From CNBC: President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering while heading the cryptocurrency exchange, the White House said 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,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Zhao, in November 2023, pleaded guilty in the case and agreed to step down as Binance CEO as part of a $4.3 billion settlement by the company with the Department of Justice.
In April 2024 Zhao was sentenced to just four months in prison, and was released in September 2024. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year sentence.
The Biden administration had launched a wide-ranging crackdown on the crypto industry. President Trump has taken the opposite approach, and is now being accused of doing so for personal profit.
The New York Times reported:
Mr. Trump has granted clemency to several other prominent crypto executives, including Ross Ulbricht, who ran the Bitcoin-fueled drug marketplace Silk Road. And since Mr. Trump took office, regulators have dropped lawsuits against Coinbase and several other large crypto firms.
But even in the context of Mr. Trump’s broader dismantlement of crypto enforcement, the pardon for Mr. Zhao is extraordinary.
Long considered the crypto industry’s richest man, Mr. Zhao — a Chinese-born executive who now lives in the United Arab Emirates — admitted that he had violated the law by failing to install rigorous compliance systems at Binance. That allowed people in sanctioned countries and terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State to move money on his platform.
When he pleaded guilty, Mr. Zhao, who goes by CZ, stepped down as chief executive of Binance, though he remained its majority owner and held onto virtually all of his wealth.
President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering while heading the cryptocurrency exchange, the White House said Thursday. https://t.co/ZoMEQFUyjs pic.twitter.com/e99RQNgcDb
— CNBC (@CNBC) October 23, 2025
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