Binance’s MAGA-Branding Strategy
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Economy
/ February 27, 2026
Binance’s MAGA-Branding Strategy
The world’s largest crypto exchange often operates beyond the reach of the law. Now it’s helping to enrich the Trump family.
Jacob Silverman
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Donald Trump and Binance, partners in power.
(Avishek Das / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
While in office, President Donald Trump has enriched himself far more than any American politician before him. He hasn’t done it alone. Perhaps no company has provided more financial and logistical support to Trump’s cryptocurrency empire—the engine of his newly acquired wealth—than Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance has become the principal market for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s primary crypto venture, which has sold billions of dollars worth of its tokens. Binance employees even wrote the code for USD1, Trump’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.
On its way to becoming the world’s dominant crypto exchange, Binance also became notorious as a financial conduit for cyber criminals, sanctions evaders, and militant groups. During President Joe Biden’s administration, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (widely known as CZ) spent four months in federal prison after pleading guilty to violating laws against money laundering. The company agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine—one of the biggest in corporate history—and to largely stay out of the US market. Biden’s SEC also filed a civil lawsuit against Binance, which accused the crypto exchange of a range of violations, including market manipulation, illegally serving US customers, and mishandling customer funds. (SEC legal filings alleged that billions of dollars in company revenue flowed through overseas companies controlled by CZ and a never-seen Chinese cofounder named Guangying Chen.)
Under President Trump, that has all changed. Last May, the SEC dropped its lawsuit. In October, Trump pardoned CZ. According to The Wall Street Journal, Binance also worked, with Trump’s support, to relax government oversight of the exchange. Earlier this month, CZ attended a World Liberty Financial–hosted crypto summit at Mar-a-Lago, where guests included Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and top crypto industry and Wall Street executives.
Its legal and regulatory shackles loosened, Binance now stands accused of behavior that, as the Journal delicately put it, “echoed some of the same concerns that drew US scrutiny in 2023.” According to multiple reports, last November Binance dismantled an internal team of investigators that had uncovered 1,500 Binance accounts in Iran, where the exchange was operating …
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Current Issue
Economy
/ February 27, 2026
Binance’s MAGA-Branding Strategy
The world’s largest crypto exchange often operates beyond the reach of the law. Now it’s helping to enrich the Trump family.
Jacob Silverman
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Donald Trump and Binance, partners in power.
(Avishek Das / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
While in office, President Donald Trump has enriched himself far more than any American politician before him. He hasn’t done it alone. Perhaps no company has provided more financial and logistical support to Trump’s cryptocurrency empire—the engine of his newly acquired wealth—than Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance has become the principal market for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s primary crypto venture, which has sold billions of dollars worth of its tokens. Binance employees even wrote the code for USD1, Trump’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.
On its way to becoming the world’s dominant crypto exchange, Binance also became notorious as a financial conduit for cyber criminals, sanctions evaders, and militant groups. During President Joe Biden’s administration, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (widely known as CZ) spent four months in federal prison after pleading guilty to violating laws against money laundering. The company agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine—one of the biggest in corporate history—and to largely stay out of the US market. Biden’s SEC also filed a civil lawsuit against Binance, which accused the crypto exchange of a range of violations, including market manipulation, illegally serving US customers, and mishandling customer funds. (SEC legal filings alleged that billions of dollars in company revenue flowed through overseas companies controlled by CZ and a never-seen Chinese cofounder named Guangying Chen.)
Under President Trump, that has all changed. Last May, the SEC dropped its lawsuit. In October, Trump pardoned CZ. According to The Wall Street Journal, Binance also worked, with Trump’s support, to relax government oversight of the exchange. Earlier this month, CZ attended a World Liberty Financial–hosted crypto summit at Mar-a-Lago, where guests included Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and top crypto industry and Wall Street executives.
Its legal and regulatory shackles loosened, Binance now stands accused of behavior that, as the Journal delicately put it, “echoed some of the same concerns that drew US scrutiny in 2023.” According to multiple reports, last November Binance dismantled an internal team of investigators that had uncovered 1,500 Binance accounts in Iran, where the exchange was operating …
Binance’s MAGA-Branding Strategy
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Current Issue
Economy
/ February 27, 2026
Binance’s MAGA-Branding Strategy
The world’s largest crypto exchange often operates beyond the reach of the law. Now it’s helping to enrich the Trump family.
Jacob Silverman
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Donald Trump and Binance, partners in power.
(Avishek Das / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
While in office, President Donald Trump has enriched himself far more than any American politician before him. He hasn’t done it alone. Perhaps no company has provided more financial and logistical support to Trump’s cryptocurrency empire—the engine of his newly acquired wealth—than Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance has become the principal market for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s primary crypto venture, which has sold billions of dollars worth of its tokens. Binance employees even wrote the code for USD1, Trump’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.
On its way to becoming the world’s dominant crypto exchange, Binance also became notorious as a financial conduit for cyber criminals, sanctions evaders, and militant groups. During President Joe Biden’s administration, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (widely known as CZ) spent four months in federal prison after pleading guilty to violating laws against money laundering. The company agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine—one of the biggest in corporate history—and to largely stay out of the US market. Biden’s SEC also filed a civil lawsuit against Binance, which accused the crypto exchange of a range of violations, including market manipulation, illegally serving US customers, and mishandling customer funds. (SEC legal filings alleged that billions of dollars in company revenue flowed through overseas companies controlled by CZ and a never-seen Chinese cofounder named Guangying Chen.)
Under President Trump, that has all changed. Last May, the SEC dropped its lawsuit. In October, Trump pardoned CZ. According to The Wall Street Journal, Binance also worked, with Trump’s support, to relax government oversight of the exchange. Earlier this month, CZ attended a World Liberty Financial–hosted crypto summit at Mar-a-Lago, where guests included Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and top crypto industry and Wall Street executives.
Its legal and regulatory shackles loosened, Binance now stands accused of behavior that, as the Journal delicately put it, “echoed some of the same concerns that drew US scrutiny in 2023.” According to multiple reports, last November Binance dismantled an internal team of investigators that had uncovered 1,500 Binance accounts in Iran, where the exchange was operating …
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