Trump’s Crypto Pardons: Who Has Been Pardoned So Far

All of Trump’s Pardons of Prominent Crypto Figures—So Far

President Donald Trump issued a series of high-profile pardons tied to the cryptocurrency industry in 2025, granting clemency to Ross Ulbricht, the founders and an executive of the crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX, and Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao.

The moves aligned with Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to end what he described as a federal “war on crypto.” But the pardons also drew criticism from political rivals and legal commentators, with the strongest backlash focused on Trump’s decision to pardon Zhao in October.

Trump’s crypto-related clemency actions in 2025 included:

• Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace, who was pardoned in late January after spending more than 11 years in prison on a double-life sentence.
• Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed, and former BitMEX executive Gregory Dwyer, who were pardoned on March 27, 2025.
• Changpeng Zhao, who received a full and unconditional pardon on October 23, 2025, after being convicted in 2024 for failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program and receiving a four-month prison sentence.

The crypto pardons came in the context of a much broader clemency push in 2025. Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants and extended clemency to other prominent figures, including former Representative George Santos, whose sentence was commuted in October.

While Trump’s pardons of Ulbricht and the BitMEX figures were controversial, Zhao’s pardon triggered the sharpest reaction. Critics pointed to Binance’s scale and Zhao’s anti-money-laundering conviction as reasons the pardon carried broader implications than earlier clemency decisions.

Separate reporting also described behind-the-scenes advocacy around Zhao’s clemency request. The Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter who said lobbyist Ches McDowell raised Zhao’s case with Trump, and that the episode involved Donald Trump Jr.

More broadly, the pardons underscored a shift in how the administration framed crypto enforcement actions brought during the Biden years. The clemency decisions were presented by supporters as correcting perceived regulatory overreach, while critics argued the choices weakened accountability—particularly in cases involving compliance failures and financial crime.

Observers also highlighted the contrast between Trump’s anti-drug rhetoric and the fact that multiple high-level drug kingpins received pardons, adding to scrutiny of how clemency decisions were being applied in 2025.