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Another eventful year for crypto is now behind us. Bitcoin notched a new all-time high but ended the year in the red, the regulatory climate in the US warmed, privacy coins stormed the market, institutional adoption surged and the US president even launched a memecoin. With 2026 now underway, Cointelegraph takes a look at some of the biggest comebacks in crypto last year and what it could mean for the next 12 months.  Ross Ulbricht and CZ get presidential pardons  The year kicked off with a presidential pardon of one of the biggest names from the early days of Bitcoin.  After spending over 11 years in jail for his role in creating dark web marketplace Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht was pardoned by President Donald Trump from his double-life-time jail sentence and freed in late January. The move gave Ulbricht a second chance at life, at what seemed like a slim chance at ever being able to live a normal life again.   “Thank you so much, President Trump, for giving me this amazing blessing. I am so, so grateful to have my life back, to have my future back, to have this second chance. This is such an important moment for me and for my whole family,” Ulbricht said after receiving his pardon.  Source: Free_Ross This wasn’t the only pardon to a crypto figure Trump gave out in 2025. In October Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao (CZ) also received a similar honor. Zhao completed a four-month prison sentence after pleading guilty in late 2023 to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act over a failure to implement an adequate Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program at Binance.  While the pardon didn’t wipe off the admission of guilt by CZ, it marked an acknowledgement by the government that the Binance co-founder faced too…

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Filed under: News - @ January 1, 2026 7:16 am