%{{tag.tag}} {{articledata.title}} {{moment(articledata.cdate)}} @{{articledata.company.replace(" ","")}} comment U.S. President Donald Trump has granted a pardon to Canadian cryptocurrency billionaire Changpeng "CZ" Zhao. Zhao, who is from Vancouver, British Columbia, founded privately held cryptocurrency exchange Binance. He served four months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act. As part of a plea deal, Zhao also agreed to step down from running Binance, the exchange he founded in 2017, and to pay a $50 million U.S. fine. Binance agreed to a court-appointed monitor and to pay a record-breaking $4.3 billion U.S. fine to the U.S. Department of Justice for violating American securities laws. In a post on social media, Zhao said he was "deeply grateful" for the pardon. Federal prosecutors accused Binance of serving users in U.S. sanctioned countries, as well as being a go-to platform for illicit actors, managing $106 million U.S. in proceeds from the dark web. Zhao previously said he asked for a pardon in May of this year. The pardon comes after Binance used the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial stablecoin (CRYPTO: $USD1 ) to facilitate a $2 billion U.S. investment from Abu Dhabi firm MGX. After receiving the pardon, Zhao said on social media that he "will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto." Binance is privately held and its stock does not trade on a public exchange.