Binance founder Changpeng Zhao reflects on prison, Trump and potential bitcoin supercycle after pardon.
President Trump lifted a "psychological burden" that had lingered even after he completed a four-month prison sentence tied to violations of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act.
"I was a free man before, but with a felon status. Now I’m a real free man. No one in U.S. history had ever gone to jail for a single registration failure under the Bank Secrecy Act.” - Zhao said, adding that he believed home confinement was the most severe likely outcome.
Pardon process and Trump ties - Zhao said he did not initially seek a pardon after his release and only asked lawyers to submit a petition months later.
He described the entire pardon process as a "black box" and denied any direct lobbying or personal outreach to Trump or his family. Zhao said he has never spoken with Trump and only saw him from the audience at a Davos event this week.
"There's really no connection, if I accept a stablecoin as payment, that doesn’t mean I invested in the issuer” - This is with reference to WLFI and $USD1
FTX and market outlook - Zhao said Binance briefly explored a potential acquisition of FTX in 2022 but walked away after losing confidence in the accuracy of the company’s financial disclosures.
“With the U.S. being so pro-crypto now and other countries following, I think we could break the four-year cycle.”
Asked about what he could do different - block U.S. users from Binance "from day one."
"At the beginning, we were a small tech startup. If I had known what I know now, I would have just blocked U.S. users and avoided a lot of trouble."
