Trump’s Reportedly in Talks to Buy a Stake in Binance

POTUS Donald Trump and Binance could be buddying up, according to The Wall Street Journal. The deal would link the Oval Office’s head honcho with a crypto exchange that pleaded guilty to money laundering two years ago. 

The WSJ said Trump family reps chatted with Binance last year about the Trumps buying a stake in the crypto exchange’s US arm, possibly via the Trump-backed crypto project World Liberty Financial. 

The report also claimed that Binance founder and former CEO Chengpeng Zhau is pushing for a pardon from his 2023 conviction (he also pleaded guilty to money laundering as part of a $4.3 billion settlement). Zhau posted on X that the WSJ “got the facts wrong” but that “no felon would mind a pardon.” 

Zhau also said that the WSJ’s article feels like an attack and a leftover from the Biden administration’s “war on crypto.”

Crackdown Patch-up

Regulators cracked down on the crypto industry during President Joe Biden’s term, with the SEC slinging lawsuits at companies including Coinbase, OpenSea, and Uniswap. But since Trump took office, the SEC has dropped all of those suits, plus many more.

Forgiving Binance would be on a grander scale, however, and Trump is already being scrutinized for possible conflicts of interest as he cozies up to crypto: 

• The 47th president launched two memecoins (for himself and Melania Trump) in January that could get a halo effect from his efforts to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet,” enriching himself and his family. 
• Not only does Trump hold a stake in World Liberty Financial, but his sons are also heavily involved in the project and its native token sends the bulk of net profits to a Trump-affiliated entity. 

Binance’s new  CEO, Richard Tang, said yesterday that the crypto industry prefers the current administration to Biden’s and that he expects Trump to inspire pro-crypto moves around the world. 

Shaky Ground: The crypto market has cooled recently as investors spooked by macroeconomic uncertainty pulled out of riskier assets. Crypto’s also whipsawing with news around Trump’s strategic crypto reserve. The latest: It won’t actively buy crypto, for now. Any moves by the Trump administration to align itself with crypto projects that aren’t perceived to be stable and above-board could make the industry look even less reliable. Digital gold, who?