😳CZ is not that "smart"
A basic principle for smart people is to avoid risks and weaken problems as much as possible when encountering things. But CZ often makes seemingly "stupid" choices.
In the early days, Binance encountered hacker incidents like other exchanges. In that incident, hackers stole 7,000 BTC - for Binance, which has just become a market leader, this is definitely not a small amount.
Most exchanges will choose to deal with the incident through media sinking, try to cover up the problem, avoid the spread of panic, and maintain market confidence. After all, once user trust is lost, market share will be lost significantly.
However, CZ's choice is completely different. He did something that was both "stupid" and extremely brave: he immediately held an open online AMA, made the whole incident transparent, disclosed the ins and outs of the incident to users, and promised that Binance would bear all losses and users would not be harmed. He just turned on the camera and faced the sharp criticism of all users.
Not only that, CZ also took advantage of this crisis to establish the SAFU fund, which is specifically used to protect the safety of user funds and prevent similar incidents from happening again. This not only resolved the immediate crisis, but also laid a more solid foundation of trust for Binance.
Of course, CZ was also sanctioned by the United States because of the unclear early supervision and the failure of major exchanges to strictly implement KYC during the period of trial and error. However, as the United States stated when suing CZ, Binance did not manipulate the market or misappropriate user assets. This is a leader who stood out in the crisis and chose to face it bravely instead of avoiding it.
After that day, the industry had the term SAFU.
After that day, when exchanges and project parties had problems with user assets, they stood up and said that they would compensate, which became the public relations template of the industry.
CZ did not use a "smart" way to avoid risks. His choice was to build trust, transparency and responsibility in the long run. Facts have proved that this "stupid" choice is what really made Binance and CZ himself.
🙀 Off topic. As far as I know, CZ did not even get angry with the technical department. After working overtime with the technical department all night, he asked the technical department to provide a review document on how to avoid similar incidents from happening again.
If it were you, what would you do?