President Trump has utilized his constitutional authority to pardon Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration as part of its crackdown on the cryptocurrency sector,” stated White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
“The Biden administration targeted Mr. Zhao without any allegations of fraud or specific victims,” she added. “The Biden administration’s war on crypto is over.”
 U.S. President Donald Trump and Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance
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Mr. Zhao, commonly known by his nickname CZ, joins a list of cryptocurrency industry leaders pardoned by Trump, including Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, and several employees of BitMex.
In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering measures, while Binance admitted to violating international financial sanctions and anti-money laundering regulations. The exchange agreed to pay a record-breaking $4.3 billion in penalties to U.S. authorities.
U.S. regulators accused Binance of failing to prevent transactions aimed at evading sanctions and those linked to criminal activities, hackers, and terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and ISIS.
U.S. prosecutors initially sought a 3-year prison sentence for Zhao, but he ultimately received a 4-month sentence in 2024, which he completed by the end of that year.
On his personal X account, Zhao expressed, “I am deeply grateful for today’s pardon and thank President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice.”
Binance, founded by Zhao in 2017, operated primarily in offshore jurisdictions for years, refusing to disclose its official headquarters. This strategy led to regulatory disputes in numerous countries over anti-money laundering controls and user protection regulations in the high-risk cryptocurrency trading environment.
Despite these challenges, the platform grew to become the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, amassing a fortune for Zhao estimated at approximately $54 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
With this pardon, Zhao is likely to have travel restrictions to the U.S. lifted soon, along with other limitations related to his activities in the U.S. securities market. These restrictions were imposed as part of legal agreements with the Department of Justice and parallel litigation from U.S. securities regulators.
Since the beginning of his second term in the White House, President Trump has been a strong advocate for the cryptocurrency industry. His administration has fundamentally reformed the U.S. regulatory approach to the sector, while his family has also entered the market with various cryptocurrency business ventures.
Earlier this year, Binance received a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund, notably paid entirely in USD1 stablecoin—a digital currency issued by World Liberty Financial, a company controlled by the Trump family.
YZi Labs, Zhao’s investment firm and one of the largest cryptocurrency funds globally, has recently invested millions into a small Nasdaq-listed stock focused on acquiring and holding Binance’s BNB tokens. The token’s price surged 8% following news of Zhao’s pardon.
Zhao’s pardon comes amid reports that U.S. regulators, in February, suspended an investigation into fraud allegations against several companies owned by cryptocurrency billionaire Justin Sun, founder of the Tron digital asset platform. Notably, in May, Sun and 24 major holders of the memecoin $Trump were invited to a private gathering with the president at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.
According to a Financial Times report published this month, companies owned by Trump generated over $1 billion in pre-tax profits from cryptocurrency-related ventures in the past year alone.
Commenting on the situation, Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, stated, “It is now clear that the relationship between the Trump administration and the cryptocurrency industry runs deep, and the U.S. government apparatus will be openly mobilized to support this sector.”
– 09:29 24/10/2025
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