Binance founder Changpeng Zhao lays out secret negotiations behind prison time

In a nearly 300-page draft of his memoir reviewed by The New York Times, Changpeng Zhao says secret negotiations with U.S. authorities preceded his late-2023 guilty plea on anti-money laundering charges and his subsequent incarceration, including what the manuscript calls a "run-in with ICE." The draft, which the Times cautioned "may not be the final version," frames those negotiations as a personal arc from founder and technologist to a defendant confronting U.S. enforcement.

The draft, described by The New York Times reporters David Yaffe-Bellany and Mattathias Schwartz as "a vivid, albeit one-sided, account," includes pointed criticisms of the Justice Department and anecdotes about regulators and political figures. Zhao uses the memoir to lampoon enforcement choices and to offer an unusual inside view of a high-profile white collar prosecution. The manuscript also contains stories about Gary Gensler and an aside about Donald Trump that reads: "If an employee took company files to read in the bathroom, I would be inclined to give him a bonus."

Legal milestones in Zhao's case are well established in public reporting. Yahoo Finance documents that Zhao pleaded guilty in late 2023, stepped down as Binance CEO, served a four-month sentence at Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc I and was released in September 2024. He received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in October 2025. Since his release, Yahoo Finance reports, Zhao has largely avoided commenting on Binance operations and concentrated on philanthropy, education initiatives and the memoir project.

Zhao has signaled an intent to publish rapidly. BeInCrypto reporter Oihyun Kim noted that Zhao wrote on X on January 25, "There is nothing to hide. More details in the upcoming book." BeInCrypto also reported that Zhao said a 114,000-word draft existed as of March 2025, that the project had taken "way longer" than expected and would require "another 3x effort" to rewrite, and that he planned to self-publish in late February or early March - with a heading in coverage reading "Self-Published in Two Languages."

The memoir's publication will be watched for its market and policy reverberations. For investors and markets, any fresh detail about the negotiation process could reshape perceptions of legal risk and corporate governance at major crypto platforms, reviving scrutiny over anti-money laundering controls and executive accountability. For regulators and lawmakers, a first-person account that attacks enforcement strategy while remaining opaque on key questions - the draft reportedly "does not shed light on Mr. Zhao's campaign for a pardon or Binance's links to the Trumps" - could harden political debates over oversight and pardons.

Some parts of the account remain thin on corroboration. The draft's reference to a "run-in with ICE" is presented without operational detail in the reporting, and The New York Times noted that Binance did not respond to a request for comment and that the Justice Department declined to comment. Separately, earlier interview material published by Singjupost captures Zhao's self-portrait as a work-obsessed founder: "I wouldn't say I was addicted to the growth, but I was addicted to the work. The work was actually very satisfying, very rewarding," and, on the early days, "I was basically doing like 20 plus meetings a day."

The memoir arrives at a fraught moment for crypto regulatory policy and for the reputations of platforms that once promised to be beyond traditional financial oversight. Even if the draft remains one-sided, its release will force fresh scrutiny of the private bargaining that can shape criminal settlements in the tech sector and of the political channels that can follow.