Copyright shacknews
Last year, Changpeng Zhao (AKA “CZ”), the founder of Binance—the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange—pleaded guilty to money laundering charges. Last month, he was pardoned by President Donald Trump. This week, Trump said that he has no idea who he is. Trump was being interviewed on the latest episode of 60 Minutes when he revealed that he actually doesn’t know much of anything about CZ, despite pardoning him just weeks ago. “Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is,” Trump said during the interview, as quoted by CNBC. “I don’t know the man at all. I don’t think I ever met him,” he continued. As for how Trump came to pardon a man he doesn’t know, it seems that he was influenced by his family’s ties to the crypto business. “My sons are involved in crypto much more than I— me. I— I know very little about it, other than one thing. It’s a huge industry,” he said. Trump went on to say that he “was told” that CZ was a victim of the Biden Administration. Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison in April of 2024, which he finished serving in September of the same year. In 2022, Binance acquired the non-US operations of FTX after the crypto exchange collapsed.
