Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, is reportedly in talks to have the Trump family buy a stake in his firm and have the White House offer him a pardon related to a 2023 money-laundering case against his company.
Zhao reportedly sees the moves as a way to both get back into the U.S. market and make doing business abroad easier, after the company in 2023 pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering requirements and paid $4.3 billion, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
The crypto billionaire reportedly took inspiration from the case of Justin Sun, who invested $30 million into Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture and later saw the Securities and Exchange Commission pause an investigation into one of Sun’s businesses.
Zhao denied the reporting.
“I have had no discussions of a Binance US deal with … well, anyone,” he wrote on X on Thursday, adding, “No felon would mind a pardon, especially being the only one in US history who was ever sentenced to prison for a single [Bank Secrecy Act] BSA charge.”
The White House, the Trump Organization, and Trump Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
If the Binance founder was seeking closer ties to Trump, it would mark the latest alliance between the president and the crypto sector, despite the Republican previously dismissing crypto as “based on thin air.”
Both Trump and the First Lady launched crypto projects before the inauguration, and the Trump campaign actively courted the sector during the 2024 election, racking up millions in donations from the industry.
Since then, crypto investors have seen their fortunes rise compared to the Biden years, which took a more aggressive approach and had its regulators crack down on what it argued was widespread unregulated securities activity across the industry.
Trump has directed the U.S. to create a national cryptocurrency reserve holding bitcoins and other currencies, and he held the first White House crypto summit this month.
The close ties between the White House and the industry have raised ethical concerns.
In February, securities regulators dropped a case against Coinbase, which donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration.
Directing the U.S. to hold cryptocurrency could enrich those close to the White House.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s son Brandon runs Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street firm that’s the primary banking partner for stablecoin issuer Tether, as well as a major stakeholder in MicroStrategy, the world’s biggest corporate holder of Bitcoin.
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