Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has dedicated the past year to re-establishing his influence after serving four months in prison for breaching US Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.
Binance faced a $4.3 billion penalty, while Zhao personally paid a $50 million criminal fine and received a lifetime ban from holding an executive position at the exchange.
Since his release in September 2024, Zhao reemerged with various government advisory roles. He engaged with memecoins through his posts on X, countering allegations from The Wall Street Journal that he was seeking influence through connections with the Trump family and the World Liberty Foundation.
In mid-September 2025, Zhao altered his X profile from “ex-@binance” to “@binance.” On October 23, he received a pardon from US President Donald Trump.
These strategic moves have kept him in the spotlight during the year preceding his pardon.
Binance Labs rebrands and YZi Labs expands
Despite lacking an executive role, Zhao benefits from Binance’s performance, reportedly retaining about 90% ownership of the company.
In February, he shared a screenshot indicating that 98% of his personal crypto investments are in BNB. Forbes estimates his net worth at around $87.2 billion, although Zhao claims he “doesn’t have that much.”
Zhao stated in November 2024 that he had no plans to return to the exchange’s leadership. However, the context changed after his pardon, and Binance had not responded to Cointelegraph by press time.
Leading the centralized exchange now is Richard Teng, while Zhao has shifted focus to YZi Labs, the venture arm that rebranded from Binance Labs in January, where he took a mentoring position.
YZi Labs is actively investing in crypto, AI, and biotechnology. It spearheaded the November 2024 seed round for Astherus, later transforming into the derivatives platform Aster. Recently, it increased its investment in Ethena, the issuer of the synthetic dollar USDe, which has risen into the top 25 cryptocurrencies by market cap, boasting over $10 billion in circulation.
The firm has also supported various infrastructure projects, including Digital Asset and its Canton Network, as well as 10X Capital’s BNB Treasury initiative and Aspecta. Its latest significant action is a $1 billion pledge to aid builders on the BNB Chain.
Beloved pet becomes memecoin cash cow
In 2024, Solana dominated the memecoin arena. However, in 2025, BNB Chain has begun to challenge Solana’s dominance.
This shift took off on February 11, with BNB Chain reaffirming its support for the meme ecosystem in its roadmap. Two days later, Zhao shared a lengthy X post about reuniting with his dog, Broccoli, after his legal troubles in the US, noting at the end that he wasn’t launching a memecoin but that the BNB Foundation might reward leading tokens.
This post sparked a flurry of speculation around BNB memecoins and briefly boosted PancakeSwap’s trading volume over Solana’s primary meme venues.
Related: BNB wins ‘Uptober’ amid Binance market crash scrutiny
As of October, BNB Chain’s momentum in memes has not waned. Network fees hit industry highs at times, and the chain moved up to second place for several key activity metrics. Its Four.meme launchpad even surpassed Solana’s Pump.fun in new token launches for several days.
Zhao’s beef with WSJ and the pardon question
One of the early indicators that Zhao was open to clemency occurred in December 2024 when he expressed that he “wouldn’t mind a pardon” from Trump.
In March 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that members of the Trump family had discussions with Binance regarding a stake in its US arm, linking this to Zhao’s pursuit of a pardon. Zhao dismissed the report, asserting that he had no discussions concerning a Binance.US deal. This dispute drew significant media attention and raised questions about intertwining business interests with legal relief. Zhao later called the article “motivated as an attack on the President and crypto.”
Things escalated in May when The Wall Street Journal published another article claiming Zhao acted as a “fixer” by connecting activist Bilal Bin Saqib to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture linked to the Trump family. Zhao labeled it “another hit piece,” maintaining that he met Saqib for the first time during the same trip and had no role in introductions.
During this time, Democrats in the US Senate requested federal officials to provide information regarding reports of Zhao seeking a pardon as Binance engaged in prominent political and business interactions.
In a podcast appearance that month, Zhao revealed that his lawyers were preparing a formal petition for a pardon, stating he proceeded with the process after media reports emerged.
Zhao becomes a crypto statesman
Despite his felony conviction in the US, Zhao has continued to function as a global crypto statesman, with several governments including him in discussions about digital asset strategies.
Malaysia was among the first in 2025 to solicit his insights. Following discussions involving officials from Kuala Lumpur and the UAE, Malaysian authorities announced they were considering updates to their crypto regulatory framework, partly informed by discussions with Zhao and his team.
Pakistan took even further action. In April, the government officially appointed Zhao as a crypto adviser as it sought to modernize its financial sector, looking for insights from key industry players in lieu of solely relying on restrictive oversight.
Related: Countries across Africa approve new crypto laws as adoption grows
Shortly thereafter, Kyrgyzstan also named him as a strategic adviser as it expanded involvement in state-backed digital assets. By October, the nation had launched a stablecoin on BNB Chain and confirmed BNB would join Bitcoin in its national crypto reserves.
FTX and US law are Zhao’s two recurring headaches
In June 2025, Zhao filed a request in a Delaware bankruptcy court to dismiss FTX’s lawsuit, which sought to reclaim almost $1.8 billion from Binance’s 2021 share-buyback agreement. The FTX estate claimed the transaction constituted a fraudulent transfer financed with customer funds.
Zhao argued that the claims overextend US law, asserting that “every pertinent part” of the deal occurred offshore. He claimed FTX’s theory was “nonsensical” and accused the company of trying to deflect blame for Sam Bankman-Fried’s illicit actions onto him.
FTX also pointed to Zhao’s November 2022 posts on X about selling Binance’s FTX Token (FTT) holdings as a trigger for the bank run that exposed its insolvency. Zhao countered that the posts merely revealed a “fraudulent enterprise” already crumbling under its own weight.
Hyperliquid competitor Aster booms
Aster burst onto the scene in September 2025, rapidly challenging Hyperliquid’s dominance in on-chain derivatives. The platform claimed about $2 billion in total value locked (TVL) by September 18-19, positioning itself as a Binance-aligned competitor to Hyperliquid.
However, the momentum has come with controversy. DefiLlama publicly delisted Aster’s data in early October, citing data integrity concerns. The data platform later relisted the exchange but noted the underlying issues remain unresolved.
The friction between Hyperliquid and Binance escalated during the recent $19 billion liquidation event, where Hyperliquid’s Jeff Yan accused exchanges of under-reporting liquidation data to downplay the severity of the situation. His remarks specifically named Binance, suggesting that centralized platforms weren’t being forthcoming about risk.
Zhao responded on X, stating, “While others tried to ignore, hide, shift blame, or attack competitors, the key BNB Chain ecosystem players (Binance, Venus, and more) took hundreds of millions out of their own pockets to PROTECT USERS.”
With a presidential pardon, Zhao is no longer defined by a conviction or sentence. His critics argue that a pardon does not negate the actions that led to it, while his supporters contend that the case against him represented political overreach rather than criminal misconduct.
Zhao has already repositioned himself within the ecosystem by supporting rapidly developing BNB Chain projects and advising governments on crypto strategy. His newfound freedom will determine whether he and Binance deepen their engagement in the US or continue concentrating on the broader BNB DeFi ecosystem.
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