President Donald Trump has granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, according to a White House statement.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency.” The statement also claimed there were “no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims” in Zhao’s case.
Zhao pleaded guilty in November 2023 to violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, admitting that Binance’s anti-money laundering controls were deficient. He was sentenced in April 2024 to four months in prison and fined $50 million, while Binance itself reached a $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. authorities over money laundering and sanctions violations. After serving his sentence, Zhao was released from custody on September 27, 2024.
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Earlier this year, Zhao publicly confirmed that he had submitted a pardon application, and expected it to yield positive results. On a podcast, he said his legal team filed it after media reports surfaced about his eligibility and political dimensions of his case.
Calls from U.S. senators raised scrutiny over possible conflicts involving Zhao’s pardon and a venture called World Liberty Financial (WLF), which had ties to the Trump family and had announced a $2 billion deal involving a stablecoin called USD1 with Binance. The senators requested the White House and DOJ provide records regarding pardon communications and potential conflicts of interest.
Trump’s pardon paves the way for Zhao to re-engage in the crypto industry he helped build. Leavitt framed the pardon as pushing back on what the administration called a “war on crypto” by the previous White House.
The pardon continues a pattern of executive clemency for business leaders convicted of white-collar crimes. Earlier this year, Trump granted clemency to founders of BitMEX for anti-money laundering violations and Nikola’s cofounder for fraud, and commuted the sentence of an executive at Ozy Media.
While the pardon from President Trump erases Founder Zhao’s federal conviction, it does not necessarily insulate him from regulatory scrutiny or civil enforcement actions.