President Donald Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance who was convicted of money laundering. Zhao, one of the most powerful people in the crypto world, was jailed for four months and forced to step down as head of Binance in 2023 in a plea deal, and the company reached a settlement of $3.4 billion for failing to report more than 100,000 illegal transactions from groups including al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Islamic State. “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,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The Biden administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims,” she added, claiming President Joe Biden’s “war on crypto” is now over. With the pardon in place, the door is open for Zhao to return to his previous position as CEO of Binance, which he founded in 2017. He joins a growing list of crypto moguls pardoned by Trump after being convicted of white-collar crimes, including Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and the founders of the crypto exchange BitMEX.
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