Pardons · 2025 The Crypto Clemency — Who Trump Pardoned (and Who He Didn't)

After the crypto sector backed his 2024 campaign on a promise to end the "war on crypto," Trump used the pardon power to clear a series of convicted industry figures in 2025. Ross Ulbricht (Jan 2025): full pardon for the Silk Road founder, who was serving a double life sentence over a darknet market that facilitated ~$1 billion in illegal transactions. The BitMEX co-founders — Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed, Gregory Dwyer (March 2025): pardoned after pleading guilty to Bank Secrecy Act anti-money-laundering violations. Changpeng "CZ" Zhao (Oct 2025): the Binance founder, pardoned two years after pleading guilty to failing to maintain anti-money-laundering controls — Binance had paid a $4.3B penalty. Critics including Rep. Maxine Waters and Sen. Elizabeth Warren called it corruption, noting Binance had supported the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture (tied to a $2B deal). Notably excluded: FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried — a major Biden donor — whom the White House said would not be pardoned. The pattern of who receives clemency, and who doesn't, is the point.