HOWEVER, if I had to steelman the "unfairly persecuted" argument, I'd say that the $4B fine + prison sentence was much harsher than what the DOJ did to traditio

HOWEVER, if I had to steelman the "unfairly persecuted" argument, I'd say that the $4B fine + prison sentence was much harsher than what the DOJ did to traditional banks engaging in the same thing. HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan, and others have all been found guilty of similar AML violations, possibly for more serious offences, and NOBODY went to prison, and the fines were much smaller. So while the fines/jail were much harsher on Binance than other tradfi offenders, I think most would have rather seen someone from HSBC go to jail for laundering cartel money, vs CZ getting pardoned. But if the 'ol "slap on the wrist" treated crypto similarly to tradfi, CZ would not have gone to jail - i.e. Binance was unfairly targeted by the previous administration.