Binance founder Zhao Changpeng talks about life in prison: At first, entering prison was quite frightening. My first roommate was a double murderer. This roommate was sentenced to 30 years in prison and had already been there for 18 years. He had killed two people at once, but actually, he was quite easygoing, and we got along pretty well. The scariest thing about my roommate was not his murder history, but his snoring at night, which was super loud. On the first night, I hesitated about whether to kick him awake, but then I thought he was a double murderer, so I decided against it.

Before I entered prison, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported that I might be the richest person in an American prison. Such reports were of no help to me at all, and I didn’t want any privileges, as it could even increase the risk of being extorted in prison. Fortunately, most people in prison do not read Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal. Later, the inmates and guards quickly learned about my identity, and some of them were interested in cryptocurrency and wanted to learn about investing, so we arranged for some books to be sent to the prison, and I formed a study group with them, spending about half an hour each day studying finance. There were nine televisions in the prison, and they even tuned one of them to the financial channel, keeping an eye on the price of Bitcoin and the like. This study group helped me avoid a lot of trouble because I had a group of people supporting me around.

Some guards would also ask me, 'Hey, is now a good time to buy Bitcoin?' I usually replied, 'I have no internet here, no information, I don't know what the price of Bitcoin is right now; I can't give you any advice.'

Overall, the guards were pretty nice to me. I also did not encounter any major violent incidents in prison.