Davos 2026: Binance Founder CZ 1/25/26

0:00Your data lives everywhere. On-prem, in the cloud, across apps. Bring it all together with EverPure, the platform that acts like a living system, delivering the latest in data performance, security, and innovation without ever slowing you down. Sophisticated enough to anticipate your ever-changing data needs, yet simple enough to feel like second nature. Tame your data chaos with EverPure and make storage and data management the simplest part of your business. Visit everpuredata.com to learn more. Never bet against American grit or American energy. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time.

0:45So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

1:01My first roommate is a double murderer. But he's been there for like 12 years. He still has 18 years to go. And then, you know, he got moved to a low-security prison. Nice guy. Cheng Peng 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.

1:49I'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 psycho. Be a super psycho. 2026, yeah. For Bitcoin. For Bitcoin. I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. Squawk Pod reports from Davos 2026. Binance founder CZ begins right now.

2:19a lot of interesting people come to the world economic forum in davos and this year one attendee was cheng pang zhao known as czi 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 three years in prison. In 2025, President Trump pardoned CZ. Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt put the pardon in context with what she referred to as a war on cryptocurrency in the Biden administration.

3:08The 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. How many times have you been here? First time. This is the first time? Yeah, yeah. And you were pardoned now three months ago? Three months ago, October 20th. So what have the last three months been like for you?

3:51Much more freedom. Much more liberated. So yeah, I think it's just psychologically, it's like 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 mentor a number of funders in the B &B chain ecosystem space. So we're minority investors, I just mentor them. I also spent quite a lot of time talking with about a dozen governments about how to regulate crypto, how to do tokenization, how to do stablecoins.

4:39So 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, they small talk for a little while. because starting with that, some people, 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 book, upcoming book.

5:14You know, you get, my first roommate is a double murderer, but he's been there for like 12 years. He still has 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 U.S. history has ever went to jail for a single violation of a Banking Secrecy Act, which is a registration failure. It's still a serious crime offense, but no one went to jail. So just based on that, I thought, you know, Americans go by presidences.

5:52And 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, you strip naked, you show your hands, show your back, 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.

6:37And how did you deal with that emotionally? I'm not usually very emotionally stable. So I just thought, you know, at four months, I just got to get through it. Right. So you won't be fun, but I'll just get through it. So I was like, okay, 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 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 2005 that I really, it was actually all the media that says, I might be trying to get a pardon.

7:18If all the media like Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Times are saying that I should be getting a pardon. 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. So all the way up until March 2025, 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 Trump, me, crypto, even some Abu Dhabi stuff. Like, maybe I should apply. So, no, I asked my lawyers to submit a petition.

7:55And 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 there's a lot of people giving me a lot of suggestions, but I don't think any of those suggestions have actually worked. The people who suggest the most is get in front of Trump yourself. If Trump sees you, President Trump is like a guy that goes by his intuition.

8:31But I never got in front of Trump. So I just waited and waited and waited, and then suddenly it happened. 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. I was about 30, 40 feet away from him. Never talked to him, never shook hands, never. But now I've met him kind of in person, but stage audience type of relationship. Would you like to say something to him if you could? I want to express my appreciation to him, obviously. Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, I'm super appreciative of the of the part that I got.

9:10As you know, there's been a lot of questions about the part 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 the Trump families are in crypto. Right. Binance is a large crypto player and the 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? Because that was used in terms of connecting into MGX and connection with Binance.

9:54Yeah, quite a lot. OK, maybe you can be more precise. What do you think is wrong with that precisely? I think that the selection of those partners unto themselves is what has raised the question about whether the family was therefore supportive of the pardon. OK, so this is my basic understanding of the different pieces. There's a lot of media saying that, you know, there's some deal in place to get me the pardon. As far as I know, that does not exist at all. Number two is there were quite a lot of inaccurate descriptions about MGX investing Binance. They invested 2 billion US dollars equivalent in stablecoins and they choose the World Liberty Finance USD 1 stablecoin.

10:40And we are a crypto exchange. When I do business with people, I tell people, look, you can pay me almost any kind of major crypto that has good liquidity that we can convert. So if it's a stablecoin with good banking support, it's a legit stablecoin, I will accept it. MGX is the investor. They choose to use USD1. My request to them was they pay us in crypto. I don't want to deal with banks really. So they said, well, can we pay you in stablecoins? I was fine. And then they said USD1, fine. So that was the whole process. Many people misconstrue that that's just one transaction which I take. I don't have to hold that$2 billion.

11:19I can convert it at any time. And I have. You have? I have. So it was converted almost immediately? No, we convert portions over time. But many media says that's a$2 billion investment into USD1 or World Liberty Finance. That's completely wrong. If I accept like$100 of US dollars in payments, That's not me investing$100 in, I don't know, what entity. It's a stablecoin. It's just a currency for payment. Just because I accepted that, it doesn't mean I invested in an issuer of that. So there's a lot of mischaracterizations of that. So there's no business relationships whatsoever. So now that you've been through this experience, there have been questions about whether someone like Sam Bankman-Fried should be pardoned.

12:10What do you think, given what you know about that case and also what you know about your own case? I cannot speak to his case, to be honest. Many people think I know his case, but I actually don't. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a judge. I think we'll leave that to the legal system. Did you watch his case play out? Because, of course, you were this other character in that story. Which is also an unfair or inaccurate characterization, I think. I did watch it. I was at some point there were some interactions between me and Sam Bankman Free. But you know I didn't do much at all so and I don't know what's going on over there.

12:51At one point I think we did sign an ROI so that no, SBF calls me. Says well they're like for 10 minutes just sort of going around but eventually tells look will we be interested in buying FTX outright. It's like well we'll take a look. And we sign an LOI, we'll take a look. But then in the process his legal counsel quit, like dropped out from the group. So within 24 hours we said look this, we at this point we can't, we can't at the time my gut feeling is we cannot believe whatever number that's in the data room. Right? So if we don't have that level of trust then this deal, like we don't know what we're looking at.

13:31The speculation I think was also though that you may have known about some of the balance sheet issues that the company had and potentially helped expose some of those. No I did not. I absolutely did not.

13:47Before they went bankrupt like maybe a year and a half two years ago we were we were one of the shareholders right because there's competitive business relationships I never asked for their financial statements so I don't know what their financials are. It was until like, I think it was until like early November 2022 when CoinDesk reported an article saying that they might be insolvent. I still don't know what's going on. Right. But yeah, but that we kind of unfolded. Even when it was unfolded, even today, I don't know what that balance looks like. Right. Yeah. You still own a majority stake in Binance?

14:20Well, I'm a large shareholder. 90 %? No, no, no. That number is wrong. So what can you tell us what the number is? I actually don't know what the exact number is on top of my head because there are different legal entities, etc. So I actually don't know what that exact number is. So long term, can you have a real role inside of Binance? What happens now? I mean, based on my understanding, technically, I got a full unconditional pardon from President Trump. So restrictions on me are completely lifted. I don't know what other restrictions there are potentially in other parts of the Binance company or Binance centralized exchange, or I don't know.

14:54But I haven't really needed to go back. I didn't really want to, I thought it was a pretty good way for me to step down away from Binance after seven years. At the time it was very painful, I didn't like it. But after you get used to it, I don't think it's good for me to go back. I think we should leave room for other strong leaders to grow. How involved are you in just the strategy and plans for Binance are active? Not much at all. So they're two capable CEOs and the team's pretty strong. I was away for basically two years and the market share increased. The company didn't lose users. It grew.

15:35So I just thought, look, they don't need a backseat driver today. So I'm still a shareholder. And even before I was pardoned, my shareholder rights were not impacted through the plea agreement. So I'm just a pretty passive shareholder. And today when I want to give them advice, I just write it on Twitter. I was going to tell you, the CEO of Ripple recently said that he thinks that Binance is going to try to return to the United States. Do you expect that? Well, Binance always had a Binance US, which is a separate entity, separate company. They've always been in the US. They never died. the business dropped quite a lot because of the SEC lawsuit.

16:17But now the SEC lawsuit against them and me, the new SEC dropped it with prejudice, meaning they cannot bring it back again. So they're still operating there. The business got destroyed. They lost the banking channels in 2023 after the SEC lawsuit. But now I believe they got a banking channel back. And I fully believe they want to be an active business platform again. Again, they have a huge cost fee advantage. Their cost structure is much, much lower than the other platforms in the U.S. So they can offer much, much lower fees. So, you know, we just had Brian Armstrong here earlier in the week.

16:57I mean, how do you think about Binance and Coinbase today? Today, I think Coinbase predominantly in the U.S. There are less prominent outside of the U.S. And Binance is the reverse. Binance is in the other 80 % of the GDP globally. And Binance US is quite small. I think over time there will be some overflow and competition over that. I saw Brian Armstrong yesterday in person. We had a chat and you know. Do you guys know each other very well? Not very well. I met him maybe like two, three times over the last 10 years. Right. But you know, we see each other on social media all the time. We kind of know of each other.

17:36You know, I think the space has room for more than one exchange. And in fact, it would be really bad if there's only one exchange. There should be multiple exchanges in the space. Different people will eventually do things slightly differently. Competition will be good for the consumers. The price will come down. The service will be better. And the space is big enough. We haven't really even touched 0.1 % of the total potential for the industry. What do you think about this market structure regulation piece? I don't know how much you followed that, but it seems like Brian Armstrong and parts of the industry actually came together just last week to say, hold on, this isn't going to go the right way?

18:11So number one is I don't know too much about it. I do read about it. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a U.S. I also don't understand the U.S. political landscape, regulatory landscape that well. So this is actually my point. The fact that Coinbase is carrying that much weight on that bill is kudos to them. They're actually carrying that for the industry. Hopefully they're carrying that for all of the industry, not just U.S. players. So that's an example where they are doing what they're strong in and we're kind of the industry waiting for them Kind of looking to them to lead We don't know. I don't know anything about US regulations I'm not an expert there finance US may have some guys were experts, but they do they may not have the influence that crime base has So I think that's good.

18:54That's great. So I work with like a dozen governments outside of the US Busy with that. So yeah, um Do you trade a lot of crypto these days? No, no, I don't trade. At all? I don't trade. I just, I hold Bitcoins, I hold BNB. Okay. I don't do day trading. I don't buy and sell. I don't try to attend the market. I'm just not good at that. Years ago, like 10, 20 years ago, I tried that. Lost money. Just figured, I'm a developer. I build systems. I don't trade. So do you have any thought though, real quick, on just like the price of Bitcoin and where this is all headed? Do you think we're in a winter, a summer cycle?

19:31Are you with Cathie Wood who thinks it's going to turn into a million dollars a coin? So whenever people ask that question, I always got to ask them, what's the time frame you're looking at? If you're looking at today, tomorrow, or daily basis, there's no way I can predict. If you look at a five, ten-year horizon, it's very easy to predict. We're going to go up. If you look at a one-year horizon, which is like what the most common framework is, 2026, I'm not sure. You may be, I think I have very strong feelings that you will probably be a super cycle. Be a super cycle? 2026, yeah. For Bitcoin?

20:05For Bitcoin. And what super cycle to you means what? Well, normally Bitcoin follows four year cycles historically. If you look at historic data, like every four years, you know, there's an all time high and then there's a drop. But I think this year, given the U.S. being so pro crypto and every other country is kind of following, I do think we will see this. We will probably break the four year cycle. Yeah, we got to go. But just on a personal level, if you could redo anything, given all that's happened in your life now and all the wildness of the last couple of years, what have you done differently?

20:37Oh, I would have blocked U.S. users from day one. That's the answer? That's the day one. What about some of the regulations and trying to abide by those regulations? Well that's the main thing about the regulations. At the beginning when we started a tech platform, we had US users and I was based in Shanghai back then. We're like a small technology startup, right? But it was like six years later we found out, oh well that is a violation of a banking secrecy act. If I had known that and now I know that, so if I start over again, I just like block US users from day one and then I will have much less trouble.

21:11Zizi, thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Appreciate it.

21:19Bitcoin is often talked about as an investment, but it was built to be used. With Cash App, you can actually do that. Send Bitcoin instantly, pay at local square businesses that accept it, or move it to your own wallet whenever you want. It works more like real money and less like something locked in an account. For a limited time, new customers can get$10 added to their balance. Just use code CASHAPP10 when you sign up. And don't forget this part. Send at least$5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners.

22:04Bitcoin services provided by Block, Inc. Brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app slash legal slash podcast. Never bet against American grit or American energy. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

23:03And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card.

23:15Thank you for listening to this special Squawk Pod reports from Davos. This is just one of our many iconic interviews at the World Economic Forum this year. Please follow Squawk Pod and check out that feed. We have episodes of all of our major interviews. David Beckham, President Trump, Amazon's Andy Jassy, leaders from Google's DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Chock full of content from the Alps for your own snow day this weekend. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Squawk Pod is produced by me, Cameron Costa, and Zach Valisi. Katie Kramer has been in Davos with our anchors, and a big thanks to Julie Trass, our editor, for all the Davos episodes.

24:01Have a great day.

24:31What would you like the power to do? Bank of America, proud to be the official bank of U.S. soccer and FIFA World Cup 2026. Bank of America N.A. Member FDSP.