US President Trump pardons convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao

US President Donald Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, a White House official said on Thursday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that 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".

“These actions by the Biden Administration severely damaged the United States’ reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation,” she added. “The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over”.

Known as CZ, Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering and stepped down as Binance CEO in 2023. The company agreed to pay $4.3 billion (€4 million) to settle related allegations.

He was sentenced in April 2024 to four months in prison. However, prosecutors had asked for a three-year prison sentence.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had filed 13 charges against Binance and Zhao, which included commingling and diverting customer assets to an entity that Zhao owned called Sigma Chain.

The saga caused Bitcoin to lose almost 2 per cent of its value in a matter of minutes.

According to Axios, Binance had been lobbying Trump for more than a year and the pardon may mean Binance can once again operate in the US.