President Trump pardons Binance’s Changpeng Zhao

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao confirmed in an October 23 post on X that he received a pardon from the US president Donald Trump.

He said:

“I am deeply grateful for today’s pardon and for President Trump’s support of America’s commitment to fairness, innovation and justice. We will do everything in our power to make America the cryptocurrency capital and advance web3 around the world.”

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson congratulated Zhao at the milestone when he said that the US president has righted a grave injustice from the previous administration’s war on cryptocurrencies.

Hoskinson wrote:

“The Department of Justice’s weaponization of our industry and its entrepreneurs should never have happened. It was, and still is, a deep wound that will take a long time to heal.”

According to CryptoSlate data, the news helped boost the price of BNB by 5.38% to $1,132 at press time. The digital asset is 17% below its all-time high of $1,370.

Meanwhile, the news followed nearly a year of quiet lobbying by Zhao’s legal team.

He acknowledged in May that his lawyers did asked the US government for clemency. Traditional outlets later speculated that the effort could involve private financial ties between the two Entities associated with Trump and Binance or a collaboration deal targeting other crypto executives like Tron founder Justin Sun.

Zhao publicly rejected these claims, calling them politically charged and “without factual basis”.

Zhao resigned from Binance in November 2023 after pleading guilty to money laundering charges in the US. He served a four-month sentence and completed in September 2024.

Since his release, he has said he will not return to the stock market, but will instead focus on new projects in blockchain research, AI investments and his educational nonprofit, Giggle Academy.

Insider trading?

Meanwhile, news of Zhao’s dismissal spread to the business arena.

On the Polymarket prediction market, cryptocurrency trader Garrett Jin reportedly bet that Trump would pardon Zhao this year.

As news is now spreading, this single bet turned a modest deposit into roughly $56,000 in profit, according to the blockchain analytics platform. Arkham intelligence.

Jin was already known in crypto circles for timing big market moves with uncanny precision. Earlier this month, he opened large short positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum on Hyperliquid, moments before Trump announced across-the-board 100 percent tariffs on Chinese imports.

These leveraged trades, worth more than $700 million, yielded profits it is estimated between $160 million and $200 million as prices have collapsed in the hours following the announcement.

The repetition of such well-timed bets, first before the president’s tariff and now before the announced pardon, has reignited long-standing suspicions about the approach of insiders within the presidency.

However, Jin categorically denied any connection to the Trump family.

Still, these two coincidences illustrate the growing reality in cryptocurrency that every policy move from Washington now carries market consequences that unfold in seconds.