(MENAFN) US President Donald Trump has granted a pardon to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had previously been found guilty of facilitating money laundering at the cryptocurrency exchange, according to the White House.

In November 2023, Binance and its former CEO Zhao admitted to breaching the US Bank Secrecy Act, acknowledging they had neglected to implement anti-money-laundering safeguards.

Prosecutors reported that the exchange failed to disclose over 100,000 suspicious transactions, some linked to terrorism and child exploitation.

As a result, Binance was prohibited from conducting business in the US and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties. Zhao stepped down as CEO, paid $50 million, and was later sentenced to four months in prison.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated on Thursday that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority” by granting Zhao a pardon, arguing that he had been “egregiously oversentenced” by the administration of former President Joe Biden “in their war on cryptocurrency.”

The pardon came after months of lobbying by Binance and coincided with its expanding connections to Trump. Once a skeptic of digital currencies, the former president pledged last year to make the US the “crypto capital of the world.”

Trump’s family has further engaged with the industry through business ventures and investments.

Earlier this year, Binance supported World Liberty Financial—a crypto venture co-founded by Trump and his sons, which has raised roughly $550 million in token sales since 2024—by accepting its USD1 stablecoin.

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