Crypto’s biggest players were once outcasts in Washington. No more.

Overseas cryptocurrency giants like Binance and Tether — which were once under scrutiny from the U.S. government — are enjoying a newfound embrace from President Donald Trump that could help them penetrate the mainstream American financial system.

Trump’s move last month to pardon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire better known as CZ who in 2023 pleaded guilty in federal court over Binance’s anti-money laundering violations, represented a landmark pivot in Washington’s approach to overseas crypto firms. Trump has also at least twice welcomed Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino to the White House, despite past concerns from Republican and Democratic lawmakers about its token being used to finance illicit activity, including terrorism. And on his second day back in office, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the crypto-powered, dark-web marketplace known as Silk Road.

“This is absolutely a paradigm shift,” said Adam Zarazinski, CEO of the crypto risk intelligence firm Inca Digital, of the shift toward welcoming overseas companies.

Trump, a crypto skeptic-turned-crypto champion, was widely expected to bring a marked shift in the treatment of companies that had attracted lawsuits and investigations from former President Joe Biden’s Wall Street regulators. But the change toward the likes of Binance and Tether illustrates how his administration’s embrace of crypto has also extended to the riskier corners of the digital assets world that even the most industry-friendly politicians once sought to keep at arm’s length. Binance is the world’s largest crypto trading platform, while Tether controls the largest stablecoin.

It’s also giving new fodder to Trump’s critics, who have bashed the Zhao pardon, citing Binance’s recent involvement with a crypto venture backed by the Trump family. Tether’s U.S. operation, meanwhile, is part of a pack of corporate donors for the new White House ballroom.

On Sunday, when asked about the pardon during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Trump said he didn’t know who Zhao was. He added that he had heard Zhao was “treated really badly by the Biden administration” and “highly respected.” Zhao’s guilty plea came alongside a related settlement between federal prosecutors and Binance that still requires the company to meet certain compliance requirements.

“He’s a very successful guy,” Trump said. “I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.”

The shift was on full display at the White House in July, when Tether’s Ardoino earned a shoutout from the president himself as crypto executives and administration officials celebrated a major new crypto law creating rules for stablecoins.

Tether, which issues a digital token known as USDT whose value is pegged to the U.S. dollar, has long been controversial in the crypto space due to concerns about its product being used to skirt money-laundering laws and violate sanctions. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Justice Department was investigating the company for such potential violations, but no charges were ever brought. Tether denied it was ever under investigation, and the company has touted its work with U.S. law enforcement in the past. The Justice Department has at times publicly thanked Tether for cooperating with some of its investigations. The company declined to comment for this story.

It has also faced questions over the amount of money that is backing USDT. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in early 2024, when he was still leading the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, that his company holds many of Tether’s reserves and could vouch that they “have the money they say they have,” helping to tamp down some of the concerns about what type of assets back USDT.

The El Salvador-based company recently announced plans to launch a U.S.-based subsidiary, which is being led by former Trump White House crypto policy adviser Bo Hines. Though it hasn’t yet begun issuing its new, U.S.-based stablecoin, Tether America is helping to fund Trump’s new White House ballroom, according to a list of contributors the administration released.

Trump’s moves have become a major focus for his critics on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are currently working to strike a deal on a major overhaul of crypto regulations. Zhao’s pardon has renewed calls from some Democrats to include ethics language in a crypto bill targeting the Trump family’s entanglements in digital assets. An Abu Dhabi-backed fund earlier this year used a stablecoin issued by a firm backed by Trump’s sons to facilitate a $2 billion investment in Binance.

“The people who have provided assistance to drug traffickers and terrorists and people who sell access to human beings have learned that if they offer enough money and enough flattery to Donald Trump, evidently, they can once again be major players in the crypto world,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “It looks a lot like bribery, right out in the open for everyone to see.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement: “Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”

“The media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read,” Leavitt said. She added that “the administration is fulfilling the President’s promise to make the United States the crypto capital of the world by driving innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans.”

But Warren, a longtime crypto critic, isn’t the only one voicing concerns: Some in the crypto world also worry it could make doing business with the Trump family a necessity to stay competitive in the nearly $4 trillion market.

“What’s crystal clear is that the Trump crypto machine isn’t lifting all boats equally,” said Cory Klippsten, CEO of Swan Bitcoin, a bitcoin financial services company. “It appears to reward the operators most willing to enrich the Trump family directly, like what Binance has done.”

Teresa Goody Guillén, an attorney for Zhao and partner at the law firm BakerHostetler, said in a statement that neither Binance nor Zhao are involved with USD1, the stablecoin issued by the Trump family-backed crypto firm World Liberty Financial. “They did not provide technical support, personnel, or resources to World Liberty Financial or to USD1,” she said.

Republicans in Congress have largely avoided taking a firm position on Trump’s move to pardon Zhao.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and now-House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.), leading crypto allies, wrote a letter in 2023 asking the Justice Department to investigate and consider charging Binance and Tether following reports that the firms were used to funnel money to Hamas ahead of its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. But both lawmakers punted on taking a position on the pardon.

“I weighed in two years ago, and I still think that what I did two years ago was appropriate at the time,” Lummis said in an interview last week. “But what the president does with his pardon authority is up to the president and the president alone, and I’m not going to second-guess it.”

A spokesperson for Hill, Brooke Nethercott, said in a statement: “The President has broad constitutional authority to issue pardons.”

Some experts say the Trump administration’s approach of bringing players like Binance and Tether to the U.S. could be beneficial.

“I think, strategically, it’s the right decision to onshore,” Zarazinski said, because it will force overseas firms to adapt to U.S. regulations to access the American market.

“The old way wasn’t working,” he added.

Of course, as crypto observers have been quick to point out, there are plenty of one-time magnates of the industry — like FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — who aren’t benefiting from Trump’s U-turn toward digital assets. But that’s not stopping them from seemingly trying.

In recent weeks, Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison following FTX’s collapse, has argued online that FTX, a crypto exchange, was never insolvent. He sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this year from prison, rebuking his “center-left” politics. And his parents are exploring how to get a pardon, Bloomberg reported in January.

For Amanda Fischer, who was chief of staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission during its Biden-era crypto crackdown, the Zhao pardon undercuts any semblance of rule of law in the crypto market.

“They’ve gone as low as they could possibly go,” she said of the administration. “The only bridge left to cross is Sam Bankman-Fried.”