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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 he reached a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to enabling money laundering at Binance, which he ran at the time. Thanks to the pardon, Zhao could retake direct control of Binance.
“Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,” Zhao wrote on X. “Will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto and advance web3 worldwide.”
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.
Leavitt said: “These actions by the Biden Administration severely damaged the United States’ reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation. 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 by 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 United States, including those that specialize in cryptocurrency, are required to follow strict “know your customer” laws to identify their users. Binance was and remains one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. It says on its website that it processes more than $65 billion every day on average.
“We thank President Trump for his leadership and for his commitment to make the U.S. the crypto capital of the world,” a Binance spokesperson said in a statement. The company said Zhao’s “vision not only made Binance the world’s largest crypto exchange but shaped the broader crypto movement.”
Trump allied with the crypto industry during the 2024 election. 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.
Binance has close ties with World Liberty Financial, which has administered many of the Trump family’s crypto projects and generated more than $4 billion for the family, according to The Wall Street Journal. World Liberty’s flagship crypto coin runs on a crypto exchange that Binance quietly administers, the Journal also reported.
Binance also hired a new lobbyist in September, Charles McDowell, according to a public filing. McDowell is a friend of Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, and they were photographed together at the White House last week.
On Monday, McDowell’s lobbying firm, Checkmate Government Relations, disclosed that Binance had paid it $450,000 for the previous month’s work. According to the filing, McDowell lobbied the White House about an issue that his firm called “executive relief,” in addition to crypto policy.
In a statement, World Liberty Financial said it “stands with the crypto industry in applauding today’s news and the overall shift happening in D.C. right now.”
A spokesperson for World Liberty said it “had no role in the clemency process.”
Checkmate did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At Thursday’s White House news briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about potential conflicts of interest related to Zhao’s pardon.
“The president and the White House have a very thorough examination of every pardon request that comes to the president’s desk,” she said.
“I spoke with our great White House counsel about the pardon after it happened,” Leavitt continued. “This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration.”
Leavitt added that Trump wanted to “correct this overreach of the Biden administration’s misjustice, and he exercised his constitutional authority to do so.”
Zhao is one of the richest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, which ranks him as the 31st-wealthiest person in the world. As of Wednesday, his fortune was nearly $55 billion.
In May, Democratic Sens Elizabeth Warren or Massachusetts, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote to the White House after Zhao said on a podcast that he had “applied for a presidential pardon.”
“These circumstances — involving billions of dollars in penalties and foreign investments, presidential family business interests, and the potential nullification of criminal sanctions — demand the highest levels of scrutiny to ensure that our justice system is operating free from inappropriate political and financial influence,” they wrote.
Thursday’s pardon is the latest in a string of high-profile pardons and commutations from Trump. He has pardoned reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, hip-hop star Lil Wayne and, most recently, former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. In March, Trump pardoned three co-founders of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, according to CNBC.
Steve Kopack is a senior reporter at NBC News covering business and the economy.
Katherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News.
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