The sharp rise in BNB’s price also has crypto traders speculating that altcoin season could be on the horizon.
Crypto traders are expecting a significant rally for BNB in the coming weeks after US President Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
Zhao pleaded guilty in November 2023 to one count of failing to implement an adequate Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program at Binance, violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
The price of BNB (BNB) surged 3.6% to an intraday high of $1,121 just hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pardoned Zhao, following months of lobbying and appeals from the company and Zhao.
“Trump just pardoned CZ. Now we resume $BNB up only szn,” crypto trader Xeer said in a post on Thursday.
The rally also extended to World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the native token of Trump’s son’s crypto company, also posted an upward move of almost 14% to $0.1414 since the news was announced, according to CoinMarketCap.
The price surge has sparked speculation that the enthusiasm could extend to the broader crypto market.
RR2Capital co-founder Richard Seiler said in an X post after the announcement, “Crypto could do with a catalyst right now…That may very well have been it.”
Another crypto trader, Galaxy, said, “BNB now, altcoins next?”
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It comes on the back of BNB being listed on Coinbase and Robinhood earlier this week, and publicly traded companies increasingly accumulating BNB for their treasury holdings.
On Wednesday, shares of biotech firm Applied DNA Sciences jumped over 50% during the trading day, after the company revealed the purchase of 4,908 BNB tokens valued at about $5.3 million.
