In his memoir, Changpeng Zhao alleged that a U.S. crypto exchange spent millions on lobbying and smear efforts to prevent his pardon amid concerns about Binance reentering the U.S. market.
Changpeng Zhao said in his memoir that a U.S. crypto exchange spent millions on lobbying to block his U.S. presidential pardon and funded smear articles because it feared Binance could return to the U.S. market. He also said he learned of the pardon late while traveling to meet the Kyrgyz government and that his X account was inactive at the time. The new account adds Zhao’s allegations about lobbying and media efforts to the earlier description of how he discovered the pardon. The content states that Trump pardoned Zhao in October last year.