US President Donald Trump pardoned the founder of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange Changpeng Zhao.
White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said President Trump used his constitutional authority to pardon Zhao, who was prosecuted by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Leavitt reported that the Biden administration, in an effort to punish the cryptocurrency industry, was targeting Zhao despite no fraud allegations or specific victims.
“The Biden administration tried to sentence Zhao to 3 years in prison, which was so far beyond the punitive guidelines that even the judge said that 30 years he had never encountered such a case in his career. These actions by the Biden administration have seriously damaged the US reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation. The Biden administration’s war on cryptocurrencies is over,” she said.
In November 2023, the US government announced that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, would pay a fine of $4.3 billion for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.
As part of a settlement with the US government, Zhao agreed to resign and pay a $50 million fine.
In a criminal case tried in Seattle Federal Court in April 2024, prosecutors sought a 3-year prison sentence for Zhao deterrent, and defense lawyers asked for 5 months of supervised release.
Zhao, who was once considered the most powerful man in the cryptocurrency industry and was known by the pseudonym “CZ”, was sentenced to 4 months in prison for “failing to provide sufficient protection against money laundering.”