The next crypto sentencing: Binance's "CZ" set for April 30

Changpeng "CZ" Zhao will be sentenced in a federal court in Washington state this month after pleading guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act

Why it matters: CZ and Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), both founders of enormous and innovative cryptocurrency exchanges, were the two biggest names in the industry through the last boom, and are now both condemned before the courts of the United States.

Catch up fast: In November, less than three weeks after SBF was found guilty in New York of defrauding FTX customers and investors, CZ was charged across the country with one count of failure to maintain an anti-money laundering program at Binance

CZ's guilty plea was part of a larger deal with the U.S. government that also saw him stepping down as CEO, and his company paying a $4.3 billion settlement.

The big picture: The question now is how badly it will go for CZ, SBF's first investor and the one who brought him down.

The nature of charges against the two men were vastly different, as are their expected sentences SBF just received 25 years, while the charges against CZ reportedly call for up to 18 months in prison

Between the lines: CZ was released on a $175 million bond but has not been allowed to leave the U.S

In the charges against him, prosecutors describe how Binance allowed users to start accounts with nothing more than an email address, so long as they stuck to cryptocurrency-only transactions that is they deposited funds in cryptocurrency and withdrew it the same way

There were some limits on how much a user could withdraw, but there were also easy workarounds

In 2021,the company started to tighten requirements around vetting its customers but that didn't change what had happened before

While Binance developed an internal process for flagging suspicious activity Binance never filed an SAR [suspicious activity report] with FinCen the indictment signed by Tessa Gorman, acting U.S. attorney, and others, noted

Zoom out:Questions have long swirled around Binance but nothing seemed to stick Until it did