Binance founder Changpeng Zhao says he ‘didn’t do much’ to get Trump pardon

Changpeng Zhao, the crypto mogul who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to money laundering violations, said he “didn’t do much” to receive a pardon from US President Donald Trump in October.

The former Binance CEO made the comments in the latest episode of the All-In Podcast with host Chamath Palihapitiya, released on Tuesday.

In the wide-ranging interview, which included discussion about Zhao’s prosecution and time in prison, Palihapitiya asked about the controversial pardon.

“The question that some people can kinda jump to is they think, ‘What must CZ have done to try to get it.’ Do you want to put that to bed?” he asked.

“I didn’t do much,” Zhao replied. “I didn’t do anything.”

Shortly after in the conversation Zhao expanded on his seemingly conflicting replies.

“Without the pardon it’s quite hard for Binance to enter the US in a proper way,” he said.

“If the US wants to become the capital of crypto in the world, you can not have US people not be able to access the largest liquidity pool.”

Trump has pledged to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.”

An alleged deal

For months, critics have alleged the Binance founder made a deal with Trump in exchange for his presidential pardon.

In November, a 60 Minutes investigation tied a $2 billion investment deal between Binance and Abu Dhabi’s MGX to Trump and his family.

Critics say the deal, which was conducted with USD1, a stablecoin issued by Trump family crypto project World Liberty Financial, was done as a favour in exchange for the pardon.

As of Tuesday, Binance custodies 89% of all USD1 in circulation, according to blockchain data platform Arkham Intel.

Binance CEO Richard Teng, and Zhao’s lawyer Teresa Goody Guillen, have both dismissed claims that the exchange helped boost USD1 before Zhao received the pardon.

Trump sympathy?

In November 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to wilfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement and maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme at Binance.

For the crime, he was sentenced to four months in prison, which he served between April and September 2024.

Zhao has since made several critical statements about his treatment by the US Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden’s administration, framing it as highly aggressive, politically motivated, and part of a broader “war on crypto.”

It’s this treatment by US authorities that Zhao said may have influenced Trump’s decision to grant him a pardon.

“The fact that [Trump] went through the Biden DoJ probably helped me a lot to get the pardon, because he could sympathise,” Zhao said. “He knows how aggressive that DoJ was.”

Political persecution

Zhao isn’t the only one to make the case he was a victim of political persecution.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him on seven counts of fraud and money laundering in 2024, has also blamed Biden for his harsh sentence.

Yet so far, Trump has shown no interest in Bankman-Fried’s plight. Last month, the president told the New York Times that he has no plans to pardon the FTX founder.

In May, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed to drop its enforcement action against Zhao and Binance. The agency also halted or dropped cases against several other crypto companies over the past year.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.