confirmed<\/a> they have never met or spoken, though he met Eric Trump once at the Bitcoin MENA conference in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
CZ pled guilty to anti-money laundering violations<\/h2>\n
The Department of Justice in November 2023 said Zhao made Binance \u201cthe largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by targeting U.S. customers, but refused to comply with U.S. law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DOJ stated Binance\u2019s \u201cwillful violations of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws threatened the U.S. financial system and our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked why he pled guilty, Zhao told Fox Business: \u201cI think it\u2019s the best way to confront the problem and solve it head on. I flew to the United States voluntarily from a non-extradition country and dealt with the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zhao became the first and only known first-time offender in U.S. history to receive a prison sentence for a single, similar non-fraud related violation.<\/p>\n
His lawyers submitted the pardon petition in April, though Zhao said he had no indication of progress before the pardon happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the last chapter of my book. I\u2019m very happy to be pardoned by President Trump and I\u2019m ready to move forward,\u201d Zhao stated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Binance founder denies Trump family business ties<\/h2>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported that around the election, Zhao\u2019s representatives began discussions with Trump allies about finding a solution to Binance\u2019s legal troubles.<\/p>\n
The outlet stated that once Trump won, Binance formed a task force to strike a deal with World Liberty Financial that could be leveraged into clemency for Zhao.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s completely not accurate. There\u2019s no deal, there has never been any discussions,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cThere\u2019s no business relationships between me, Binance and World Liberty Finance. All of those connections are categorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of Binance, said he was surprised by his presidential pardon from Donald Trump. Summary Changpeng Zhao pardoned by Trump, says he\u2019s surprised and ready…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15566,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15565\/revisions\/15566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}