In 2023, crypto exchange Binance and its CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to violating U.S. money laundering laws. Now, an investigation finds that representatives of President Trump’s family have been in talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of Binance. At the same time, Zhao has pushed the Trump administration to grant him a pardon. WSJ’S Rebecca Ballhaus brings exclusive reporting. Further Reading: - Trump Family Has Held Deal Talks With Binance Following Crypto Exchange’s Guilty Plea - How the Trumps Turned an Election Victory Into a Cash Bonanza Further Listening: - Love Trump? Now You Can Buy His Meme Coin - Inside the Trump Crypto Bromance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the podcast episode about?
President Trump has made crypto a big part of his agenda. He's even called himself the crypto president.
Last year, I promised to make America the Bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet, and we're taking historic action to deliver on that promise, as you know.
And today, the Wall Street Journal came out with a big scoop on a potential deal between the Trump family and a crypto giant.
Chapter 2: What are the Trump family's connections to Binance?
Our reporting shows that representatives of Trump's family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of Binance, which is a crypto exchange that in 2023 pleaded guilty and paid a pretty massive fine after it was accused of violating anti-money laundering requirements.
That's investigative reporter Rebecca Ballhouse. And according to Rebecca's reporting, not only is the Trump family in talks about a stake in Binance, but the founder of Binance, a convicted felon, is also asking for a presidential pardon.
And so the fact of someone, you know, pushing for an official government action from the president at the same time as accompanies in talks with the president's family or representatives of the president's family is just a pretty striking mixture between official and personal business.
In an ordinary administration, the family of a president pursuing a business deal like this, particularly in an industry that the president is actively making rules for and sort of doing things that the industry has long wanted, would in any ordinary administration be an enormous scandal.
In this administration, I would say, you know, the Trump Organization has been pretty upfront about the fact that they're not going to stop pursuing business deals. But I think the really shocking thing is just this sort of idea of pursuing a business deal as a pardon is also being sought. It certainly creates the appearance of a conflict, even if it's not an exchange of one for the other.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Thursday, March 13th. Coming up on the show, the Trump family, a possible crypto deal, and maybe even a presidential pardon. What is Binance and who founded it?
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Chapter 3: Who is Changpeng Zhao and what is his role in Binance?
Binance is a crypto exchange that for years was sort of one of the major exchanges. It was founded by Changpeng Zhao, CZ as he's known, in 2017 in Shanghai. And for years, it was really sort of on the rise, growing incredibly quickly, and was really one of the main competitors in this space.
As it grew, Binance came under scrutiny from federal regulators. In response, CZ set up a separate U.S. exchange for American clients to try to allay the regulatory concerns. But then, in 2023, Binance reached a deal with the Justice Department over a sweeping criminal investigation.
We do have some breaking news on a major crypto company, Binance. The CEO, Changpeng Zhao, is pleading guilty to federal charges.
Including the use of cryptocurrency exchanges to support groups such as Hamas.
Binance founder CZ sentenced to four months in prison. The Department of Justice says that his company, Binance, failed to prevent money laundering.
Binance agreed to settle the investigation and to pay a $4.3 billion fine. And its founder CZ?
So as part of the settlement, Zhao stepped down as CEO, but he remained the majority shareholder. And last year he was sentenced to four months in prison. He was released in September and he's now living in Abu Dhabi.
In 2023, the crypto industry was in hard times. Popular exchange FTX had collapsed, and its owner, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of fraud. Federal investigators were cracking down on crypto companies. But now, in 2025, crypto is on an upswing. A few months ago, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $100,000. Many investors point to Trump's reelection as a good sign for the industry.
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Chapter 4: Why does Binance want to reenter the US market?
But Binance is currently missing out. When did Binance start thinking it could potentially reenter the U.S. market?
So our understanding is that around the time of Trump's election win last fall, Binance began exploring its options for how to return to the US market. It began telling people that it was willing to make a deal with Trump's company and that it wanted to eliminate its legal problems in the US.
And our understanding is that around that time, it began reaching out to allies of Trump, sort of offering to strike a business deal with the family as part of this plan to return the company to the US.
Was there a playbook they were following? Like, how did they come up with an idea of what to do?
So our understanding is that they got a pretty good idea for a playbook when they saw what happened in November with Justin's son, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
In November, Justin Sun, who is a China-born crypto entrepreneur who is facing charges from the SEC, invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial, which is a crypto company that is backed by the Trump family and was launched a couple of months before the election. And, you know, for Sun, we saw that last month the SEC asked a court to pause its fraud case against him.
And so, you know, it remains to be seen how that will shake out once that 60-day pause is over. And when Binance saw that Sun had made this investment, they thought, you know, that that could be a route for us to go here.
And so they began considering making a deal with World Liberty Financial or potentially sort of going the same route of a cash infusion in the company in exchange for a pardon for the founder.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of World Liberty Financial in the Binance talks?
So what do finance executives do?
So we know that sometime after they internally discussed whether they should go this Justin Sun route of investing in World Liberty Financial, these talks about a business deal continue. And at some point here, Steve Witkoff, who's a longtime friend of Trump, who also co-founded World Liberty Financial, gets involved in these talks.
Witkoff is a real estate investor, a lawyer, and is also Trump's top negotiator in the Middle East and for the war in Ukraine. An administration official denied Witkoff's involvement and said he's in the process of divesting from his business interests. World Liberty Financial declined to comment.
We don't know the exact TikTok of how these talks unfolded and when each person got involved, but we do know that they've continued even since Trump's inauguration, as well as the push for a pardon for CZ.
The reason that CZ is seeking a pardon, given that he's already served his prison sentence and has been released, is that Binance has wanted for at least several months now to return to the US market. And a pardon would really help him clear the way to do that.
The other thing a pardon could help with is that it complicates Binance's business in the European Union to have a majority shareholder be a convicted felon. And so were he to be pardoned, it could also sort of ease some hurdles abroad as well.
Why would this kind of deal be appealing to the Trump family?
So it's a great question because you have to think that, you know, this kind of deal, if it became public, would bring a lot of scrutiny that the Trump family and World Liberty Financial might not be interested in.
At the same time, I think if they did go forward with a stake in this American arm of Binance and if the Trump family or World Liberty Financial were to have a stake in that, its value is likely to, you know, really increase after returning to the U.S. market. And so for them, it would mean sort of a piece of this pie that is expected to grow if they return to the U.S.,
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Chapter 6: Why is the Trump family interested in a deal with Binance?
It certainly fits with a pattern of the Trump family or representatives of the Trump family pursuing a number of different business ventures while Trump has been in office.
Coming up, it's not just Binance. How Trump's family has turned his presidency into a cash bonanza.
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Since Trump was elected, what has the Trump family's financial picture looked like?
I would say that since the election, there has been a cash bonanza for the Trump family. So we saw this really sort of ramp up during the transition when Amazon had done a $40 million deal to buy a documentary about Melania Trump's return to the White House. And this was a pretty shocking number because it was the most Amazon had ever paid for a documentary.
And as we reported last month, it was also three times what the next highest bidder had offered for the documentary. So that was one. The second is that Trump has been pressing the companies that he sued while he was out of office to now settle their lawsuits that he had brought against them. And he's been pretty successful.
We've seen a handful of major settlements that total, I think about, we're at $50 million so far, much of which is going to Trump's presidential library.
Those settlements have been with companies including ABC News, X, and Meta. Trump's other big financial windfall? Meme coins. Earlier this year, he launched one named for himself. And the first lady launched her own, too.
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