That man is back again.
Last week, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, CZ, who had been in prison for nearly four months, would be released on September 29. The latest news shows that CZ has left the prison after 118 days in Lompoc Prison II and has been transferred to the Reentry Management Office RRM Long Beach, where he is still in custody.
After this news, the market was full of excitement. Binance's new coins once again topped the list of gainers to welcome the upcoming return of the spiritual leader, and there were constant praises on the X platform.
After all, the current relatively sluggish market really needs a shot in the arm.
To review the situation, in November last year, Binance reached a solution with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) regarding investigations into Binance’s historical registration, compliance, and sanctions issues.
CZ eventually admitted to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the Commodity Exchange Act by conducting unlicensed money transmission business, conspiracy charges, and prohibited transactions, and paid a sky-high fine of US$4.368 billion, setting a record for the largest fine in FinCEN's history.
The initial expected sentence was 18 months, but the Ministry of Justice later wanted to increase it to 3 years. However, after considering 161 letters of support and his voluntary confession, CZ was finally sentenced to four months in prison in April this year. His sentence officially began in June and he is expected to be released from prison on September 29.
A four-month sentence is actually not that long, but since November last year, Rachael Teng has officially become the new CEO of Binance. During the nearly one-year power transfer at Binance, the dangers and opportunities of Binance have been vividly reflected.
In terms of opportunities, CZ's departure officially opened the era of compliance in exchanges and even in the crypto space, announcing the official end of the Wild West. Exchange compliance became a general trend, and it was also after this that Bitcoin ETF officially brought institutions into the crypto space. Thanks to CZ's turnaround, Binance was able to get rid of its historical baggage first and gain a better opportunity to move in the market in the name of compliance.
Rachael Teng's promotion is based on this. Professional managers with complete political and business backgrounds can better lead Binance to complete global compliance construction. The follow-up is exactly the same. Although there is no plan to return to the United States for the time being, Binance already has 19 licenses around the world. This year, it has obtained new compliance licenses in Thailand, India and Brazil. Its achievements in compliance are obvious to all.
Initially, the market suspected that CZ's departure would affect Binance's operations, but judging from the data alone, Binance's performance this year is still quite impressive. Coingecko shows that Binance's daily trading volume remains relatively stable, with 24-hour trading volume ranking first among all exchanges, and monthly visiting users reaching 530 million. According to DefiLlama data, from the end of November last year to now, Binance has received a net inflow of more than US$4 billion, firmly sitting on the top of the exchange. Just a few days ago, Rachael posted that Binance's historical trading volume exceeded US$100 trillion in early September.
On the other hand, the whirlpool of public opinion has never left Binance.
At the end of last year, due to unsatisfactory new projects on Launchpad, Binance was questioned by "Bestie Coin", saying that the Hooked Protocol's product attributes were unknown, it was not well-known, and its team members had limited experience. The IEO was only due to the friendship between Primitive Capital Dovey Wan and He Yi. relation. In April, after the Space ID and Open Campus IEO, the rumor became even more intense. Some users on X even said ironically that Binance has a best friend coin section. At that time, He Yi responded that Binance has no BFF section, and at the beginning of this year, CZ released three key directions for Binance’s 2023 plan. The first priority is education, followed by compliance and product services, and then gradually calmed down public opinion. .
If bestie coins were just a dispute of words among a small circle, it didn't take long for high FDV tokens to follow, sparking a huge debate in the entire crypto market. First, Tradetheflow pulled out a table and pointed out that the currencies listed on Binance in the past six months have generally performed poorly, and even more than half of the currencies listed on Binance have been halved. The common point is that these currencies all show significant high FDV characteristics, which in turn triggered Dragonfly and a16z’s debate on MEME and VC tokens. In this context, Binance was accused of frequently listing coins that drained market liquidity, leading to a depression in the copycat market. At the same time, it only served VC tokens, betrayed the community and became an accomplice in cutting leeks, and the market soon heard a voice of resistance.
This is still possible in the form of shareholders paying attention to the company's performance, or replacing or nominating a new board of directors or a new CEO.
However, due to CZ's position in Binance and the existence of co-founder and partner He Yi, it is very likely that he will participate in the company's operations in other ways. However, given that the two external supervisors appointed through the plea agreement will also pay close attention to similar situations, for safety reasons, it can be foreseen that CZ will indirectly guide the company's operations.
As early as after reaching a plea agreement, CZ had already expressed his intention not to serve as any form of CEO and would focus on investing in blockchain, artificial intelligence and biotechnology companies. CZ's previous non-profit project Giggle Academy stalled after he was imprisoned, and the market can also look forward to the follow-up progress of this project.
Can CZ turn the tide? Judging from the current market situation, there are many difficulties. After all, this is a market problem, not a single individual problem. In other words, CZ is the one who climbed to the top from the old era, and the old narrative is no longer viable. Fortunately, new traffic is still pouring in, and younger and more creative groups are entering the cryptocurrency circle. At this time of change, how to accept and value new groups and new logic may be the problem that the legendary CZ needs to solve next.
On the other hand, no matter what, CZ’s return is still a huge boon to Binance, and it will also have a positive effect on boosting user sentiment. It is highly likely that the Binance series of currencies will see a rise, and some people in the market have begun to target the so-called concept of CZ being released from prison.
This shows that even though the market is no longer the same market, CZ is still the same CZ.
