Why did Trump pardon the former head of Binance? There is a simple explanation

On October 22, US President Donald Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, former head of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. GetBlock AML Research explains why the American leader might have taken this step.

Brief background

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is the founder of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange and the richest representative of the cryptocurrency industry. In 2023, he was forced to step down as CEO of Binance due to criminal prosecution in the United States. Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering, after which he spent four months in prison and paid a $50 million fine. However, Zhao was allowed to retain his controlling stake in Binance.

In the US, a pardon is an act of presidential forgiveness for a federal crime. A pardon does not mean that a person is found innocent, but it can exempt them from punishment and restore civil rights previously lost as a result of a conviction.

The pardon allows Zhao to return to his position as CEO of Binance.

Before the pardon

• On March 13, 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported: “Representatives of President Trump’s family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would put Trump in business with the firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering requirements. At the same time, Binance’s billionaire founder, Changpeng Zhao—who served four months in prison after pleading guilty to a related charge—has been pushing for the Trump administration to grant him a pardon, people familiar with the matter said. Zhao, widely known as CZ, remains Binance’s largest shareholder.”
• On March 13, CZ categorically denied the WSJ’s “report of Trump investment, pardon campaign.”
• On May 1, 2025, Zach Witcoff, the co-founder of WLFI and son of Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witcoff, announced that the UAE-backed investment fund MGX would enter into a $2 billion deal with Binance using WLFI cryptocurrency tokens, potentially generating “tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue for the Trump family and its partners at World Liberty.”
• On May 22, Trump’s WLFI announced that its USD1 stablecoin, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, had begun trading on Binance — and that it “would be used to facilitate [the] $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi-backed MGX into Binance.”
• On October 22, 2025, Trump pardoned CZ.

Trump’s official position

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained Zhao’s pardon by saying that Washington is repairing the damage done to the crypto industry by former US President Joe Biden’s administration.

“Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency. The Biden administration’s war on cryptocurrencies is over,” Leavitt explained.

Everyone noticed

The blatantly self-serving motives behind Trump’s pardon of CZ did not go unnoticed.

Cornell University economics professor Eswar Prasad, in a commentary in the New York Times, called Zhao’s pardon a violation of “the rule of law.” According to him, there was little justification for this pardon, since CZ’s guilt had been proven, and he ultimately admitted to the offense.

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called on the US Congress to investigate corruption in connection with Zhao’s pardon. In her opinion, Trump received financial benefits from a deal with CZ-controlled entities in exchange for the pardon.

What is happening in the US now

At the time of publication, the US had been in a state of shutdown for 27 days. This is a situation in which, for whatever reason, the US Congress has not managed to approve a new funding bill for federal agencies and government bodies before the old one expired. As a result of the shutdown, federal agencies and government bodies have ceased operations.

The current shutdown is already the second-longest in history. The longest shutdown in US history is considered to be the period from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, which lasted 35 days. This occurred during Donald Trump’s first presidential term.