US President Donald Trump has granted Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao a pardon, months after the former CEO of the exchange confirmed he had asked for a presidential pardon, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Zhao served four months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty in November 2023 to charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Act. As part of his plea deal, he stepped down from running Binance, the exchange he had founded and managed since 2017, and accepted a $50 million fine. Binance also pleaded guilty to the charges and agreed to a court-appointed monitor as well as a record $4.3 billion fine paid to the US Department of Justice, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Treasury Department.
At the time, federal prosecutors alleged that Binance employees knew they were violating the Bank Secrecy Act, citing chat logs between various employees. The exchange served users in sanctioned countries, as well as “facilitating transactions between US users and users in sanctioned countries,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
With a pardon, Zhao can conduct more business activities in the United States. If Binance also receives a pardon, as BitMEX did earlier this year, it may become easier to develop operations in the United States
Zhao said he had asked for a pardon in May 2025 after reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal indicated his team had sought a pardon for him.
Binance previously received a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi firm MGX, which used Trump-linked World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin to make the investment.
GDP originally created as the native token for CZ’s Binance exchange and now the native currency for BNB Chain, added about 3% in the minutes following the news.
In a statement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said, “First, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony charge of money laundering. Then he pushed one of Donald Trump’s crypto ventures and lobbied for a pardon. Today, Donald Trump did his part and pardoned him. If Congress doesn’t own up to this kind of corruption, it will stop it not this kind of corruption. lawlessness.”
UPDATE (October 23, 2025, 15:58 UTC): Adds additional details.
UPDATE (October 23, 2025, 16:20 UTC): Adds Warren Statement.
