US President Donald Trump granted a pardon to Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, months after the exchange’s former CEO confirmed he had requested a presidential pardon, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Zhao served four months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty in November 2023 to charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Law. As part of his plea deal, he resigned from the leadership of Binance, the exchange he had founded and led since 2017, and agreed to a fine of $50 million. 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 U.S. 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 different employees. The exchange was serving users in sanctioned countries, in addition to “facilitating transactions between US users and users in sanctioned countries,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
With a reprieve, Zhao can conduct more business operations in the US. If Binance also receives a reprieve, as BitMEX did earlier this year, it may be easier for it to grow its operations in the US.
Zhao said he had asked for a pardon in May 2025, after reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal indicated that his team had sought a pardon for him.
Binance previously received a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi company MGX, which used Trump-linked World Liberty Financial’s $1 stablecoin to make the investment.
BNB originally created as the native token of CZ exchange Binance and now the native coin of BNB Chain, it added approximately 3% in the minutes following the news.
In a statement, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic leader on the Senate Banking Committee, said: “First, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of money laundering. Then he boosted one of Donald Trump’s crypto companies and pushed for a pardon. Today, Donald Trump did his part and pardoned him. If Congress does not stop this type of corruption in pending legislation on market structure, owns this. anarchy.”
UPDATE (October 23, 2025, 15:58 UTC): Add additional details.
UPDATE (October 23, 2025, 16:20 UTC): Adds Warren statement.
