By Gram Slattery and Chris Prentice
U.S. President Donald Trump has pardoned convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to money laundering.
In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.”
Zhao, one of the most powerful people in the crypto world, had to step down as chief of Binance when the company agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. government to end a years-long probe into misconduct at the world’s largest crypto exchange.
As part of the deal, Zhao pleading guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at Binance.
Trump’s pardon of Zhao paves the way for the crypto mogul to return to the business he helped found in 2017. He has already served his time in prison after a judge sentenced him to four months.
Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zhao’s pardon is the latest in a series Trump has doled out to executives convicted of white collar crimes.
Earlier this year, he pardoned the founders of crypto exchange BitMEX in connection with similar anti-money laundering violations and the founder of electric truck company Nikola convicted of fraud. He has also commuted the sentence of the executive of now-defunct start-up Ozy Media.
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