Ex-Binance Boss CZ Celebrates Ross Ulbricht’s Release

Changpeng Zhao, famous to the crypto community as CZ, has reacted to the news about the Silk Road creator finally receiving a “full and unconditional pardon” from the US president.

The whole crypto community is celebrating this long-awaited event. However, CZ hopes that he would soon be able to receive the same thing.

CZ rejoiced at Ulbricht’s pardon

CZ retweeted the post by the @Free_Ross X account, which announced the news of Ulbright’s pardon from the new US president. “Words cannot express how grateful we are,” the post says, calling the president “a man of his word” who” just saved Ross’s life.” “Ross is a free man!” the post proudly states.

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— CZ ? BNB (@cz_binance) January 22, 2025

CZ commented on it with a “clapping hands” emoji. A commentator wrote that now, hopefully, the president would also grant the same to CZ: “Hopefully you next @cz_binance. Full pardon. Fingers crossed.” To that, the Binance co-founder responded with a “folded hands” emoji in a thankful gesture.

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— CZ ? BNB (@cz_binance) January 22, 2025

In November 2023, CZ was forced to step down from the Binance CEO position after the US Department of Justice accused Binance of violating US security law, anti-money laundering rules, and allowing non-US citizens to trade. Zhao passed his post to Richard Teng, and Binance paid a multi-billion dollar fine. CZ was forbidden to run Binance for the rest of his life.

In 2024, between May and October, CZ did a short prison sentence in the US but later the threat of another prison term appeared for him.

Crypto community celebrates Ulbricht’s release

The post published by the @Free_Ross account garnered attention from the crypto community, with many of its notable members sending congratulations and relief comments about Ulbricht’s pardon.

Among them were Erik Voorhees, an early Bitcoiner and founder of ShapeShift, Gabor Gurbacs, a Tether advisor, and Samson Mow, the boss of JAN3.

pic.twitter.com/iFexLwgBZp

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) January 22, 2025

Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to two lifetime prison terms in 2013 when he was arrested after founding and running for a year the Silk Road darknet marketplace for free trade, where illegal drugs were sold using Bitcoin as the currency. That was the first big platform to integrate BTC as a means of payment, and Ulbricht has been considered one of the pioneers of BTC adoption. His pardon was among Trump’s key election campaign promises.

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