{"id":327530,"date":"2025-10-23T22:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/327530\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T22:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:15:11","slug":"trump-pardons-binance-founder-changpeng-zhao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/327530\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump pardons Binance founder Changpeng Zhao"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao<\/a>, who created the world\u2019s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time for failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.<\/p>\n

The pardon caps a monthslong effort by Zhao, a billionaire commonly known as CZ in the crypto world and one of the biggest names in the industry. He and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family\u2019s crypto enterprises<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cDeeply grateful for today\u2019s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America\u2019s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,\u201d Zhao said on social media<\/a> Thursday. <\/p>\n

Zhao served four months in prison after reaching a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at Binance. But, in explaining the pardon, Trump said of Zhao, \u201cHe was recommended by a lot of people.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people say that he wasn\u2019t guilty of anything,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe served four months in jail and they say that he was not guilty of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president added that he didn\u2019t believe he\u2019d ever met Zhao personally, but had \u201cbeen told\u201d he \u201chad a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime.\u201d He said Zhao had been \u201cpersecuted by the Biden administration.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest move by a president who has flexed his executive power<\/a> to bestow clemency on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of crimes. <\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the pardon in a statement and later told reporters in a briefing that the White House counsel\u2019s office \u201cthoroughly reviewed\u201d the request. She said the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden pursued \u201can egregious oversentencing\u201d in the case, was \u201cvery hostile to the cryptocurrency industry\u201d and Trump \u201cwants to correct this overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crypto industry has also long complained it was subject to a \u201cregulation by enforcement\u201d ethos under the Biden administration. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pardon of Zhao fits into a broad pattern of his taking a hands-off approach to an industry that spent heavily to help him win the election in 2024. His administration has dropped several<\/a> enforcement actions against crypto companies that began during Biden\u2019s term and disbanded the crypto-related enforcement team<\/a> at the Justice Department. <\/p>\n

Former federal prosecutor Mark Bini said Zhao went to prison for what \u201csounds like a regulatory offense, or at worst its kissing cousin.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSo this pardon, while it involves the biggest name in crypto, is not very surprising,\u201d said Bini, a white collar defense lawyer who handles crypto issues at Reed Smith. <\/p>\n

Zhao was released from prison last year after being sentenced<\/a> for violating the Bank Secrecy Act<\/a>. He was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for such violations of that law, which requires U.S. financial institutions to know who their customers are, to monitor transactions and to file reports of suspicious activity. Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Zhao did.<\/p>\n

The judge in the case said he was troubled by Zhao\u2019s decision to ignore U.S. banking requirements that would have slowed the company\u2019s explosive growth. <\/p>\n

\u201cBetter to ask for forgiveness than permission,\u201d was what Zhao told his employees about the company\u2019s approach to U.S. law, prosecutors said. Binance allowed more than 1.5 million virtual currency trades, totaling nearly $900 million, that violated U.S. sanctions, including ones involving Hamas\u2019 al-Qassam Brigades, al-Qaida and Iran, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI failed here,\u201d Zhao told the court last year during sentencing. \u201cI deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhao had a remarkable path to becoming a crypto billionaire. He grew up in rural China and his family immigrated to Canada after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. As a teenager, he worked at a McDonald\u2019s and became enamored with the tech industry in college. He founded Binance in 2017.<\/p>\n

In addition to taking pro-crypto enforcement and regulatory positions, the president and his family have plunged headfirst<\/a> into making money in crypto. <\/p>\n

A stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, a crypto project founded by Trump and sons Donald Jr. and Eric, received early support and credibility thanks to an investment fund<\/a> in the United Arab Emirates using $2 billion worth of World Liberty\u2019s stablecoin to purchase a stake in Binance. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that are typically tied to the value of the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n

A separate World Liberty Finance token saw a huge spike in price on Thursday shortly after news of the pardon was made public, with gains that far outpaced any other major cryptocurrency, according to data from CoinMarketCap. <\/p>\n

Zhao said earlier this year that his lawyers had requested a pardon. <\/p>\n

It is not immediately clear what impact Trump\u2019s pardon of Zhao may have on operations at Binance and Binance.US, a separate arm of the main exchange offering more limited trading options to U.S. residents. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Suderman reported from Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world\u2019s largest cryptocurrency…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":327531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,162978,821,84,69,57,82,8133,90048,162979,130635,80,2938,158,5343,94,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-327530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-changpeng-zhao","10":"tag-cryptocurrency","11":"tag-district-of-columbia","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-joe-biden","15":"tag-karoline-leavitt","16":"tag-law-and-order","17":"tag-mark-bini","18":"tag-pardons-and-commutations","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-prisons","21":"tag-technology","22":"tag-terrorism","23":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}