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chairman donald trump Binance has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, who built the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served a prison sentence for failing to stop criminals linked to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism from using the platform to move funds.
The pardon caps a month-long 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 major supporters of some of the Trump family’s crypto ventures.
white House Press secretary Caroline Levitt It was claimed in a statement on Thursday democratic chairman Joe BidenThe administration prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry” and said there were “no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.” Zhao’s pardon is the latest step by a president who has used his executive power to grant pardons to political associates, prominent public figures and others convicted of crimes.
Zhao was released from prison last year after serving a four-month sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. He was the first person to be sentenced to prison for such violations of the law that requires U.S. financial institutions to know who their customers are, monitor transactions and file reports of suspicious activity. Prosecutors said Zhao violated more rules than anyone else.
The judge in the case said he was troubled by Zhao’s decision to ignore US banking requirements, which would have slowed the company’s explosive growth.
“It is better to apologize than to allow,” prosecutors said Zhao told his employees about the company’s approach to U.S. law. Prosecutors said Binance allowed more than 1.5 million virtual currency trades, totaling about $900 million, in violation of U.S. sanctions, including those linked to Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, al-Qaeda and Iran.
“I failed here,” Zhao told the court during his sentencing hearing last year. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”
Zhao had a remarkable path to becoming a crypto billionaire. He grew up in rural China and his family immigrated to Canada after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. As a teenager, he worked at McDonald’s and became fascinated with the tech industry in college. He founded Binance in 2017.
Trump’s pardon of Zhao fits into a broader pattern of his cavalier attitude toward the crypto industry, which cost him heavily to help him win election in 2024. His administration has dropped several enforcement actions against crypto companies that began during Biden’s tenure and disbanded the crypto-related enforcement team at the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, the President and his family have started making money in crypto.
A stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, a crypto project founded by Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, received early support and credibility thanks to an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates that used $2 billion of World Liberty’s stablecoin to buy a stake in Binance. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that are typically tied to the value of the US dollar.
Zhao said earlier this year that his lawyers had requested a pardon.
It was not immediately clear how Trump’s pardon of Zhao might affect the operations of Binance and Binance.US, a separate branch of the main exchange that offers more limited trading options to US residents.
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Suderman reported from Richmond, Virginia.