Inside CZ’s New Memoir: Binance Growth, US Case and the FTX Fallout

TLDR

• Changpeng Zhao’s new memoir, Freedom of Money, revisits Binance’s rise and his legal fallout.
• Zhao says Binance’s rapid growth outpaced compliance controls and drew US scrutiny.
• He recounts pleading guilty in the United States and serving a four-month prison term in 2024.
• The book also gives Zhao’s account of Binance’s brief attempt to acquire FTX in November 2022.
• Zhao says Caroline Ellison’s public FTT support level helped accelerate the token’s collapse.

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Changpeng Zhao has released a memoir called Freedom of Money, offering his own account of Binance’s growth, legal troubles and time in prison.

The 364-page book follows Zhao’s path from his early work in finance and technology to the launch of Binance in 2017. The foreword was written by Binance co-founder Yi He.

Zhao says much of his story has already been shaped by media reports, court records and public debate. He presents the book as a way to add his own version of events.

Binance grew into the world’s largest crypto exchange in a short period. The memoir describes that expansion and the pressures that came with running a global platform.

Binance Growth and Legal Fallout

A central part of the book covers the US case against Zhao and Binance. In 2024, Zhao served a four-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to violating US anti-money-laundering laws.

The broader settlement also led Zhao to step down as Binance chief executive. Binance agreed to pay billions of dollars in penalties and to carry out compliance changes.

US authorities had spent years examining Binance over anti-money-laundering controls, sanctions compliance and licensing issues. The settlement closed one of the biggest enforcement cases in the crypto sector.

In the memoir, Zhao reflects on decisions made during Binance’s fast growth. He says that the company’s scale expanded faster than its compliance structure.

The book also describes his time in federal prison. Zhao writes about the change from leading a global company to living in a tightly controlled setting.

Zhao ties the book’s title to his view that crypto can improve access to money movement. He writes that users in emerging markets used Binance to move funds, manage local currency weakness and reach global markets.

Zhao’s Version of the FTX Collapse

Another section of the memoir revisits Binance’s brief effort to assess a deal for FTX in November 2022. Zhao says Sam Bankman-Fried asked for billions of dollars during a phone call before Binance signed a non-binding letter of intent.

According to Zhao, he never seriously planned to buy FTX. He says the document was signed so Binance could review the numbers and see whether users could be protected.

Zhao argues that a public offer from Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison to buy Binance’s FTT holdings at $22 became a turning point. He says that price gave traders a clear level to sell against.

He writes that FTT then fell quickly, while FTX faced about $6 billion in withdrawals within 72 hours. Binance walked away from the deal on Nov. 9.

Zhao also says a Signal chat called “Exchange Collaboration,” created during the Terra-Luna crisis, later drew interest from DOJ and SEC investigators. He denies any collusion took place.

He further writes that Binance later handled a heavy wave of withdrawals, including $7 billion in one day in December 2022, and says user deposits later returned.

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