CZ Answers Everything: FTX Wasn't Brought Down by Me, Zero Contact Throughout the Pardon

Compiled & edited by: Shenchao TechFlow

Shenchao TechFlow Introduction: From an immigrant teenager in Vancouver to the founder of the world's largest crypto exchange, and then to imprisonment and a presidential pardon four months later. In this video podcast, CZ systematically reviews for the first time the rise of Binance, the tweet that crushed FTX, the truth about prison and the pardon, and his real views on Hyperliquid, DEXs, and the next bull market. He has no regrets, but he also draws a "red line" he will never cross.

Guest: CZ, founder of Binance

Host: Kevin, host of When Shift Happens

Podcast source: When Shift Happens

Original title: CZ Binance Founder: This Crypto Bull Run Could Make You Rich | E187

Air date: September 25, 2026

Key Takeaways

FTX was not brought down by a single tweet: When Binance exited its FTX equity stake, it recovered approximately $2.1 billion in cash, BUSD, and FTT. What really crushed FTX was its misappropriation of billions of dollars in customer funds, and Coindesk reported its possible insolvency three or four days before CZ's tweet.

A single Bank Secrecy Act violation leading to prison is rare in U.S. history: CZ was sentenced to four months on this one charge. His biggest fear in prison was being repeatedly hit with additional charges and being held indefinitely. In 2025, he received a presidential pardon from Trump, with zero contact with Trump himself throughout the process.

Binance started with a 15- to 20-person B2B team: Its predecessor, BG Tech, sold trading systems to collectibles markets, and 80% to 90% of its clients were not crypto exchanges. In May 2017, a decision was made in a meeting room to pivot to a crypto-to-crypto exchange, and with a solid team, it became the world's largest within six months.

Hit the "red button" first in security incidents: In May 2019, Binance was hacked for $40 million. CZ immediately suspended all withdrawals while keeping trading active, halted withdrawals for a week, and used the opportunity to migrate the architecture from servers to serverless. He believes anyone at an exchange should be able to press the red button to stop everything.

Crypto penetration is still under 1%, and we need to grow the pie together: From the perspective of holders, penetration is about 5% to 15%, but from the perspective of net assets, actual investment is less than 1%. That's why he welcomes DEXs like Hyperliquid with open arms and opposes treating peers as enemies.

The "villain" narrative of the 10/10 crash was amplified by competitors: The timeline was first Trump's tariffs, then the stock market and crypto crash. The stablecoin with issues on Binance had a very small market cap. During that period, Binance still saw net inflows and voluntarily compensated affected users with about $800 million, despite having no obligation to do so.

CZ believes he cannot move a $3 trillion market: He posts five to ten times a day, and every post is bullish. One time it happened to land five hours before Trump's positive speech, which was pure probability. When he has advantageous information, he actually refrains from posting.

After stepping back from the front lines, he focuses on education and regulation: Giggle Academy has reached about 1.3 million children, an exponential increase from 100,000 at the beginning of 2026. He believes free AI-customized education is the investment with the greatest long-term positive impact.

2. Notable Quotes

"If a single tweet from a competitor can bring down your company, then you never had a real company in the first place."

"In my case, in U.S. history, no one has ever gone to prison solely for a single Bank Secrecy Act violation, and that remains true to this day."

"Hard work means different things to different people. But I think producing results and being efficient is more important than working long hours."

"In Asian culture, once people follow a leader, they follow almost blindly, to the point where sometimes it's hard to get feedback on your ideas."

"In terms of penetration, we're probably not even at 1%. And the current market size is not the future market size."

"We see exchanges as helping to grow the pie. Because right now, the market is far from saturated."

"I actually really hope they go out and blaze the trail they've been doing in the U.S. That's great. It's actually very good for the industry."

"If you're bullish and post five times a day, one of those times will happen to occur five hours before positive news."

"Positive impact makes people happy. If you know you're contributing and helping others, it makes you happy from the inside."

"If you're good at math and bad at English, you'll spend less time on math and more time on English, pulling you toward the average."

Main Text:

1. From Second-Generation Immigrant to Founding Binance

Kevin: What happened in your life that explains how you became one of the 20 richest people in the world before age 50?

CZ: First, I don't think that ranking is accurate; I'm probably in the top 100 or top 500. And my social circle at the high end is heavily skewed toward the crypto world.

Kevin: Where does that inner drive come from?

CZ: I can't recall any traumatic childhood experiences, but I grew up in a fairly poor environment. My family immigrated to Canada, and both my parents' salaries were close to minimum wage. Many of my friends were investment immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong who were quite wealthy, which gave me a bit of pressure.

Kevin: You mentioned your sister. What does she do now?

CZ: She's also a tech person. She previously worked at a startup in Tokyo and later became one of the managing directors at Morgan Stanley. There are about 400 managing directors globally out of nearly 100,000 employees. She retired around age 42 and now does counseling for people experiencing depression.

Kevin: You said second-generation immigrants usually see how hard their parents work and want to push forward, but the third and fourth generations "decline." How do you prevent that from happening to your children?

CZ: I still don't know of any solution that works, and I don't have a third or second generation yet, so I can push this question further down the road. I think it's education, but it's very hard.

Kevin: Take me back to Binance's first day. If I were in your living room at that time, what would I see or hear?

CZ: Binance's start was a bit different. We had a team of 15 to 20 people running a company called BG Tech, selling trading systems to other exchanges. In May 2017, I called everyone into a meeting room and said now might be a good time to build a crypto-to-crypto exchange. That moment was the moment.

Kevin: What does "hard work" mean to you?

CZ: Producing results and being efficient is more important than working long hours. Many people work very long hours but produce nothing. Passionate people don't measure hours worked; they measure how engaged they are and how high-quality the results are that they can produce in a short time.

Kevin: What is the biggest misconception people have about Binance?

CZ: Some people think it's a Chinese company. It's not; we just have a large number of Chinese employees. Others think centralized exchanges are bad or evil in the industry, but we're actually investing heavily in decentralization. Today, most people prefer centralized exchanges, but I think the future is decentralized.

2. The FTX Collapse and That Tweet

Kevin: FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said your tweet brought down FTX. Is there even a tiny part of you that thinks he's right?

CZ: No, absolutely not. If a single tweet from a competitor can bring down your company, then you never had a real company in the first place. If he was running a company that I could kill with one tweet, then he couldn't possibly have owned that company.

Kevin: So you completely didn't anticipate it, or did you underestimate the impact your tweet could have?

CZ: I don't think my tweet had that much impact. It was more of a public disclosure tweet. As part of Binance's exit from its FTX equity stake, we recovered about $2.1 billion in cash, BUSD, and FTT. I said we were going to liquidate all remaining FTT on our books. At the time, I actually didn't know they would have problems, and I didn't expect it to have any impact.

Kevin: What happened before you tweeted?

CZ: Coindesk published an article saying they might be insolvent, about three or four days before my tweet. The fact is they lied to customers and misappropriated customer funds. Alameda's CEO tweeted 20 minutes after my tweet, and many people said her tweet may have revealed more information than mine.

Kevin: What is a truth about the week of the FTX collapse that no one else knows?

CZ: They misappropriated billions of dollars in customer funds, used it to buy other things, and then when the market went down, customers couldn't withdraw their money. It's that simple.

3. Prison and the Trump Pardon

Kevin: You spent several months in prison. What belief did you go in with that you came out without?

CZ: It wasn't really a belief. I was very worried about being kept there indefinitely, that they would find another charge, and there would be endless accusations. In my case, in U.S. history, no one has ever gone to prison solely for a single Bank Secrecy Act violation, and that remains true to this day. Most people weren't even prosecuted.

Kevin: Did anyone disappear when things got tough that surprised you?

CZ: No one at Binance ever disappeared. All the co-founders from 2017 are still there; not a single one left. It was a very cohesive team. In the industry, many people promise the world and then disappear a few months later.

Kevin: The U.S. president issues about 10 to 40 presidential pardons a year, and you received one last year. Walk me through the pardon process, from the first phone call to the final signature.

CZ: I discussed with my lawyer what the process would be like. Trump said during his campaign that he would pardon Ross Ulbricht, and later Arthur Hayes also received a pardon, whose case was more similar to mine. Through friends, I contacted the same lawyer who handled their pardons and submitted a petition in April 2025, after Arthur Hayes was pardoned in March.

Kevin: Did you need to meet Trump in person?

CZ: I've never met Trump in person, never spoken to him on the phone, never emailed him, and don't have his number. The closest I got to seeing him in person was at Davos, where he was on stage and I was in the audience. We never shook hands, and he had no idea I was in the audience.

Kevin: Some people see the pardon as proof that political influence matters more than anything else. Where are they wrong?

CZ: In my case, my view is obviously biased, so I'll let others judge. Many people have said I was treated unfairly and that it should be corrected. I was charged because Binance's KYC program wasn't strong enough, but I personally never handled any transactions. The current administration is discussing that Polymarket has no KYC and they just geo-blocked international markets, and they'll do the same for perp DEXs. If I were judged by today's standards, there would be no problem.

4. The "Red Button" for Security Incidents

Kevin: We had Bybit's Ben Zhu on last year, just two days after their $1.5 billion hack. You publicly advised suspending withdrawals, and Ben chose not to. Looking back, was Ben right and you wrong?

CZ: I don't think there's a right or wrong in that situation; it's just a judgment call. Ben obviously had more information about the incident than I did. My style is to take a much more conservative approach; I would suspend withdrawals first.

Kevin: What did you do when Binance was hacked for $40 million in 2019?

CZ: In May 2019, Binance was hacked for $40 million all at once. The first thing I did was suspend all withdrawals, actually suspend all systems. I have a virtual big red button in my mind. When a security incident happens, you press it first, then figure out what happened and what the impact is.

Kevin: How exactly does this red button work?

CZ: Anyone, anyone on the exchange platform, should be able to press that red button and say stop everything. Only after you've analyzed things more clearly and are very certain do you slowly reopen. In 2019, we suspended withdrawals for a week but kept trading going because we didn't want prices to diverge from other exchanges. During that week, we also migrated the system from a server architecture to a serverless architecture.

Kevin: If Bybit had listened to your advice, would the outcome have been drastically different?

CZ: No, not much different. The hack had already happened once. Whether you suspend withdrawals or not only makes a drastic difference if there's a second hack, which fortunately didn't happen. It was a tough call, and opinions differ.

5. Views on Competition with Hyperliquid and DEXs

Kevin: Many people in crypto think Binance sees Hyperliquid as its first real competitor, and that some of your public comments are attempts to slow their momentum. What would you say to those people?

CZ: No, they're wrong. I encourage more crypto exchanges to innovate. We see exchanges as helping to grow the pie. In terms of penetration, maybe only 5% to 15% of people hold some kind of crypto, but from the perspective of net assets, the proportion they have invested in crypto is very small. In terms of capital and value, we're not even at 1% penetration.

Kevin: So you welcome decentralized exchanges like Hyperliquid?

CZ: We welcome more decentralized exchanges. A pioneer in a field is not necessarily the biggest winner in the long run. Look at Google, far from the first search engine, and Binance, far from the first centralized exchange. Even with a first-mover advantage, it doesn't mean they always win. Growing the industry is much better than growing a single platform.

Kevin: Where is Hyperliquid better than Binance today?

CZ: Well, they don't have KYC, but that's a very small point.

Kevin: Why can't HYPE still be bought on Binance spot, even though it's one of the best-performing assets of the past two years, up about 25x and in the top 10?

(Shenchao TechFlow note: This podcast was recorded a few days before HYPE was listed on Binance spot)

CZ: When Hype took off, I had already stepped back from Binance's front lines; I no longer manage Binance. My understanding is that for a long time, the Hype token wasn't in circulation, and Binance has a policy of having to hold those tokens to guard against counterparty risk. Today, that may no longer be an issue, but I don't know what the current situation is.

6. The 10/10 Crash and the "Villain" Narrative

Kevin: Another thing happened last year, 10/10, which is October 10, 2025, when most altcoins went to zero or nearly zero within minutes, creating the largest liquidation event in crypto history. Every financial crisis has its villain. Why do you think the market wanted a villain, and why did it choose you?

CZ: Obviously, one of our competitors heavily promoted the narrative that Binance caused the problem. In fact, the price movement first occurred on that particular exchange. The sequence of events was Trump announcing tariffs, the stock market crashing, crypto crashing, and then Binance had a technical issue related to a small stablecoin. It wasn't even USDT or USDC; it was Athena's USD, with a market cap in the single-digit billions, and it was definitely not the cause of the 10/10 crash.

Kevin: But many media outlets pinned the blame on Binance.

CZ: Chinese media picked it up, and a Chinese competitor running a centralized exchange tried very hard to amplify it. Dragonfly's Hasib posted a timeline chart showing that prices started falling when Trump announced tariffs, and Binance's issue came much later. Cathie Wood later candidly said she didn't think Binance caused the entire crash, just mentioned that Binance had a technical issue as part of the crash.

Kevin: What did Binance do at the time?

CZ: Binance put up about $800 million to compensate users who suffered losses on its platform, even though it had no obligation to do so. But throughout all the periods when people were badmouthing Binance, Binance saw net inflows and its market share didn't drop at all. If you follow the money, Binance's users know Binance didn't cause that problem.

Kevin: Did you post "4"?

CZ: No. I usually post "4" when a traditional media outlet publishes a negative article. When it's a few small media outlets in the community or a few KOLs who may have been paid to tweet, that's not enough for me to post "4".

(Compiler's note: CZ's "4" originates from his 2023 New Year's resolution to ignore FUD (fake news and negative narratives), and since then the community has responded to negative reports with "4".)

7. Long-Term Bullish Stance

Kevin: You're known for always being bullish. On August 19, when Bitcoin was around $60,000 or $64,000, you tweeted that if you want to thank yourself two years from now for what you do today, it was an obvious hint to buy Bitcoin, and then the market rose about 20% within days. Does CZ have the ability to move that roughly $3 trillion crypto market?

CZ: No. The short answer is no, I don't have that ability. I've posted so many bullish tweets; every tweet of mine is bullish, and I post about five times a day. It just happened that that tweet occurred about five hours before President Trump's speech about the crypto summit, and I absolutely had no idea that was going to happen.

Kevin: So you knew about the positive news in advance and then tweeted?

CZ: Whenever I feel I have information that's advantageous to me, I don't tweet about that information. That tweet was posted while I was on the road. I was reading a book, and someone said a quote that I thought I could adapt into a positive quote about crypto. God knows, five hours later Trump said they were going to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S., and the entire speech was very positive, but I had no idea about any of that content.

Kevin: If you're bullish and post five times a day, one of those times will happen to occur five hours before positive news. Does that explain why the market moved?

CZ: Yes, but today no one is complaining; everyone is making money. Crypto follows a four-year cycle, and I just didn't wait until October to post that tweet.

8. Giggle Academy Education Initiative

Kevin: If Binance disappeared tomorrow, what would you want your contribution to crypto to be?

CZ: I don't know; I just do what I can. Even though Binance is still around today, I actually don't spend any time on the centralized exchange. I spend all my time talking to other countries about crypto regulatory frameworks. 70% to 80% of our investments are still in the Web3 space, and I also spend time on Giggle Academy.

Kevin: What are you optimizing for most in your life right now?

CZ: Positive impact. If you know you're contributing and helping others, it makes you happy from the inside. In the short term, it's helping different countries develop crypto regulatory frameworks. In the longer term, I think Giggle Academy is probably the biggest positive impact. It's free education for everyone in the world, and it's growing very fast. At the beginning of the year, it only reached 100,000 children; now it's 1.3 million, in less than seven months, and the growth is exponential.

Kevin: What different ideas do you have about education?

CZ: I think today's education system wants to produce average, predictable people. If you're good at math and bad at English, you'll spend less time on math and more time on English, pulling you toward the average. But in tomorrow's extremely competitive world, you have to be in the top 1%, hopefully the top 0.1%. Being 0.1% better can earn you about 10 times more money, so you need to specialize in a few things you're good at.

Kevin: What about teachers?

CZ: The teacher system is extremely expensive and not very good. The average annual salary for teachers in the U.S. is $30,000, the highest in the world, so the average quality is very low. I believe an AI-driven, app-driven, individually customized curriculum would be much more effective. Today, robots are still a bit clumsy, but app delivery is free. Once it's done well, whether it's 100,000 or 1.3 million users, the marginal cost is basically zero.