Democrats Keep Digging Into CZ's Pardon as Binance Tallies a $6.34B Hack

The pardon fight got a fresh jolt on October 30, when House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters tied the clemency to Binance's reported links to the Trump family's World Liberty Financial, the SEC dropping its case against the exchange and its founder, and Trump's pardon itself. Democrats had already been digging into whether political connections, financial relationships, or lobbying shaped the president's October 2025 decision to pardon Zhao. Then the hack poured fuel on it.

The breach hit on October 29, when an attacker slipped into Binance's internal wallet-signing service and pushed transfers through outside the exchange's normal withdrawal process. In a November 3 update, Binance put the affected assets at $6.34 billion, spread across XRP, Solana, Optimism, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Roughly $2.85 billion was frozen or intercepted, and 98% of affected token assets had been replenished by October 31. Binance says it will absorb the financial hit.

One thing the attacker didn't touch: BNB Chain's consensus mechanism. The compromise lived inside Binance's own wallet infrastructure, not the blockchain, a distinction the exchange has been keen to draw. Binance says it holds more than enough reserves to cover the losses, is strengthening the affected systems, and has independent cybersecurity reviews planned as its investigation rolls on.

Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program at Binance. He stepped down as CEO and served four months behind bars before the pardon landed. He says he no longer runs the exchange, yet he remains one of its loudest public defenders.

In May, lawmakers sent letters to 17 clemency recipients, Zhao among them, demanding details on their pardon applications and any involvement from lobbyists, intermediaries or political allies. The probe later widened to federal offices involved in the clemency process. CZ stayed loud in the meantime: after Elon Musk appeared to mock the incident online, Zhao asked him to stop trolling and pointed to Binance's SpaceX shares, born from a $500 million investment in Musk's Twitter takeover, which he said are now worth more than $1 billion.

Binance co-CEO Yi He said the exchange's revenue is enough to cover the losses and that it doesn't need to sell the SpaceX stake; Zhao later clarified his post was not a sale announcement. Two storylines now run side by side: Democrats chasing how the pardon was won, and Binance working to restore confidence after one of the largest reported crypto security incidents. Both keep circling back to the same man.