Changpeng Zhao secretly transferred $2 million to a prison education fund: details of the transaction
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, has been anonymously funding educational programs for American inmates for two years. The total amount of donations sent to the organization Prison Professors has reached $2 million. These funds were distributed in four equal tranches of $500,000, and all this time they remained out of the public eye.
Zhao himself confirmed the transfers, explaining that he sent the money every six months. Representatives of Prison Professors, in turn, gratefully accepted the funding, emphasizing that these funds will go toward creating free educational materials for federal prisons. The organization, founded by former inmate Michael Santos, specializes in producing books, courses, and programs to prepare convicts for life after release.
The new multi-million dollar infusion will allow for a significant expansion of the project's technical base. The foundation's leadership plans to integrate Binance Academy courses into the program, as well as develop a convenient digital system for tracking student progress. Key areas of expenditure include:
- Creating and distributing free educational content.
- Integrating partner materials, including Binance Academy courses.
- Developing a digital platform for monitoring progress.
- Collecting detailed statistics on learning outcomes in correctional facilities.
It is worth recalling that the topic of imprisonment is personally familiar to Changpeng Zhao. In the spring of 2024, he spent four months behind bars for violating U.S. money laundering laws, and the exchange itself paid a record fine of $4.3 billion. Later, in the fall of 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned the businessman, which sparked mixed reactions in the crypto community. Many experts linked this move to Binance's investments in Trump's family stablecoin USD1, calling the decision a straightforward payment for forgiveness.
Expert opinion: This gesture by Zhao is not just charity, but a calculated step to restore his reputation. By funding education for inmates, CZ not only demonstrates empathy but also creates a positive narrative around his persona, which is especially important against the backdrop of recent legal scandals and accusations of political bias in the pardon.