Trump pardons Canadian Binance CEO who failed to stop illegal activity on crypto platform

US President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who built the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served a prison sentence after failing to stop criminals linked to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism from using the platform to move funds.

Zhao had earlier also apologized to Trump. He has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September.

Trump’s most recent financial disclosure report shows he made more than US$57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1 to 1 ratio to the US dollar.

World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates will use USD1 to buy a stake in Binance worth US$2 billion. Zhao has also said publicly that he had sought a pardon from Trump that could have vacated his sentence.

White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry.” He said there were “no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims”, although Zhao had pleaded guilty in November to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program.

“I failed here,” Zhao told the court last year. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”