The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced that former President Trump has exercised his constitutional power to pardon Mr. Zhao. Zhao was prosecuted by the Biden Administration as part of its broader crackdown on cryptocurrency.

Leavitt contended that the sentencing of Zhao by the Biden administration was excessively severe—a sentiment echoed by the president and his top advisors. This comes in light of Binance’s extensive efforts to lobby for Zhao’s release. Zhao, widely known as CZ, is a prominent figure in the crypto world.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the pardon could potentially allow Binance, the globe’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, to resume operations in the United States.

Trump, who once criticized cryptocurrencies, reversed his stance during his second presidential campaign and promised to transform the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the planet.” Over the past year, the Trump family has forged direct financial ties with Binance as part of their venture into the crypto industry.

The Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, is increasingly vital to their financial status and is hosted on Binance. This collaboration has facilitated the promotion of World Liberty Financial’s unique tokens, generating substantial fee revenue for the Trump family.

Earlier this year, MGX, an Emirati-backed investment firm, agreed to use World Liberty’s dollar-backed stablecoin, USD1, for a US$2 billion ($3.07 billion) investment in Binance. The deal was a huge win for World Liberty Financial, which effectively received a US$2 billion bank deposit. At the time, Binance was actively lobbying for Zhao’s pardon.

Asked at Thursday’s White House press briefing about Democratic criticisms of the pardon as corrupt, Leavitt said the White House has “a very thorough examination of every pardon request that comes to the president’s desk.”

She told reporters that she spoke directly with the White House counsel about the pardon, and that the administration believes Zhao’s case was “overly prosecuted” under the Biden administration, which she claimed was “very hostile to the cryptocurrency industry.”

Zhao isn’t the only crypto mogul to win a reprieve from Trump since his return to the White House.

Shortly after returning to office, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a cause celebre of the Libertarian crypto world, who had been serving a life sentence for creating the Silk Road marketplace, which the Justice Department had described as “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today.”

Justin Sun, the Chinese crypto billionaire who poured tens of millions of dollars into World Liberty Financial soon after it launched, had been facing civil fraud charges in the United States under the Biden administration.