Changpeng Zhao is the richest man in crypto. Known widely by the nickname CZ, Zhao rose to prominence—and wealth—after founding the cryptocurrency exchange Binance in 2017. The firm has since become the largest exchange of its kind in the world, and Zhao—who served as the company’s CEO until 2023—still owns around 90 percent of the company’s shares.
Along with being crypto’s most prominent billionaire, Zhao is also a convicted felon—but maybe not for long. The Chinese-Canadian businessman is currently lobbying for a presidential pardon as Binance explores reentering the U.S. market.
In November 2023, Zhao and Binance pleaded guilty to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, admitting that they had failed to maintain effective anti-money laundering programs. According to the Department of the Treasury, Binance’s failure to adhere to sanctions programs also allowed terrorist groups—including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, and ISIS—as well as sanctioned states like North Korea and Syria to transact freely on the platform. “Binance turned a blind eye to its legal obligations in the pursuit of profit,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said in a statement at the time. “Its willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform … Any institution, wherever located, that wants to reap the benefits of the U.S. financial system must also play by the rules that keep us all safe from terrorists, foreign adversaries, and crime or face the consequences.”
Under a plea agreement, Binance paid more than $4 billion in fines in what was one of the largest corporate penalties in American history. Zhao, who also agreed to step down as CEO of Binance, was ordered to pay $50 million and serve a four-month prison sentence. He was released from a California correctional facility in September 2024.
In March 2025, the Wall Street Journal first reported that Zhao was pushing for a pardon from the Trump administration and that Binance had reached out to the Trump family to discuss a potential business deal. Zhao denied in a post on X that any talks around a Binance deal had taken place but also remarked, “No felon would mind a pardon.”
By early May, Zhao confirmed on a podcast that he had formally applied for clemency. In the interview, Zhao remarked that he did not know Trump personally and that neither he nor Binance could donate to Trump to earn influence. “As a foreign company, as a foreign citizen, there’s no way for us to donate,” he said. But Zhao reiterated that he would welcome a pardon from the White House. “I certainly wouldn’t mind one,” he said.
Zhao’s efforts to influence the White House, however, are more deliberate than his public comments indicate. According to lobbying disclosures, both Zhao and Binance retained the law firm BakerHostetler in the second quarter of 2025 for purposes of lobbying for “executive relief.” The lobbying effort is being led by Teresa Goody Guillén, a co-leader of the firm’s blockchain team who also represents World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company controlled by the Trump family. Goody Guillén did not respond to a request for comment from The Dispatch.
According to the New York Times, BakerHostetler is also working with Checkmate Government Relations—a North Carolina-based lobbying firm run by Ches McDowell, a close friend of Donald Trump Jr. Checkmate is one of several lobbying firms with close ties to the White House that has seen its business take off under the new administration. The exact relationship between BakerHostetler and Checkmate is unclear, and it is not obvious whether Checkmate is advising the firm specifically on its lobbying efforts for Zhao and Binance. McDowell did not respond to a request for clarification from The Dispatch.
Binance may also be looking to earn goodwill from Trump through less transparent means. In May, an Emirati state-owned investment firm finalized a $2 billion investment in Binance using USD1—a stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial this spring. The investment granted USD1 both capital and legitimacy in the competitive stablecoin market. Wallets connected to Binance still reportedly hold all $2 billion worth of USD1, meaning Binance holds more than 90 percent of the stablecoin’s total redeemable tokens. World Liberty Financial backs USD1 with yield-earning assets like money market funds, so Binance’s holdings could already be generating tens of millions of dollars per year in interest for the company and the Trump family. According to reporting from Bloomberg, Binance was also responsible for writing USD1’s underlying code: “[B]lockchain data, public announcements and accounts from people familiar with the situation show that Binance helped create the coin, helped promote it and took part in its largest known transaction.”
According to several experts on the pardon power, a pardon for Zhao would represent an unprecedented break from presidential norms. “There are certainly occasions on which presidents have issued pardons that someone would raise one’s eyebrows at, but absolutely nothing ever on the scale of numbers, brazenness, and just open corruption that you’re seeing with Trump,” Frank Bowman, professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri, told The Dispatch.
President Joe Biden raised a few eyebrows himself during his final days in office, when he pardoned his son Hunter and issued preemptive pardons for other family members, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and the select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Trump, on his first day back in office, continued the trend, issuing pardons or commutations to everyone convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. A pardon for Zhao would be only the latest in a string of controversial pardons issued since. In March, Trump pardoned four executives of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX who had pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations. And in May, Trump was scrutinized for pardoning former nursing home executive Paul Walczak at the request of Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, who had raised millions of dollars for Trump’s campaigns.
As of publication time, the White House has not responded to a request for comment.
“I think it’s pretty clear to most people who study or observe the pardon power that Trump’s pardoning practices are far outside the norms that most presidents have followed throughout history,” Dan Kobil, a professor of law at Capital University and expert in the pardon power, told The Dispatch. These norm violations go beyond granting controversial pardons to the actual process of issuing pardons itself. Kobil says that the Trump administration has marginalized the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which resides in the Department of Justice and has typically reviewed, vetted, and made recommendations on clemency applications. “There is no real regularized process for pardons,” Kobil said. “It seems as if anyone who can get the ear of someone close to the president, or the ear of the president himself, has a shot at getting a pardon.” The White House Counsel’s Office is reportedly handling pardon applications in place of the pardon attorney, alongside Trump’s “pardon czar” Alice Marie Johnson.
The president is not required by law to follow the advice of the pardon attorney. However, because the White House can often shield itself from blame for bad pardons by deferring to the pardon attorney, presidents typically rely on the office extensively. “Doing it on your own exposes you, so it’s interesting that Trump is just not concerned about a backlash from his people,” Andrew Novak, professor of international and comparative law at George Mason University, told The Dispatch.
Kobil believes Trump’s lack of concern over political pushback is the result of a lack of substantial checks on his pardon power. “In his second term, Trump has no political check on him of any kind, unlike a president in their first term, where they would have to answer to the voters,” Kobil said. “So he has no fear at all of disapproval from his voters.” Presidents have almost absolute power over federal pardons, so impeachment is the only constitutional check on misuse of that authority. “Honestly, Trump has nothing to fear by using the pardon power in the most opportunistic or sleazy ways possible,” Kobil said.
