According to the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, "President Trump has exercised his constitutional right to pardon Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in its war on cryptocurrency".
Since Trump came to power, Zhao and Binance have been an important support for his own cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, a company that is said to have increased the president's personal wealth to a very significant extent, writes The Wall Street Journal.
A pardon will likely make it possible for Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, to return to the USA. The company admitted in 2023 that it was guilty of violating American rules against money laundering and was prevented from operating there.
The prosecutors had requested that Changpeng Zhao be sentenced to three years in prison, but the sentence was four months. In November last year, Binance reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice and agreed to pay a total of $4.3 billion in fines, equivalent to approximately 47 billion Swedish kronor.
Part of the settlement was also that Changpeng Zhao would leave the post as the company's CEO.
