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Richard Teng, chief executive officer of Binance, during the DC Blockchain Summit in Washington, DC, U.S., on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Binance CEO Richard Teng has dismissed claims that the cryptocurrency exchange helped boost a Trump-backed stablecoin before former CEO Changpeng Zhao received a presidential pardon.

The claims in question relate to a $2 billion investment Binance received from Abu Dhabi’s state-owned investment firm MGX. The deal was settled using USD1, a stablecoin created by the Trump family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. 

MGX’s investment and Binance’s subsequent listing of USD1 on its exchange helped bolster the stablecoin’s usage and credibility, with some lawmakers and reports suggesting this may have influenced the pardon of Zhao, commonly known as CZ.

However, in a CNBC interview on Monday, Teng rejected the notion that Binance — the world’s largest cryptocurrency firm — had given USD1 any preferential treatment.

“First of all, the usage of USD1 [for the] transaction between MGX as a strategic investor into Binance, that was decided by MGX … We didn’t partake in that decision,” Teng said. 

He noted that USD1 had already been listed on other exchanges before Binance, adding that, as the “largest crypto ecosystem in the world,” the company regularly engages with promising new projects.

“Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of USD1, I’m glad that both parties worked it out.” 

Accusations of corruption 

Teng’s denials come after the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Binance not only facilitated the settlement of MGX’s investment using USD1, but also assisted in building the technology behind the stablecoin, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

The Journal also previously noted that World Liberty Financial benefited greatly from the listing of its USD1 token on Binance and a partnership with Pancake Swap — an online marketplace for cryptocurrencies said to be associated with Binance. 

Meanwhile, scrutiny of CZ’s pardon and Binance’s ties to the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial has continued to mount from opposition leaders on Capitol Hill.

Among the most prominent voices has been Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, who has accused Binance and the Trump administration of corruption.

In a statement last month, the vocal critic of the crypto industry said: “First, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge. Then he boosted one of Donald Trump’s crypto ventures and lobbied for a pardon,” with the President later doing “his part.”

Binance did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Binance CEO Richard Teng on crypto regulation and Trump's pardon for founder CZ

Critics have long questioned World Liberty Financial’s open connections to the Trump administration as it seeks new partnerships and investors overseas.

According to World Liberty Financial’s website, a Trump-affiliated firm called DT Marks DEFI LLC, along with members of the Trump family, receives a major share of the platform’s revenue and holds digital tokens backing the company, known as WLFI. The firm has reportedly netted the Trump family hundreds of millions to billions in profits.

However, it also states that Trump, his family or any members of the Trump Organization or DT Marks DEFI LLC are not an “officer, director, founder, or employee of, or manager, owner or operator of World Liberty Financial or its affiliates.”

MGX’s purchase of $2 billion in USD1 tokens has also raised eyebrows after a New York Times report in September noted that it occurred two weeks before the White House signed a major agreement with the U.A.E. on access to hundreds of thousands of American microchips.

In a conversation with CNBC last month, Donald Trump Jr., the U.S. president’s eldest son and a co-founder of World Liberty Financial, dismissed the reports and broader concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

He was joined by the firm’s CEO, Zach Witkoff, son of U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who said their fathers were not focused on nor directly involved in the business. 

Trump’s crypto embrace

Zhao was forced to step down from his role at Binance in 2023 after pleading guilty to enabling money laundering through the cryptocurrency exchange.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Oct. 23 that Zhao had been prosecuted under the Biden administration “despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.”

Trump later said he pardoned Zhao “at the request of a lot of very good people” and that he knew nothing about him.

Since returning to office, Trump has embraced the crypto sector, proposing new crypto legislation while rolling back enforcement actions that targeted crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Ripple during the prior administration.

Speaking Monday, Teng said that Binance and the crypto industry “were very thankful” to the president for CZ’s pardon and for signaling that the U.S. will be the “global crypto capital of the world.”

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Wall Street is too fixated on the high valuations of tech and speculative stocks, Cramer says

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Wall Street is too fixated on the high valuations of tech and speculative stocks, Cramer says

Some stocks deserve a higher premium, says Jim Cramer

CNBC’s Jim Cramer suggested Wall Street is too fixated the on large valuations of certain tech and speculative stocks, chalking up Tuesday’s market-wide decline in part to Palantir‘s nearly 8% loss despite strong earnings results.

“The larger issue is that we’re at the moment where money managers, when asked if the market’s too expensive, immediately think of the high-flying speculative stocks or those in the high-growth artificial intelligence column, and so they warn you away from the entire asset class,” he said. “These guys don’t think of the other 334 stocks in the S&P 500 that sell for less than 23 times earnings — those aren’t outrageous.”

Declines in Palantir and other artificial intelligence companies helped bring stocks down on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 losing 1.17%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 0.53% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sinking 2.04%. Palantir managed to beat the estimates and offer solid guidance, citing growth in the artificial intelligence business. But investors worried broadly about the huge valuations of tech giants that have been leading the market to new heights.

Investors who saw Palantir as their “north star” were alarmed by its big pullback after a great quarter, according to Cramer. The fears triggered “a raft of selling” as these investors questioned the market as a whole, he continued.

Palantir can be a tough stock to classify, Cramer suggested, saying it straddles two different market segments — one centered around tech and artificial intelligence, and another focused on speculative stocks. He noted that the data-driven software company is very lucrative and fast growing, and it “defies easy description.” He listed off a number of its business arms — including its work as a defense contractor and as a consultant for companies looking to modernize and improve profitability.

To Cramer, it’s reasonable to consider that there’s nothing wrong with Palantir, and it just needs “to cool off in order to grow into its market capitalization.”

“Sure, there are indeed some stocks that are visibly overvalued, and when you pull them apart, many of these valuations can be justified, some can’t,” he said. “I think the Magnificent Seven can be justified on the pace of the growth that’s ahead of them. Same, ultimately, with Palantir.”

Nearly a million workers are unpaid during shutdown, Wall Street can't ignore it, says Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing

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Bitcoin retail investor at ‘max desperation,’ says Bitwise CIO, but crypto winter not coming

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Bitcoin retail investor at 'max desperation,' says Bitwise CIO, but crypto winter not coming

'I think crypto market is close to a bottom': Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan

Bitcoin‘s fall below $100,000, its lowest level since June, has sparked fears that the worst is yet to come, another so-called crypto winter (a prolonged bear market in cryptocurrencies) that the market wrestles with every time digital currencies sell off hard in a short period of time.

But Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says that while the retail investor is in “max desperation” mode, he sees that as a reason to bet that a bottoming in crypto prices may materialize sooner rather than later. With Wall Street institutional investor and financial advisor support for bitcoin, and growth in crypto ETFs, he is even willing to go out on a limb and say that amid the heavy selling a new record high for bitcoin before the end of the year isn’t unreasonable.

“It’s almost a tale of two markets,” he said on CNBC’s “Crypto World” on Tuesday. “Crypto retail is in max desperation. We’ve seen leverage blowouts. … the market for sort of crypto native retail is just more depressed than I’ve ever seen it,” he said.

But Hougan believes more crypto trading will continue to shift into an institutionally driven market, “and interestingly, that market is still bullish,” he said.

“When I go out and speak to institutions or financial advisors, they’re still excited to allocate to an asset class that if you pan back and look over the course of a year, is still delivering very strong returns. So my view of the market is we have to get through this retail flush out. We have to hit bottom from a sentiment perspective. I think we’re very close to that,” he added.

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Price of bitcoin and ether over the past year.

The boom in crypto exchange-traded fund launches, including iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is changing the investor composition, and while week-to-week flows into these ETFs have slowed since the second quarter of the year, “we continue to see strong inflows into bitcoin,” Hougan said.

He expects more support to materialize for crypto into the end of the year among financial advisors who will look past the current dip and see an “opportunity to show their clients that they understand where this market is going.”

Bitwise’s own Solana staking ETF (BSOL) brought in over $400 million in flows in its first week, he said, though it has sold off sharply in the recent crypto downturn, with a near 20% loss since its Oct. 28 debut.

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This chart is showing BSOL 5 days

Last week, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor told CNBC he thinks bitcoin could reach $150,000 by the end of the year, one among several recent bullish calls on crypto that for now at least look ill-timed. But Hougan said he doesn’t think it’s an outlandish call even as bitcoin hovers near a six-month low.

“I think bitcoin could easily end the year at new all-time highs,” Hougan said. “So that means getting north of about $125,000 up to $130,000. Whether we’ll get all the way to $150,000, we’ll have to see.”

“I do think the sellers are nearing exhaustion and the buyers are still relatively hungry. And when those two things sort of cross paths, again, I think we could end the year close to or at new all-time highs. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get to Saylor’s target as well,” he said.

Institutional investors, whom Hougan described as “more maybe even keeled about what’s going on at a fundamental level in crypto” will start to drive the market forward. “But we do have to finish this washout of retail sentiment … I think we’re closer to the end of that than the beginning, but … there always could be a little bit more downside.”

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Trump renominates Musk ally Jared Isaacman to run NASA months after withdrawal

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Trump renominates Musk ally Jared Isaacman to run NASA months after withdrawal

Jared Isaacman, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025.

Ken Cedeno | Reuters

President Donald Trump has renominated Jared Isaacman to run NASA after pulling his prior nomination months ago due to what the president called a “thorough review of prior associations.”

“Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.

Isaacman, who is friends with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, was originally picked to lead NASA in December, before Trump had even taken office. Isaacman is a billionaire who founded payments company Shift4 and has led two private spaceflights.

But Trump pulled the nomination in late May after a spat between the president and Musk, who had been leading a White House effort to slash the size of the federal government. Trump said at the time that he was withdrawing the pick because of Isaacman’s past associations, though he didn’t specify what those were. Some reports have suggested that it was a reference to Isaacman’s prior donations to Democrats.

Days after the withdrawal, Isaacman told Shift4 investors in a letter that his “brief stint in politics was a thrilling experience.” He also said that he was resigning as CEO of Shift4, which he founded in 1999 at age 16, and would assume the role of executive chairman. He had been planning to leave the company if his nomination was confirmed by the Senate. But it never got that far.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been running NASA as interim head since July.

Isaacman still must go through the Senate confirmation process. The federal government has been shut down since the beginning of October, but the Senate is still able to confirm presidential nominees.

WATCH: Trump renominates Jared Isaacman to run NASA

Pres. Trump re-nominates fmr. Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman to be head of NASA

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