Crypto industry executives and analysts are speculating whether Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, will re-enter the U.S. following Thursday's pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
“We will do all the things we will to make America the cryptocurrency capital and advance Web3 worldwide,” CZ wrote in an X post after receiving a pardon from US President Donald Trump.
According to Bloomberg, he also modified his X social media bio from “Ex-Binance” to “Binance” in recent days, adding much more fuel to rumors of CZ returning to Binance and the exchange’s prospects of returning to the US.
Source: CZ
“CZ’s pardon is greater than a turning point, but in addition for BNB and potentially Binance, paving the best way for greater access to the US market,” wrote David Namdar, CEO of BNB Network Company, a BNB (BNB) finance company, on X.
Namdar told Cointelegraph that BNB has been largely ignored by Western investors despite its price stability across market cycles, citing its recent rally to all-time highs in October.
Binance's possible return to the US could give US retailers access to the world's largest centralized crypto exchange, potentially resulting in much more trading volume and driving up asset prices.
Binance spun off a separate company called Binance.US in 2019 to serve US residents while remaining compliant. The US platform doesn’t have access to the worldwide exchange's liquidity or crypto derivatives and is operated by BAM Trading Services.
U.S. lawmakers and elected officials remain divided over CZ's pardon
Trump told reporters during a media briefing on Thursday that CZ was really useful for pardon by “many individuals” within the crypto industry and that he was “persecuted” by the Biden administration.
“Quite a lot of people say he wasn't guilty of anything. He spent 4 months in prison and so they say he wasn't guilty of anything,” Trump said.
However, several US lawmakers were critical of the pardon, including senior figures within the Democratic Party, including California Representative Maxine Waters and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The pardon is a signal of “pay-to-play” mechanisms and that the crypto industry is controlling Trump, Waters said in an announcement.
Meanwhile, CZ lashed out at Warren on social media, claiming she falsely said he had pleaded guilty to money laundering charges.
Zhao pleaded guilty to a single felony: violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act by failing to keep up an efficient anti-money laundering (AML) program at Binance. This resulted in him being sentenced to 4 months in prison in April 2024.
