Changpen “CZ” Zhao, founder and former CEO of Binance, confirmed to a podcast that he has formally applied for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump-less than a year after soning a four-month sentence in a US federal prison.
Zhao shared the update on an episode of Farohk Radio Podcast and said his legal team submitted the application two weeks earlier.
“I got lawyers who applied for. We first submitted after the Bloomberg article and the Wall Street Journal article came out,” he said, referring to the march coverage reporting he sought a pardon while participating in Crypto Business offers involving Trump Family Allies. “And I was like, yes, if they write this article, we might as well officially apply.”
At that time, Zhao publicly rejected parts of these stories, called them inaccurate and denied all active business negotiations involving Binance US
Zhao was convicted in April 2024 after pleading guilty the previous year for not maintaining an effective anti-white laundering program at Binance, at the time the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange at trading volume.
Alongside his prison period, Zhao paid a $ 50 million fine. Binance himself paid $ 4.3 billion in what became one of the biggest business statements in US history. He was released last September.
Trump has already pardoned other high -profile numbers in the crypto area. These include Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and Bitmex’s co-founders as his administration brought a more crypto-friendly legislative environment.
During the podcast, CZ also revealed that he was not invested in Donald Trump’s official Memecoin Trump. Earlier this week, Zhao revealed that he advised Kyrgyzstan on using BTC and BNB as the initial cryptocurrencies for a potential national crypto reserve.