Trump White House Reportedly Weighs Pardon for Binance Founder CZ

Zhao’s clarification aligns with the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2023 resolution, in which Binance and Zhao entered guilty pleas related to regulatory and compliance shortcomings identified by federal authorities. The Justice Department announced that Binance would pay over $4 billion and admit to violations connected to the Bank Secrecy Act, operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, while Zhao personally pleaded guilty to a single compliance-related offense under the BSA.

A federal judge later imposed a four-month sentence on Zhao, though prosecutors had sought a longer term based on the scale of the compliance issues. Coverage at the time noted that he stepped down as chief executive as part of the plea but remained Binance’s majority shareholder. He completed the sentence and was released in late 2024, according to contemporaneous wire reports.

Against that backdrop, any presidential pardon would be significant both legally and commercially. Pardons represent an act of executive clemency that can set aside the legal consequences of a federal conviction. For Zhao, clemency could remove the felony record stemming from the BSA plea, with potential downstream effects on travel, licensing, and business roles in certain jurisdictions, though private counterparties and foreign regulators would make their own determinations.

Market and governance implications would ripple through Binance. Reporting and interviews in early 2024–2025 underscored that while Richard Teng took over as CEO, Zhao remained the largest shareholder and, by extension, a central figure in the exchange’s long-term ownership structure. A pardon would not automatically restore him to an executive role, but it could reduce one barrier to deeper involvement in U.S.-facing initiatives, subject to ongoing agreements with U.S. authorities and any terms of compliance monitorships that followed the plea.

Politically, a pardon would come amid a broader recalibration of U.S. policy on digital-asset regulation under President Trump. Supporters of clemency may argue that Zhao’s case reflected regulatory overreach that treated procedural or compliance matters more severely than comparable cases in traditional finance. Others may contend that the underlying issues were significant enough to warrant firm enforcement and that clemency could raise questions about consistency in federal policy. The discussion mirrors earlier debates over high-profile BSA settlements in other sectors, where outcomes have varied from financial penalties to probation and individual accountability.

There is also a practical timeline question. Even if internal deliberations are active, presidential pardons can take time as staff vet legal posture, collateral consequences, and optics. Gasparino’s post itself cautioned that decisions can “drag on,” and Zhao’s own public comment framed the update as conditional (“great news if true”).

For the industry, the mere possibility of a pardon underscores how 2023–2024 enforcement cases continue to shape 2025’s regulatory and market landscape. Binance remains a dominant venue by spot and derivatives volume, and any change to the legal standing of its founder could influence perceptions among counterparties, market participants, and financial institutions.

The broader question, whether crypto infrastructure can align with established compliance expectations without hindering innovation, will persist regardless of the outcome in this case. The DOJ’s Binance resolution, which brought one of the largest corporate penalties in the sector and included a personal plea by the founder, will remain a key reference point for how exchanges approach global compliance.