Key Takeaways
- Strategic Partnership: Binance has deepened its integration with the Trump-affiliated USD1 stablecoin by adding zero-fee trading pairs and adopting it as collateral.
- Ecosystem Integration: USD1 will become a core part of Binance's collateral structure for its own stablecoin, BUSD.
- Market Position: USD1, backed by U.S. Treasury bills, is now the seventh-largest stablecoin with a $2.7 billion market cap.
- Political Connection: The move follows President Donald Trump's recent pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, highlighting a significant political-crypto alliance.
In a significant move aligning two major forces in the cryptocurrency space, Binance, the world's largest digital asset exchange, has strengthened its relationship with the Trump family's crypto venture. The exchange has expanded its support for World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin, integrating it more deeply into its trading ecosystem and financial infrastructure.
Expanded Listings and Collateral Shift
Binance announced it is adding a suite of new zero-fee trading pairs for the USD1 stablecoin against major cryptocurrencies like Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), and BNB (BNB), complementing the existing Bitcoin (BTC) pair. More notably, the exchange revealed a major shift in its stablecoin backing. Within a week, Binance will convert all collateral assets supporting its own Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin into USD1 at a 1:1 ratio.
The company stated, "The transition means USD1 will become an integral part of Binance’s updated collateral structure, further embedding the stablecoin within the exchange’s ecosystem." This integration represents a vote of confidence in the Trump-linked digital asset and signals closer operational ties between the entities.
USD1's Growth and Market Context
USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by U.S. Treasury bills, launched in March. It has rapidly ascended to become the seventh-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, currently valued at approximately $2.7 billion. Its growth was significantly bolstered in May when Abu Dhabi's investment firm, MGX, used USD1 for a $2 billion investment in Binance.
Zach Witkoff, co-founder and CEO of World Liberty Financial, praised the development: "Binance’s expansion of USD1 marks an important moment in WLFI’s effort to make digital US dollar stablecoins available to people everywhere." However, data from CoinGecko indicates that USD1's supply has seen a slight decline from its peak of $3 billion in late October, with no new issuance for several months.
The Political and Legal Backdrop
This business development follows a notable political event. President Donald Trump, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial alongside his sons, pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao just seven weeks ago. Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024 after pleading guilty to charges related to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) failures at the exchange.
Regarding the pardon, Trump commented that Zhao had received support from "a lot of people" who argued that "what he did is not even a crime." This sequence of events—a presidential pardon followed by a major business integration—highlights the increasingly intertwined nature of cryptocurrency, high finance, and political influence.
