From idealism to reality in a game: CZ and Binance's 'big clearance' moment
Written by Sae Web3
Original title: Big Liquidation: CZ Doshin Shattered, Binance Blackout Completed
Crypto Giants' Path to Atonement
Sister Mudou lit the fire.
Haseeb is also posing as a great prophet. Xu Mingxing takes on the role of Prometheus, combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine, and teaming up to burn Ho Yi and CZ. Carthage must be destroyed, as must Sodom and Gomorrah.
This religious presumption of guilt stems from common psychological contradictions in the crypto industry.
The entire history of cryptocurrencies has been on the edge of challenging the rules and wandering in a dark, gray, and ambiguous world. Now, if crypto giants want to go ashore and take good care of themselves, they need to solve two problems urgently:
How to evolve from an arbitrator of the rules to a follower of the rules. For example, if the cost of avoiding the “10.11” liquidation is sacrificing oneself, how should Binance consider it?
Seize the power to set crypto rules and gain practical benefits for the industry. For example, Coinbase's attitude can influence the progress of a clear bill. Where does the power come from?
On Binance, there is also an additional identity dilemma. SBF can directly ask for forgiveness and distort time and space into the 2022 Republican Party, but CZ and Binance's Chinese identity and Chinese background have always faced a cycle of Western censorship and self-justification.
Rules are priceless: the king of crypto is also the meat of the cutting board
The purpose of political science is not to create people, but to explore how to use people naturally.
I want to start by telling a story, an old story where a dragon slayer chose to become an evil dragon.
When the Soviet Union came to an end in 1991, history seemed to be coming to an end under neo-liberalism. America seriously governed the Earth through the United Nations system. Faced with Iraq's Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, the United States was authorized by the United Nations to join forces with 35 countries. After only 100 hours of ground action, it was easy to defeat Saddam and restore the sovereignty of Kuwait.
At the time, America received sincere praise from all over the world.
Just two years later, America was overshadowed in the Somali capital, not being able to achieve its small goal of capturing warlords, but also led to a strong backlash in domestic public opinion. Since then, America's morality has been broken. If there is no good reward for doing good deeds, it seems that there is no special cost for doing evil.
Until the 9/11 incident in 2001, America's morals were completely shattered, and then the world fell into the quagmire of the war on terror.
Thinking big or small, this story is very interesting. The current crypto dilemma is also the same. It was hard to win the Cold War with Wall Street and the banking industry, and won superior hegemony over tokenization and stablecoins, but internal differences have arisen on the route.
The Black Hawk fell, the US directly blackened, and good deeds could not be rewarded. Binance also tried to save the crypto industry and eventually chose to create its own land.
Let's go back in time to 2022. When FTX collapsed, Binance once held over 70% of CEX's share, but the entire industry was shrouded in an uncertain future.
Binance decided to save the entire industry, and the $1 billion SAFU fund was set up at this point. Of course, it also hid some caution. It mainly consists of its own BUSD and BNB. Recently, it is famous for responding to Elliva's call to exchange its holdings for BTC.
Unfortunately, that's not the whole story. At the same time as SAFU, there was also an industry recovery fund IRI (Industry Recovery Initiative) to jointly carry out industry self-rescue plans with major project parties and exchanges. Binance promised to invest at least $1 billion, hoping that the overall scale would reach more than $2 billion.
Now that the IRI program application forms are inaccessible, the industry may have recovered.
Photo caption: IRI's funding situation, Photo credit: @business
In fact, as early as 2023, IRI ceased operations, and many promised funders, such as market makers such as Jump/GSR/Kronos, actually didn't invest at all because the leader Binance only spent $15 million and took away the remaining $985 million.
Furthermore, the operation of the entire IRI is extremely opaque; you have no idea which project parties have received the investment, and which have no recourse but just wait to die.
If you look further, there is more than IRI, which Binance promised but failed to do. Recently, there is the $400 million fund in the same boat fund after 10.11, and far the $1 billion BSC growth fund established in 2021. Many years after establishment, it began spending 50,000 dollars to buy the “I'm stepping on Malaysia” meme coins.
Photo caption: Binance Ecosystem Funds, Photo Credit: @zuoyeweb3
If you break down the various plans launched by Binance, it seems that they have a special preference for the figure of 1 billion, which is like Sun Yuchen's 1 million reward. Apart from the YZi Labs main fund, the various types of funds promised by Binance are over 5 billion US dollars, but not even 100 million US dollars have actually been implemented.
It can be said very clearly that after IRI failed, Binance actually began a blackening process of blocking the industry rather than the hematopoietic industry, that is, supporting Binance's main site against CEX and supporting BNB Chain against public chains such as Solana.
This is also the source of Solana's co-creator Anatoly, who said the industry needs an 18-month recovery period. Binance doesn't care about the industry's bulls and cycles; it only requires the BSC ecosystem and Binance site to take over trading hegemony.
Binance can't be the dominant player in the rules; it can only stay on its one and a third of its own land to claim the king.
However, Coinbase CEO Armstrong doesn't think this way. In his eyes, instead of obeying the established rules, he should try to domesticate the rules. Currently, the battle with the banking industry over USDC's income problem is only the tip of the iceberg; interfering in politics itself is the answer.
This isn't to say that Coinbase is going to blow up the mayor's car with an RPG; Coinbase has a more advanced way of playing — using an engineering and commercial mindset to do lobbying work.
Traditional K-Street lobbying relies on the connections of retired politicians, commonly known as a revolving door for politics, but this seems too low in Silicon Valley. From Airbnb to Uber, they are all on the edge of innovation and compliance. From this perspective, cryptocurrencies are not very special.
Photo caption: Election and donation data, Photo credit: @zuoyeweb3
However, FTX's SBF and Binance's CZ are bizarre. SBF is too focused on the Democratic Party. Although it has transformed into a Republican, according to TIME magazine statistics, it has donated more than $40 million to the Democratic Party, far more than $29 million to the Republican Party.
Binance would rather pay a $4.2 billion fine to the Democratic President and cooperate with the Republican President on a $2 billion USD1 exchange for MGX equity investment, but the amount of the 2025 investment lobby was only $800,000.
The boss and the elder are clear and stupid, and Coinbase, which doesn't have a higher trading volume, came first. Not only did they find Chris Lehane to form the strongest lobby in history, but they also directly teamed up with A16Z to build the StandWithCrypto Red and Black List to directly rate each politician. Crypto-friendly politicians can receive donations. Unfriendly politicians won't be targeted, but they will donate to your opponents.
The core of US politics is elections. The Chinese government's motto is selection. It is Coinbase's advance layout that will cause Trump to fall in love with Bitcoin during the election.
Failure to break into the US: small piggy banks hide in big piggy banks
When the US says you have a relationship with the Chinese government, you'd better actually have one.
I also want to tell a story about a group of evil dragons rolling in the mud.
When Trump was about to enter the White House, Bezos asked his “Washington Post” to remain neutral in the general election, Microsoft urgently disband the DEI department, and Zuckerberg restore Trump's Ins account. However, Peter Thiel secured Baochuanbao as early as 2020, and Musk chose to surrender in 2022.
What they got in the end was also different. Peter Till made the most profit, followed by Musk, and the rest of the rich were quite safe. If you add super old money such as the Koch Brothers and the New York Mellon Family, you can observe an interesting fact during Chuanbao's second term:
Old money is exempt from being liquidated. Old money is eligible for double-sided betting. Crypto upstarts need to bet carefully. Foreigners are just meat on the cutting board. Sun cut (FDUSD is difficult to defend rights, blacklisted by WLFI), and CZ is the most uneasy.
Photo caption: Binance's path to self-abandonment, Image credit: @zuoyeweb3
This unease has always haunted CZ. In particular, the UAE passport neither protects personal safety, nor the right to exchange shares for currency, nor the company's reputation.
Middle Eastern oil producers represented by the United Arab Emirates are America's large piggy banks. The US does not particularly respect their sovereignty; the radiation scope of this kind of political asylum is extremely limited;
The Trump family's WLFI and UAE's MGX investment are tied in both directions; only Binance and CZ themselves sell real benefits, and this obedience does not last long.
The UAE's MGX represents the interests of the Abu Dhabi royal family. This is the root cause of Binance's rapid move from Dubai to Abu Dhabi after receiving its investment, and MGX invested $2 billion to buy WLFI's USD1 token, which was then invested by Binance.
According to the Washington Post, WLFI's USD1 technology is entirely developed by Binance, which means that Binance pays both money and technology, plus its own distribution network, and WLFI only needs to sit back and enjoy the benefits; MGX has obtained Binance shares.
The market price of Chuanbao's second term of amnesty. The lobbying company started with an offer of 1 million dollars. After only five months in office, 1,600 people were pardoned. CZ is undoubtedly the big brother on the list.
However, this kind of protection did not have any effect in the face of Sister Mudou and Musk, who are also Americans. CZ invested 500 million US dollars in Musk's acquisition of Twitter, accounting for about 1% of Musk's 43 billion US dollar investment, which is indeed in line with the position of a minority shareholder, but Musk's drawing of Twitter's future blueprint, it's hard to say that Binance has a role.
Madness can only be directed from Twitter to Binance Square, but it will come to the square. It's not the source of Twitter's crisis; at least Xu Mingxing won't come.
One drink and one peck is a foregone conclusion.
Photo caption: Meaning of Navy, Image credit: @cz_binance
After Binance and CZ failed to “break into the US,” you'll be surprised to find that CZ started tweeting in Chinese and wanted to give the English CT science the meaning of “navy,” as if the relationship between CZ and Chinese users was one step closer.
This is not an illusion. Embracing the Chinese market again has become Binance's main theme. The reason is not complicated; don't settle into a circle where you can't get involved.
CZ's mentality is very much in line with the Chinese people since the reopening. The rules are sacred. Western civilization definitely doesn't dare to interfere in politics with Coinbase, and they don't dare to bet on standing in the same way as Musk. Summarizing in one sentence: they only know how to ask questions, they don't dare to ask questions.
Faced with American suppression, it fell into a downturn of the mentality of “I should give more money because I didn't give enough money”. At this point, it is clear that CZ didn't understand the art of Trump's deal; it was only when the conditions were thoroughly negotiated that it was time to bid.
Nor are they afraid to participate in the game of the US government and legislation; they cannot follow the upper line, nor can they get support from lower-level public opinion. If you look left and right, you can only hope for Chinese users, but they are also obsessed with getting rid of the relationship with the Chinese government. As a result, the Chinese government doesn't care what the US does to him. It has neither received Meng Wanzhou's personal protection nor the commercial benefits of TikTok.
In comparison, TikTok is now divided into three parts: Chinese Douyin, US TT, and global TT. Byte retains 19.9% of the US TikTok shares, and Oracle, MGX, and Silver Lake Capital each account for 15%.
However, TT.US is following the “Texas on the Cloud” model. Byte still retains algorithmic property rights and profits, and after the deal was reached, Americans pointed the finger at Oracle for “intensifying scrutiny”. This was the best outcome for Byte, which not only retained part of the profits, but also received sympathy from public opinion.
By the way, you don't have to pay a huge fine.
epilogue
The freedom of the British is not the freedom of the French, and investing in the internet's upstart is not speculation by the crypto millionaires.
SBF's clumsy plea for forgiveness reminds me of the summer of 2022. FTX once became the last hope for crypto, and Coinbase's Armstrong lacked Chrisma's authority no matter how you look at it.
However, compared to them, CZ was eliminated early due to collusion of capital and power, and even never became an insider. In the end, they only reluctantly became a “Chinese Canadian with an UAE passport”, and in terms of narrative, they embraced the extremely eccentric public opinion image of “making room for the Chinese in the crypto world.”
But that has never been true.
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