One former CEO turned himself in after admitting guilt, while the other went to trial and defended his innocence.

Two individuals who were formerly regarded as heavyweights in the cryptocurrency sector will serve radically different sentences in American prisons.

Ever since the sentencing hearings for former CEOs of FTX and Binance, Changpeng Zhao and Sam Bankman-Fried, respectively, many within and outside the crypto field have questioned why the two titans of their respective industries have been treated so differently by the American judicial system.

When Bankman-Fried gets out of prison at the end of the year, he might be in his 50s and have less assets than Zhao, who will be free by the end of the year and has an estimated net worth of $33 billion.

But let’s back up a minute.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in 2022, extradited to the United States, pleaded not guilty, given house arrest, remanded to jail after allegations of witness intimidation, prosecuted in a six-week trial, found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Zhao was charged in 2023, pleaded guilty, was allowed to remain free on bail, was sentenced to four months in prison and will surrender himself in a matter of days.

The former FTX CEO faced seven felony charges related to defrauding investors and misuse of customer funds. CZ faced one charge related to failure to maintain an effective Anti-Money Laundering program at Binance.

“CZ was charged with a crime that is more akin to a regulatory violation: the failure to have an adequate system of Anti-Money Laundering controls, while SBF was charged with wire fraud in connection with the secret plundering of billions of dollars in crypto custody with FTX to prop up Alameda,” Mark Bini, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, told Cointelegraph. “While both [crimes] are serious, SBF’s crime was far more serious

From the beginning of his legal woes, Bankman-Fried and his defense team have largely maintained that he “did what [he] thought was right.”

In the sentencing hearing, Judge Lewis Kaplan accused the former FTX CEO of lying on the stand and described his testimony as “evasive.” His first interview after the judge laid down a 25-year judgment included SBF saying: “I never thought that what I was doing was illegal.”

The facts of the case presented at trial also undermined SBF’s defense. Many government witnesses, including his former girlfriend and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, suggested that he orchestrated the misuse of FTX user funds.

In contrast, Zhao did not publicly comment on the case between U.S. authorities and Binance since a $4.3 billion settlement and his guilty plea in November 2023.

He submitted hundreds of pages worth of letters from industry leaders, family members and others.

Judge Richard Jones commented on the outpouring of support for CZ at his sentencing hearing, adding he had “risked [his] entire net worth” for Binance.

Terrence Yang, managing director of Swan Bitcoin, told Cointelegraph, "Even though I believe he was guilty of much more, the DOJ didn't have the evidence, and that's why they could only get CZ to admit to rather light crimes."

"CZ, unlike SBF, agreed to just minor offences in his plea agreement and didn't oppose extradition because he lived in a nation that does not allow it. In his plea agreement with the DOJ, CZ is only to pay $50 million.

It is unlikely that CZ and SBF will be housed at the same institution, much less share a cell while behind bars, despite the conjecture of many cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

Even while the judge in SBF's case recommended that he do time in a prison in the San Francisco Bay Area, he might also let the former CEO of FTX to stay in New York during his appeal.

Zhao will serve four months at the Federal Detention Center SeaTac in Washington, with a reporting date to be determined.