Asia Tech Wire (Apr 24) -- The U.S. is seeking to sentence Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the Chinese-born founder of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, to 36 months in prison.

U.S. prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday that Zhao should serve 36 months in prison after pleading guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws.

Zhao, who resigned as Binance's chief executive in November last year, agreed to pay a $150 million penalty to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission after pleading guilty.

Binance also admitted at the time to anti-money laundering failures, unlicensed money transfers and sanctions violations, accepted a $4.32 billion penalty, which includes a criminal fine of $1.81 billion and a forfeiture of $2.51 billion.

A Seattle federal court is due to sentence Zhao on money-laundering charges on April 30, after a delay in February.