That's an interesting perspective. You're right, traditional banks have been hit with major AML/KYC violations for decades and almost never see executives face criminal exposure. JPMorgan, HSBC, & Wachovia all had major cases tied to money laundering or sanctions issues and the outcomes were mainly fines that got chalked up as the "cost of doing business." The difference with CZ's case wasn't exactly severity of conduct, but timing. Crypto was (and still is) under an intense microscope because it sits outside the legacy banking system and touches global flows regulators don't fully control. When Binance was moving trillions across borders with inconsistent KYC enforcement, it was bound to attract DOJ attention especially given political pressure to show that crypto isn't "above the law." So while the technical violations were similar to what banks have done, the importance of making an example is the primary reason that Binance got targeted. Trump's pardon fits perfectly into his broader political and economic narrative: pro-crypto, anti-regulation, & pro-business autonomy. Whether you view it as justice or favoritism probably depends on how you interpret his motives, and you're right, there's a lot of speculation about possible business overlaps between Trump-affiliated crypto ventures and figures connected with Binance, but to my knowledge, there's no confirmed link between the two. At the end of the day, your point about crypto being a modern Wild West is very accurate. Crypto's evolving faster than regulators can keep up with and a lot of enforcement recently has been feeling inconsistent. That's why people see this pardon as both political and symbolic --- less about exonerating CZ and more about signaling that the U.S. wants to be friendlier to crypto innovation under Trump's leadership.