Donald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday.
“President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” a White House statement said. “The war on crypto is over.”
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in late 2023 to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program and stepped down as CEO of Binance, which paid $4.3bn to settle related allegations. He was sentenced to four months in prison.
Zhao, who is often referred to by his initials CZ, is one of the world’s richest people and biggest names in cryptocurrency. He built Binance into the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, although the company has been barred from operating in the US after his 2023 guilty plea.
Trump’s pardon is an immense victory for Zhao and Binance after months of speculation and lobbying. It is also yet another sign of the Trump administration’s shift toward easing scrutiny on the crypto industry, at a time when Trump and his family are building their own multibillion-dollar crypto empire.
“Incredible news of CZ’s pardon today. We thank President Trump for his leadership and for his commitment to make the US the crypto capital of the world,” a spokesperson for Binance said in a statement.
Representatives from Trump’s family crypto business have held talks with Binance about taking a stake in the US arm of the exchange, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year. Zhao disputed that he was seeking to make a deal in exchange for a pardon.
“Fact: I have had no discussions of a Binance US deal with … well, anyone,” Zhao claimed in a post on X in March. “No felon would mind a pardon,” he added.
Binance has nevertheless played an important part in the growth of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto enterprise. When Binance accepted a $2bn transaction from an Emirati investment fund earlier this year, it agreed to have the funds be paid in a cryptocurrency developed by World Liberty Financial – a move that legitimized the Trump family’s digital currency and was highly lucrative for the firm.
“We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us,” Zach Witkoff, founder of the Trump family’s crypto business, said in May at a conference in Dubai announcing the deal.
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A group of Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate banking, housing, and urban affairs committee , issued a statement following the deal in May expressing concern that Binance and the Trump administration were seeking to strike a deal that would enrich the president.
“As the Administration loosens oversight on an industry where bad actors have violated money laundering and sanctions law, it is not surprising that Binance, which has admitted to prioritizing its own growth and profits over compliance with US law, would seek to roll back the oversight required by its settlement,” the senators wrote.
The US justice department’s case against Binance accused the company of failing to report over 100,000 suspicious transactions to law enforcement, including those involving US-designated terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Hamas. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued the company in 2023 but dropped the suit soon after Trump was inaugurated.
