My first roommate is a double murderer. And but he's been there for like 12 years. He still have 18 years to go. And then, you know, he got moved to a low security prison. Nice guy.
Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, Binance's founder and former CEO at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A rare and exclusive interview after his time in prison and after his controversial pardon from President Trump.
I was a free man before but with a felon status.
It is a very candid interview. He addresses questions about Binance's relationship with the Trump family's crypto venture, plus what's next for the founder of the world's largest crypto exchange.
I'm a developer. I build systems. I don't trade.
And what's next for crypto? He's a hodler.
I have very strong feelings that you will probably be a super cycle.
I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. SquawkPod reports from Davos. 2026. Binance founder CZ begins right now.
A lot of interesting people come to the World Economic Forum in Davos. And this year, one attendee was Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ. He founded and once led the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance. CZ stepped down in 2023 after pleading guilty to enabling money laundering while at the helm of Binance. He was sentenced to four months in prison, which he served in 2024. Federal prosecutors, though, were pushing for 3 years in prison. In 2025, President Trump pardoned CZ. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt put the pardon in context with what she referred to as a war on cryptocurrency in the Biden administration. The pardon caused a lot of waves. Before the announcement, Binance had hired a lobbyist friends with Donald Trump Jr. And the Wall Street Journal reported that Binance supported a platform for the Trump family's own crypto venture. In a rare and exclusive interview in Davos, the entirety of which you will only hear on this very podcast, Andrew Ross Sorkin spoke to CZ.
You're here in Davos. Is it how many times have you been here?
First time. This is the first time.
Yeah. And you were pardoned now 3 months ago.
3 months ago. October 20th. Yeah.
So what have the last three months been like for you?
Much more freedom, much more liberated. So yeah. I think it's just psychologically it's a burden that's just lifted. So I feel much more... I was a free man before but with a felon status. But now I'm a real free man.
And what are you doing with your time?
I'm still pretty busy. It's getting busier. Well I spent time working on this free education platform called Giggle Academy. I work with an investment team called Easy Labs. I still mentor a number of founders in the BNB chain ecosystem space. So we're minority investors. I just mentor them. I also spent quite a lot of time talking with about a half dozen governments about how to regulate crypto, how to do tokenization, how to do stable coins. So just crypto advisory work.
And how many of your conversations start with 'So what was it like to be in prison and what was it like to be pardoned?'
It's definitely a conversation starter. People are very curious about the experience. Most people don't start with that. Most people small talk for a little while because starting with that, some people get... I don't get offended but some people who have been to prison may get offended.
Well I'm going to go straight there. I want to know though, what was it like?
It's not fun. It's actually... the movies are pretty accurate. I wrote it in my upcoming book. You know, my first roommate is a double murderer. And but he's been there for like 12 years. He still have 18 years to go and then you know he got moved to a low security prison. Nice guy. But you know, it's not a good experience.
Did you expect this to happen?
No. No. Absolutely not. When I went there, my knowledge from all my legal team was no one in US history has ever went to jail for a single violation of a banking secrecy act, which is a registration failure. It's a still serious crime or offense, but no one went to jail. So just based on that, I thought, you know, American goes by precedents and if we go by that I should be like... I think the maximum people got, most bank CEOs just get a deferred prosecution agreement, DPA. I think Arthur Hayes, the other crypto... the BitMEX founder, he got six months home confinement, that's the most severe one in US history for a single offense. So I thought, you know, I might get a home confinement for like six months or 12 months and I just be home on computer. That I can handle.
Do you remember the first day?
Yeah, the first day was pretty brutal. So you go in, they strip search you, strip naked. You know, show your hands, show the back of your hands, show your ears, open your mouth, show your tongue. Lift your balls, flip over, spread your butt cheeks, cough three times, you know, that whole thing.
And how did you deal with that emotionally?
I'm not usually very emotionally unstable. So I just thought, you know, at four months, I just got to get through it, right? So it won't be fun, but I'll just get through it. So I was like, okay, now it's just another day.
And what was the pardon process like?
It was actually... I still don't know what the process is. So my understanding is, you know, you have a lawyer that submits a petition.
Right. But did you... when did you even think to yourself there was even a possibility that you could try to seek a pardon?
Interestingly, so it was around March 2025 that I really... it was actually all the media that says I might be trying to get a pardon. If all the media like Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Times are saying that I should be getting a pardon, then...
This was before you were even thinking about getting a pardon?
Well, the pardon topic came up even before that, but I didn't apply. So, I got out in October 2024, right? So, by all the way up until March 2025, you know, Trump was elected in November and then he got into office in January, I didn't apply. And then it was I think it was in March, there was quite a lot of articles associating, you know, Trump, me, crypto, right? Even some Abu Dhabi stuff. I was like, maybe I should apply. So, no. I asked my lawyers to submit a petition and then it's like a black box. I don't know what the process is. I still don't.
But I imagine there's... I mean everybody thinks that there's got to be maneuvering around the edges. People trying to whisper to certain people to try to get in front of the president, maybe to get through his family or you know Eric Trump or some of his sons and other things.
Not that I know of. I think like... there's a lot of people giving me a lot of suggestions but I don't think any of the suggestions have actually worked. The people suggest the most is getting in front of Trump yourself, right? If Trump sees you, President Trump is like a guy that goes by his intuition. But I never got in front of Trump. So I just waited and waited and waited and then suddenly happened. Yeah.
Have you had the chance to talk to him?
No, not yet. The closest I got to him was today when he was doing the Board of Peace session. I was in the audience, you know, I was about 30, 40 feet away from him. Never talked to him, never shook hands. Well, now I've met him kind of in person, but you know, stage audience type of relationship.
Would you like to say something to him if you could?
I want to express my appreciations to him. Obviously, yeah, I would love to. Yeah, I'm super appreciative of the pardon I got.
Yeah. As you know, there's been a lot of questions about the pardon and the connection between Binance and the Trumps, and what that looks like. Can you speak to that?
Based on my knowledge, there's really no connection. I mean, I think the only thing is look, the Trump families are in crypto, right? Binance is a large crypto player and President Trump's administration is pro crypto and that helps all the businesses in crypto. That's just good for the crypto industry and good for America as well.
I think the connection though, if I'm wrong, was this idea of World Liberty Financial, right? And because that's what was used in terms of connecting into MGX and the connection with Binance.
Yeah. Quite a lot. Okay. Yeah. Maybe you can be more precise. What do you think is wrong with that precisely?
