Changpeng Zhao Submitted a Pardon Request to Donald Trump
Date: 2025-05-09 Author: Henry Casey Categories: BUSINESS
Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, confirmed that he has sent an official pardon request to Donald Trump. He spoke about this on May 6 in the Farokh Radio podcast, noting that the request was submitted after Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported on the possible request.
According to Zhao, media publications prompted him to take action: “Since they had already written about it, I decided to submit it officially.” He also recalled that during his previous presidential term, Trump pardoned several top managers of BitMEX, including Arthur Hayes. This fact, according to Zhao, was one of the factors that influenced his decision.
The billionaire’s lawyers sent the documents about two weeks before the podcast was released. Recall that in November 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act as part of a deal with the US authorities. At that time, Binance was fined $4.3 billion, and Zhao himself paid $50 million and received a four-month prison sentence, losing the right to hold management positions in the company.
Although the pardon does not cancel the fact of the conviction itself, it may allow Zhao to return to managing the American division of the exchange - Binance.US. In the podcast, he ironically noted that he is probably the only one who served a sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, and added: "Anyone who found themselves in this situation would be glad to be pardoned."
After his release, Zhao retained his stake in Binance, but does not plan to return to management. He stated this back in November at the Binance Blockchain Week forum, emphasizing that the team is successfully coping without his participation.
Now he is focused on consulting in the field of cryptocurrency regulation. In particular, Zhao helps the governments of Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan in matters of integrating blockchain technologies.
It should be noted that Donald Trump has previously used his right to pardon defendants in high-profile cases in the crypto sphere: in particular, he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the darknet platform Silk Road, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. Trump made this promise during his election campaign.
