President Donald Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the worldâs largest crypto exchange Binance, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to Fortune on Thursday. âPresident Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency,â she said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal first broke the news, reporting that Trump signed the pardon on Wednesday.â
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The decision comes after months of reports that Trump was weighing whether to pardon Zhao, who is popularly known as CZ in the crypto industry. The Binance founder pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering regime while he was the CEO of the crypto exchange. He stepped down as CEO and served four months in prison in 2024.â
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Google on Tuesday released a new payments scheme to make it easier for different AI apps to send and receive money.â
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The open-source protocol not only includes support for more traditional forms of payments like credit and debit cards but also stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar.â
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To add compatibility with stablecoins, Google worked with the crypto exchange Coinbase, which has built its own AI and crypto payments scheme.â
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One of cryptoâs earliest entrepreneurs is betting on something other than Bitcoin. â
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Famous as an early advocate of âdigital gold,â and for launching franchises like CoinDesk and Grayscale, billionaire Barry Silbert shared his newest passion at Fortuneâs #BrainstormTech conference in Park City, Utah. â
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âI believe that the next big wave in crypto is going to be the convergence of AI and crypto,â said Silbert, who is the founder and CEO of crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, on a Tuesday panel.â
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Introducing The Crypto Playbook â Fortune Cryptoâs new vodcast breaking down the biggest ideas in digital finance.
Episode 1: Jack Mallers, CEO of Twenty-One Capital and founder of Strike, joins to explain how Bitcoin is becoming indispensable, especially to world leaders like Trump.
âBitcoin wasnât waiting for any government to adopt it... In fact, governments are going to find themselves needing Bitcoin.â
đ§ Full episode on YouTube now.â¨#CryptoPlaybook #Bitcoin #Crypto #FortuneCrypto
James Howells accidentally threw away his Bitcoin-laden hard drive in 2013. Today, that hard drive is worth over $700 million.
Howellsâ 12-year-long attempt to legally excavate the drive from a city dump hit a dead end in January when a judge ruled he had âno realistic prospect of succeedingâ in his effort if the case were to continue.
This year, however, the landfill is being closed and will reportedly be replaced by a solar farm. And Howells sees that as an opening.
âI would be potentially interested in purchasing the landfill site. I have discussed this option recently with investment partners and it is very much on the table,â he told the UK media outlet Metro.
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Everyone from Donald Trump to âHawk Tuah girlâ has launched their own crypto memecoin, but so far the worldâs most famous entrepreneur has yet to get in on the action.
Despite pro-crypto leanings and a massive social media following, Elon Musk has resisted hawking a digital token bearing his name. Muskâs father, however, has other ideas.
Errol Musk, who reportedly has a fraught relationship with his son, and his business partner, Nathan Browne, told Fortune they hope to raise between $150 and $200 million from a token project called âMusk It.â
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In early November, 26-year-old Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan had a week he will remember for the rest of his life.
He received a phone call from the highest echelons of Mar-a-Lago. He went on TV for the first time. And he had his New York City apartment raided by the FBI.
In an interview with Fortune earlier this week, Coplan expressed elation about what he had achieved and the future of his company. âTurning dreams into reality has never felt more tangible, and luckily Iâm a dreamer. The world is shaped and changed by optimists,â he said.
On Wednesday, though, Coplanâs tone changed.
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An $80 million crypto fund backed by Bill Ackman is winding down after its Forbes 30 under 30 founder went silent in China.
Last May, David Gan sent a cryptic email to the investors in his blockchain-focused venture firm, Inception Capital.
Gan informed them that his father, a retired high-ranking Chinese government official, was under investigation and that he would be traveling to China. Then, according to investors who spoke with Fortune, he went silent.
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Love or hate Robinhood, thereâs no denying it has, more than any other company in recent memory, changed the way Americans invest.
It popularized rash mass purchases of stocks like GameStop and Dogecoin, but also spurred the broader brokerage industry to copy its no-cost, mobile-first approach.
Robinhood has grown fast: It had 24.1 million funded accounts at the end of May, up from 12.5 million in 2020, and its assets under custody have bulged to $135 billion. And it has transformed the demographics of investing, helping millions of people get a piece of the stock market for the first time.
Robinhood has also changed CEO Vlad Tenev. The 37-year-old first-generation American has weathered a series of crises, some self-inflicted, that Silicon Valley veterans say would have crushed most CEOs, emerging more canny and focused.
Tenev is also just getting started.
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Love or hate @robinhoodapp , thereâs no denying it has changed the way Americans invest.
Robinhood has also changed its cofounder and CEO Vlad Tenev. The 37-year-old first-generation American has weathered a series of crises that Silicon Valley veterans say would have crushed most CEOs.
Tenev is also just getting started. The Robinhood he envisions will be a powerful personal finance machine, designed for maturing users who are less and less likely to wipe out at high velocities.
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In May 2021, the Chicago-based financial firm Jump Trading was discussing a mounting crisis.
The firm had become a kind of silent partner for one of the most high-profile projects in crypto, an algorithmic stablecoin called TerraUSD.
But despite the bluster of Terraâs swaggering founder, Do Kwon, the stablecoin was failing.
Jump stood to make millions on its deal with Terraform Labs, the TerraUSD developerâor the whole thing could quickly collapse.
Then a 25-year-old recent intern, Kanav Kariya, joined the crypto teamâs always-on Zoom meeting. âI spoke to Do,â Kariya announced. âTheyâre going to vest us.â
What happened next would, quite literally, change the course of the crypto industry.
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Yida Gao is a Chinese immigrant who was riding high in the crypto world after landing on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
He had his own blockchain-focused venture firm, Shima Capital and in a short time, raised $200 million from finance heavyweights like Bill Ackman and prominent crypto firms, soon becoming one of the most active investors in crypto by participating in more than 300 deals.
Gaoâs ascent was meteoric.
But he also cut crucial corners. A Fortune investigation has discovered that unbeknownst to Ackman and his other investors, Gao created a secret offshore entity and funneled assets belonging to his venture fund into the corporation set up under his own name.
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