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Key Takeaways
- President Donald Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, founder of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, clearing the way for his return to a leadership role.
- Bitcoin, as well as tokens linked to the Trump family and Binance popped on the news before giving back some gains.
The White House is proving to be a powerful ally for influential figures in the crypto industry.
President Donald Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, known to most as “CZ,” who was convicted and served four months in prison last year after pleading guilty to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. Binance was fined over $4 billion for compliance failures that led to illicit transactions. Zhao personally paid a fine of $50 million, and stepped down as CEO of the international crypto exchange he founded. His now-clear slate could lead to his return to a leadership role at Binance.
The Binance founder has reportedly campaigned for months for a presidential pardon, including boosting the Trump family’s crypto firm World Liberty Financial, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Why This News is Significant
President Trump’s crypto-friendly stance in his second term has been good for the industry in terms of relaxed regulation. However, cryptocurrency prices aren’t much higher than they were at the start of the year.
Bitcoin (BTCUSD) saw a quick spike of roughly 3% to 5%, before the pop faded. Binance’s utility token BNB (BNBUSD) jumped roughly 8% to 15% depending on the crypto exchange before giving back some gains; it’s now up about 4% in the last 24 hours according to CoinGecko. Alt5 Sigma (ALTS), the crypto treasury stockpiling Trump-linked cryptocurrency WLFI (WLFIUSD), rose over 11%, and the token itself jumped 15%.
The White House did not address emailed questions asking about the events leading up to President Trump clearing Zhao’s criminal history; White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a briefing described his prosecution as part of the Biden administration’s “war on cryptocurrency.” A Binance spokesperson declined to comment on whether Zhao would return to Binance.
Zhao is the latest crypto bigwig to receive a presidential pardon. Earlier this year, President Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who operated a dark web marketplace called Silk Road, as well as Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, cofounders of the peer-to-peer crypto derivatives trading platform BitMEX.
