Amid ongoing backlash over its role in October 10’s liquidations and a bizarre chart of transactions from Saturday, critics of Binance are questioning founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) over his repeated claims that he’s not an active crypto trader.
Sharing reminders about CZ’s ownership of market-makers Merit Peak Limited and Sigma Chain (which have both traded on Binance) critics decried a tether ($USDT)-denominated ether ($ETH) chart from Binance’s exchange on Saturday, alleging that CZ somehow was involved.
Binance intraday $ETH/$USDT chart, 5 second periodicity, Feb. 7, 2026. Source: TradingView, Binance
However, one of the most repeated assurances from CZ is that he is not an active crypto trader.
Indeed, in countless interviews, he tells a story of his brief attempt at active trading about a decade ago, concluding that he was entirely unskilled at that endeavor.
’I don’t trade at all’
For years, CZ has claimed, he’s not been an active crypto trader. Although he makes infrequent, long-term purchases, he reiterates that he’s “not a trader. I buy and hold.”
CZ worked at Bloomberg and built high-frequency trading platforms for stockbrokers, so he had plenty of experience with active traders before his career at crypto businesses Blockchain.info, OKCoin, and Binance.
According to CZ’s version of his biography, he wanted to become a trader during the early years of his crypto career, didn’t succeed, and instead decided to focus on building Binance.
Rather than trade along the way, he’s focused on long-term investments: bitcoin (BTC), the Binance Coin ($BNB) he founded, and most of all, equity in Binance itself.
“I don’t trade at all, I just hold bitcoins,” CZ said in a representative interview. “I hold $BNB, and I don’t do daytrading.”
Read more: Lawsuits are piling up against Binance over Oct. 10
CZ doesn’t need to trade to make billions from Binance
Bloomberg analysts agree that CZ’s long-held equity in Binance, for what it’s worth, accounts for the vast majority of his estimated $50 billion net worth.
Even without any digital asset holdings, CZ could easily be worth tens of billions of dollars simply as the founding shareholder of his profitable company.
However, critics on social media have recently become skeptical of CZ, alleging or insinuating that he’s concerned with manipulating Binance trading pairs.
A highly suspicious whipsaw in $ETH renewed their anger.
Just because trades occur on Binance, however, doesn’t mean that CZ or Binance are participating in those markets beyond its customary commissions for matching third-party orders.
Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy called Saturday’s trading action “a market-maker bot blowing up to the tune of tens of millions,” defending his own market-making company from an accusation about scamming on Binance, for example.
For his part, CZ barely acknowledged the social media controversy. He summarized it as another example of FUD and posted recaps of his snowboarding trip, instead.
