Seoul Gazette - Trump pardons Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao

Binance was created in 2017, and swiftly became the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, turning Zhao into a billionaire.

Following an investigation into the firm's operations, Zhao pleaded guilty to violating US anti-money-laundering laws in late 2023, and served a four-month prison sentence for it in 2024.

Zhao's pardon wipes his criminal record, and could help pave the way for Binance to return to the United States, around two years after it agreed to suspend its American operations in a deal to resolve the Department of Justice's criminal investigation.

"In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims," the White House said in a statement shared with AFP.

The White House said the Biden administration's decision to prosecute Zhao and to seek a three-year prison sentence for him had "severely damaged the United States' reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation," adding that the "war on crypto" was now over.

Binance has spent almost a year pursuing a pardon for Zhao, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, noting that Binance has been a "key supporter" of the Trump family's crypto venture World Liberty Financial.

Despite stepping down as chief executive in 2023, Zhao remains the majority shareholder of Binance.

Democrats were quick to criticize Trump's decision to pardon Zhao.

"CZ pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge and was sentenced to prison. But then he financed President Trump's stablecoin and lobbied for a pardon. Today, he got it," Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in a post on X.

"If Congress does not stop this kind of corruption, it owns it," added Warren, a high-profile figure on the left of the party who sits on the US Senate's finance committee.

Since his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has become a defender and promoter of the cryptocurrency sector, reversing his past criticism.

He has eased the regulatory framework imposed on the cryptocurrency industry, which contributed more than $100 million to his reelection campaign.

The Trump family's various crypto businesses have netted them a pre-tax profit of around a billion dollars over the past 12 months, according to a recent Financial Times investigation.

Trump's pardon of Zhao follows a string of other similarly controversial moves such as his decision to issue a blanket pardon for people convicted of violence in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump has also commuted the sentence of the disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was convicted of committing wire fraud and identity theft.

N.Hong--SG