Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has been rebuilding his influence over the past year after serving four months in prison for violating U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) rules.
Binance paid a $4.3 billion fine. Mr. Zhao himself paid a $50 million criminal fine. He was also banned for life from holding any executive position at the exchange.
For a year after his release in September 2024, Mr. Zhao resumed his role as a government advisor. He moved the meme coin with the
In mid-September 2025, Mr. Zhao updated his X profile introduction from “ex-@binance” to “@binance.” On October 23, he was pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
These were moves to keep him in a prominent position for a year leading up to his pardon.
Binance Labs Rebrands, YZi Labs Expands
Even though he doesn’t hold an executive role, Zhao continues to benefit from Binance’s performance. He reportedly still owns about 90% of the company.
In February, he posted a screenshot suggesting that 98% of personal crypto investments are in BNB (BNB). Forbes magazine estimates his net worth at around $87.2 billion, but Chao insists, “I don’t have that much.”
Mr. Zhao said in November 2024 that he had no intention of returning to leadership of the exchange. However, following his pardon, the circumstances surrounding his possible involvement with the exchange have changed. Binance did not respond to Cointelegraph by press time.
While Richard Teng currently heads up the centralized exchange, Zhao has shifted his focus to YZi Labs, the venture arm formerly known as Binance Labs, where he held a leadership role after it was rebranded in January.
YZi Labs has been actively investing capital in cryptocurrencies, AI, and biotechnology. The firm led a November 2024 seed round in Astherus, which later became derivatives platform Aster, and recently increased its exposure to Ethena, the issuer of the synthetic dollar USDe. Ethena has more than $10 billion in circulation and ranks among the top 25 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
The company has also supported projects across the infrastructure stack, including Digital Asset and its Canton Network, and US-based 10X Capital’s BNB Treasury initiative and Aspecta. The big story these days is the $1 billion commitment to support the BNB chain of builders.
Beloved pets become meme coin dollar bins
In 2024, Solana was the undisputed leader of meme coins. However, in 2025, the BNB chain is losing ground to Solana in SOL (SOL).
The change began on February 11th, when BNB Chain’s roadmap reaffirmed its support for the meme ecosystem. Two days later, Zhao shared a long X post about being reunited with his dog Broccoli after a legal issue in the US, adding that he would not be launching a meme coin at the end, but that the BNB Foundation might reward top tokens.
The post sparked a wave of BNB meme coin speculation, briefly pushing PancakeSwap’s trading volume higher than Solana’s main meme trading venue.
Related: BNB wins with “Uptober” amid severe Binance market crash
By October, the BNB Chain meme was still going strong. Network fees were at the top of the industry at one point, and the chain rose to second place in several key activity metrics. Its Four.meme Launchpad has outperformed Solana’s Pump.fun in creating new tokens for several days.
Conflict between Cho and WSJ and amnesty issue
One of the earliest public signs that Mr. Zhao was open to a pardon was in December 2024, when he posted that he “didn’t care about a pardon” from Mr. Trump.
In March 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that members of the Trump family had discussed acquiring a stake in Binance’s U.S. arm, suggesting a link to Zhao’s pursuit of a pardon. Zhao denied the report, claiming he had not discussed the deal with Binance US with anyone. The dispute was widely publicized and led to increased scrutiny of whether business interests and legal remedies are intertwined. Additionally, Zhao said the article was “motivated as an attack on the president and cryptocurrencies.”
Tensions escalated further in May when the Wall Street Journal published another article alleging that Mr. Zhao acted as a “fixer” by introducing activist Bilal bin Saqib to World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture linked to the Trump family. Chao called it “another hit” and said he met Saquib for the first time on the same trip, but the introduction did nothing.
Around that time, U.S. Senate Democrats asked federal authorities for information about reports that Chao was seeking a pardon while Binance engaged in high-profile political and business interactions.
In a podcast appearance the same month, Mr. Zhao confirmed that his lawyer was preparing a formal pardon application, claiming that he proceeded with the process after media reports surfaced.
Mr. Zhao becomes a crypto politician
Despite his felony conviction in the United States, Mr. Zhao remains active as a global crypto politician. Several governments include him in discussions when developing digital asset strategies.
Malaysia was one of the first countries to seek his opinion in 2025. Following consultations that included officials from Kuala Lumpur and the United Arab Emirates, Malaysian authorities announced that they are considering updating their approach to regulating cryptocurrencies, based in part on discussions with Zhao and his team.
Pakistan went further. In April, the government officially appointed Zhao as a cryptocurrency advisor. The country sought to modernize its financial sector, rather than relying entirely on restrictive supervision, and sought insights from key industry players.
Related: Countries across Africa approve new cryptography laws as adoption expands
Shortly after, Kyrgyzstan appointed him as a strategic advisor to expand its involvement in state-backed digital assets. By October, the country launched a stablecoin on the BNB chain, confirming that BNB would join Bitcoin in the national cryptocurrency reserve.
FTX and US law are two recurring headaches for Mr. Zhao.
In June 2025, Mr. Zhao asked the Delaware Bankruptcy Court to dismiss FTX’s lawsuit. The suit sought to recover approximately $1.8 billion from Binance’s 2021 share buyback agreement. FTX Estates alleges that the transaction was a fraudulent transfer funded with customer assets.
Mr. Zhao said this argument overstretched U.S. law. He claimed that “all relevant parts” of the agreement took place offshore. His filing calls FTX’s theory “nonsense” and accuses the company of trying to blame Sam Bankman Freed for his crimes.
FTX also cited Zhao’s November 2022 X post regarding the sale of Binance’s FTX token (FTT) holdings as the trigger for the run that exposed Binance’s bankruptcy status. Mr. Zhao countered that the posts merely revealed a “fraudulent enterprise” that was already collapsing under its own weight.
HyperLiquid’s competitor Aster is growing rapidly
Aster exploded onto the scene in September 2025, quickly challenging Hyperliquid’s dominance in on-chain derivatives. The platform captured nearly $2 billion in Total Value Lock (TVL) between September 18 and 19, instantly establishing itself as a Binance-affiliated rival to Hyperliquid.
But that momentum also came with controversy. DefiLlama delisted Aster’s data in early October, citing data integrity concerns. The data platform quietly relisted the exchange, but said the issue was not resolved.
Tensions between Hyperliquid and Binance intensified during the recent $19 billion liquidation event. HyperLiquid’s Jeff Yang accused exchanges of underreporting liquidation data to make the situation worse. His post specifically singled out Binance and implied that the centralized platform was not honest about risk.
“Major players in the BNB Chain ecosystem (such as Binance and Venus) have lined their own pockets and extorted hundreds of millions of dollars to protect their users, while other companies have tried to ignore, cover up, shift responsibility, or attack their competitors,” Zhao told X.
With the presidential pardon, Mr. Zhao will no longer be defined by his conviction and sentence. His critics say the pardon does not erase the conduct that led to it. His supporters say the case against him was political overreach, not criminal misconduct.
He has already brought attention back to the ecosystem by supporting the fast-growing BNB Chain project and advising governments on crypto strategy. Chao’s newfound freedom will likely indicate whether he and Binance will increase their presence in the U.S. or continue to focus on the broader BNB DeFi ecosystem.
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