President Donald Trump signed a pardon Wednesday for convicted crypto executive Changpeng Zhao, who founded the Binance crypto exchange, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“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,” Leavitt said. “In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.”
Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after reaching a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at Binance, which he ran at the time.
The United States also ordered Binance to pay more than $4 billion in fines and forfeiture, while Zhao agreed to pay $50 million in fines.
“These actions by the Biden Administration severely damaged the United States’ reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation,” Leavitt said. “The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”
In November 2023, the Justice Department called the agreement with Binance and Zhao a “coordinated” action between the Treasury, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. “Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in part because of the crimes it committed — now it is paying one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said in 2023.
Then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also said the company’s “willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform.”
Binance wrote in a blog post at the time that it “takes responsibility for this past chapter.”
Financial exchanges in the U.S., including those that specialize in cryptocurrency, are required to follow strict “know your customer” laws to identify their users. Binance was and still remains one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. The company says on its website that it processes more than $65 billion every day on average.
A spokesperson for Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
During the 2024 election, Trump allied with the crypto industry. A crypto venture associated with his family has launched a number of crypto products over the last year.
In May, Trump hosted a dinner for top buyers of his “meme coin.” The crowd gathered at the dinner spent nearly $150 million buying the Trump meme coin.
Kevin Collier contributed.
