Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has served his four-month prison sentence and has been released from custody as of Friday.

Although he has stepped down as the chief executive of Binance, he is still the largest stakeholder.

Recall the events that took place almost a year ago when the US Department of Justice announced a massive $4.3 billion settlement with the then-CZ-led exchange.

This came after years of investigations from different entities, and Binance, as well as its founder, pled guilty to willfully floundering the Bank Secrecy Act.

Zhao’s guild plea was for failing to implement a strong anti-money laundering (AML) program. He had to step down as the CEO of Binance and paid a $50 million penalty.

In late April, CZ was also slapped with a four-month prison sentence, which was a lot less than the requested three years. At the time, he said:

“I will do my time, conclude this phase, and focus on the next chapter of my life (education). I will remain a passive investor (and holder) in crypto. Our industry has entered a new phase. Compliance is super important. A silver lining of this whole process is that Binance has been under the microscope. And funds are SAFU. Protect users!”

His sentence was supposed to end on September 29, but because it falls on a Sunday, he was released on the last working day before the weekend – Friday.

Binance’s native token performed well during this week when CZ was supposed to be released. It’s up by 6% on a seven-day scale and sits well above $600. According to some reports, Zhao still owns about 64% of BNB’s total supply.

CZ has said before that he already has ideas of what to do upon his release from prison. Called Giggle Academy, the project will aim to provide free education in a gamified and adaptive manner.

Bitcoin reacted well to the Friday US inflation data and jumped above $66,500 for the first time in nearly two months, before retracing slightly.

Several altcoins have produced impressive gains over the past day as well, led by the meme coin realm.

BTC Touched $66.5K

The business week started on a high note for bitcoin, which had already gained some traction after the US Fed’s rate cut on September 18. The cryptocurrency stood at $63,000 during the weekend and jumped past $64,500 on Monday.

However, it failed to maintain its position at first, and even though it jumped to that level again, the bears took control on Thursday and pushed it south to $62,700 (on Bitstamp).

Nevertheless, the apparent bullish run couldn’t be contained, and the cryptocurrency reversed its trajectory once again. This culminated yesterday evening when the asset soared to $66,500 for the first time since August 1. This came after positive inflation news from the US.

Although it has lost some traction since then and now sits inches below $66,000, its market capitalization remained above $1.3 trillion on CG. Its dominance over the altcoins has also increased slightly to 53.8%.

SHIB, PEPE Jump Again

The week belongs to the meme coins, especially the past few days. Shiba Inu emerged as the top performer on a few occasions and has soared by another 6% in the past 24 hours. Moreover, the second-largest meme coin neared $0.000022 earlier today for the first time in over three months. SHIB is up by 42% on a weekly scale.

PEPE is another notable gainer, having surged by 6.5% since yesterday and 36% since last Saturday. Other reps of the meme coins niche with massive gains include WIF, BONK, and FLOKI.

Ripple and Toncoin are also in the green on a daily scale from the larger-cap alts, and so are BNB, ETH, DOGE, and TRX, albeit in a more modest fashion.

The cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has increased slightly since yesterday and is above $2.420 trillion now.

On-chain data provided by Lookonchain asserted that two prominent institutions have sent millions worth of ETH to exchanges, which could suggest trouble for the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Currently, Ethereum trades close to $2,700 after gaining 5% within the past week.

2 institutions are selling $ETH!

A wallet related to #Cumberland deposited 11,800 $ETH($31.88M) into #Coinbase 7 hours ago.#ParaFiCapital withdrew 5,134 $ETH($13.83M) from #Lido and deposited it into #CoinbasePrime 6 hours ago.

Address:… pic.twitter.com/zuOe68IIuJ

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 28, 2024

As the tweet above reads, the two institutions in question are Cumberland and ParaFiCapital. The former deposited 11,800 ETH (worth almost $32 million) to Coinbase, while the latter withdrew 5,134 ETH (nearly $14 million) from Lido and sent the funds to Coinbase Prime.

Both of those transfers toward the largest US-based exchange happened in the span of a few hours earlier today.

Recall that ETH’s price tumbled hard in early-August under similar circumstances. Back then, another prominent ETH investor, Jump Trading, reportedly sold approximately $500 million worth of the asset, whose price tumbled by double digits in days.

A week later, the company sold a more modest portion of 17,000 ETH (worth $46 million at the time), and Ethereum’s price slipped once again, this time by around 3-4%.

Consequently, the question arises whether the deposits by Cumberland and ParaFiCapital will lead to similar price corrections for ETH, even though they are a lot smaller than Jump Trading’s first.

ETH has been on a roll lately, alongside the broader market, having surged by 5% weekly and trading close to $2,700 for the first time since the aforementioned correction.