Did the billionaire Binance bro pay for his pardon?
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission.” Those were the words of Changpeng Zhao – the billionaire founder of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange – when dismissing the need for anti–money laundering safeguards. This week, his strategy proved both vatic and effective. Zhao, better known as “CZ,” received a presidential pardon for the money laundering charge to which he pleaded guilty in 2023.Just a year ago, CZ was sentenced to four months in prison and Binance issued a colossal $4.3 billion fine after U.S. authorities found the exchange guilty of financial malpractice on a global scale. Yet its founder’s contrition was short-lived. “No felon would mind a pardon,” Zhao wrote on X back in March, noting he was the only person in U.S.
