Trump pardons convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao having ties with family crypto venture

US President Donald Trump has used his special powers to pardon Binance’s convicted founder Changpeng Zhao, who had admitted allowing money laundering while heading the cryptocurrency exchange and served jail time. Zhao, accused of failing to stop criminals from using his platform to illegally move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking, and terrorism, has ties with the Trump family’s crypto venture. Zhao, founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, had pleaded guilty to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering programme. Zhao, one of the most powerful people in the crypto world, had to step down as Binance chief when the company agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement with the US government to end a years-long probe into misconduct at the world’s largest crypto exchange.

Zhao pleaded guilty, White House says Biden admin persecuted him

The Binance founder had asked Trump for a pardon previously, and the White House now says Zhao was persecuted by the Joe Biden administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry”. She added that there were “no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims”.

Zhao, while pleading guilty in November in the money-laundering case, had told the court, “I failed here… I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”

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Zhao has ties with Trump family venture?

Changpeng Zhao has ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. launched in September. Trump’s most recent financial disclosure report says he made more than $57 million last year from this venture, which has launched ‘USD1’, a ‘stablecoin’ form of crypto that’s pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the US dollar.

World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of this ‘USD1’ coin to purchase a stake in Binance.

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The pardon came two months after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s crypto venture, which has generated about $4.5 billion since the 2024 election, has been helped by “a partnership with an under-the-radar trading platform quietly administered by Binance.”

Trump's pardon of Zhao paves the way for the crypto mogul to return to the business he helped found in 2017. He has already served his time in prison.

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Zhao’s pardon by Trump is the latest in a series of those extended to executives convicted of white-collar crimes. Earlier this year, he pardoned the founders of crypto exchange BitMEX in connection with similar anti-money laundering violations and the founder of electric truck company Nikola, convicted of fraud. He has also commuted the sentence of the executive of now-defunct start-up Ozy Media.

Recently, Trump commuted the 87-month prison sentence of former New York Rep. George Santos, who had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

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