situation changes, he will not be leaving FCI Lompoc II on August 30. Instead, his current release date is set for September 29.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees due process to everyone in the United States, including noncitizens like CZ. This set of safeguards encompasses all of the unique features of CZ’s sentence, including the fact that he was jailed nearly a month after being sentenced, that he is in a low-security prison, that he is not serving his sentence at Seattle International Airport, and that there were delays during earlier court proceedings.