"In April of 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he and Binance had failed to adequately implement anti-money laundering protections. The company was also hit with a massive $4.3 billion fine as part of its settlement with the Department of Justice under the Biden administration. The department said that Binance had become a hub of criminal money laundering, facilitating "billions of dollars of unregulated cryptocurrency transactions," including "nearly" $900 million in transactions between the US and Iran."
"The Trump White House, however, has been much more sympathetic to Binance's plight and that of the crypto industry in general. In May, the SEC dropped its lawsuit against the company. And now, with a pardon in hand, the way has been paved for Zhao and Binance to potentially return to business in the US. The pardon will also end the DOJ's monitoring of Binance, though a separate Treasury program is still on the books for now."
"In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump "exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency... The Biden Administration's war on crypto is over." Zhao is just the latest in a long string of tech industry pardons from Trump."
President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, after months of lobbying and Zhao's involvement with the Trump family's World Liberty Financial venture. In April 2024 Zhao pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months for failures in anti-money-laundering controls; Binance paid a $4.3 billion settlement with the Department of Justice. The DOJ said Binance facilitated billions of dollars of unregulated cryptocurrency transactions, including nearly $900 million in transactions between the U.S. and Iran. The SEC dropped its lawsuit, and the pardon will end DOJ monitoring, though a separate Treasury program remains. The White House framed the pardon as ending a 'war on crypto.'
Read at The Verge
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