Trump pardons Binance founder Changpeng Zhao

US President Donald Trump has issued a presidential pardon for Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, according to a statement from the White House on Thursday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency”.

Zhao, widely known as CZ, is one of the most influential figures in the global crypto industry. He resigned as Binance CEO last year when the company reached a $4.3 billion settlement with the US government to end a multi-year investigation into alleged money laundering and sanctions violations.

He was later sentenced to four months in prison, which he has already served. Trump’s pardon now clears the way for Zhao’s potential return to the company he founded in 2017, which remains the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume.

Binance has not yet commented on the pardon.

Binance came into the spotlight in Malta in recent weeks after the Malta Community Chest Fund (MCCFF) rejected a multi-million donation from the company citing privacy and reputation concerns.

The donation, originally made in 2018, was the subject of a protracted legal dispute over how the crypto funds would be managed. An out of court settlement was reached earlier this year with the MCCFF dropping the court case it had instituted and both sides agreeing Binance would withdraw the pledge.

The end of the saga left Prime Minister Robert Abela and President Myriam Spiteri Debono at loggerheads, with the latter defending the decision to reject the donation and the former expressing concern at the loss of funds that would have helped cancer patients.

The 2018 donation, at a time when Malta pushed to become the ‘blockchain island’, was worth $200,000 in BNB, a crypto currency. The funds remained untouched and due to the appreciation of BNB are now worth almost $39 million.