Crypto industry executives and analysts are speculating whether Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, will re-enter the United States following the pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao on Thursday.
“Will do everything we can to help make America the capital of crypto and advance Web3 worldwide,” CZ wrote in an X post after he received a pardon from US President Donald Trump.
He also changed his X social media bio from “ex-Binance” to just “Binance” in recent days, adding more fuel to rumors of CZ’s return to Binance and the exchange’s prospects of staging a return to the US, according to Bloomberg.
“CZ’s pardon is more than an inflection point, but also for BNB and potentially for Binance, paving the way for greater access to the US market,” David Namdar, CEO of BNB Network Company, a BNB (BNB) treasury company, wrote on X.
Namdar told Cointelegraph that BNB has been largely ignored by Western investors, despite its price resilience through market cycles, and noted its recent rally to all-time highs in October.
The potential return of Binance to the US could give US retail traders access to the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange, potentially adding even more trading volume and pushing asset prices to the upside.
Binance spun off a separate company called Binance.US in 2019 to serve US residents while remaining compliant with regulations. The US platform does not have access to the global exchange’s liquidity or crypto derivatives and is operated by BAM Trading Services.
Related: Binance founder CZ’s presidential pardon is not an acquittal
US lawmakers and elected officials remain divided on the CZ pardon
Trump told reporters during a media briefing on Thursday that CZ was recommended for a pardon by “a lot of people” in the crypto industry, and that he was “persecuted” by the Biden administration.
“A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything,” Trump said.
However, several US lawmakers were critical of the pardon, including senior figures in the Democratic Party, including California Representative Maxine Waters and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The pardon signals “pay-to-play” mechanics and that the crypto industry controls Trump, Waters said in a statement.
Meanwhile, CZ lashed out at Warren on social media, claiming that she wrongly said he pleaded guilty to money laundering charges.
Zhao pleaded guilty to a single felony count of violating the US Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain an effective Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program at Binance. This led to him receiving a four-month sentence in April 2024.
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