Donald Trump’s second term has already seen several instances of things that would represent presidency-defining acts of corruption in most other administrations. Many of those have involved Trump’s own crypto-related actions, which have increased his net worth by over $1 billion and put him in bed with some questionable figures around the world.
Now, in another brazen act, the president has pardoned a controversial crypto-related figure.
According to CNN, Trump has announced that he has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance Holdings, after Zhao pled guilty to a money laundering charge in 2023.
BREAKING: Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, whose crypto exchange has been boosting the Trump family’s own crypto venture, WSJ reports.
The most corrupt president in history. pic.twitter.com/llQieMuzYs
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 23, 2025
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The president “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 announced Thursday.
Per the Wall Street Journal, the pardon followed “months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company.”
Zhao thanked the president for pardoning him.
‘@cz_binance: Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice. Will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto and advance web3 worldwide. (Still in flight, more posts to…
— Bella (@stockbella) October 23, 2025
Binance, Zhao’s company, will likely be allowed to reenter the U.S., following the pardon, per The Wall Street Journal.
“The Justice Department imposed a record $4.3 billion fine and burdensome oversight on Binance, which it said had become a colossal money-laundering hub through which sanctioned groups and criminal organizations laundered billions of dollars in illicit funds,” the Journal said of the Biden-era prosecution.
The question will now turn to whether Trump pardons Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted former head of crypto exchange FTX, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence. While Bankman-Fried was for a time a major Democratic donor — leading to conspiracy theories, pushed by Elon Musk and others, that the Biden Administration would let him off, which did not happen — but the now-jailed Bankman-Fried has reportedly been pushing for a pardon from Trump. The former FTX head has more recently been claiming that he was targeted by the Biden Administration’s anti-crypto agenda.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
