Author: Bright, Foresight News
After returning from California, CZ has been very busy.
It has been 170 days since his comeback. In nearly half a year, CZ has posted a total of 363 tweets, and although he has not been the CEO of Binance since November 2023, his enthusiasm for posting, attending events, and trying new things is higher than when he was at the helm of Binance.
Recently, Binance announced that it had received a $2 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX. The "head covered with a cloth" meme MUBARAK, which was born from this, has risen to a market capitalization of $157 million with CZ's frequent interactions. The appearance of "1 tweet, 1 BNB" driving the BNB Chain meme activities on the "full of BUIDL" CZ is also highly controversial.
This inevitably makes one wonder - is CZ, after laying down the title of "head of the world's largest exchange", reconstructing his influence network in the industry in a more free-spirited manner?
This former Chinese billionaire immediately resumed his usual "tech evangelist" persona after being released from prison, clearly stating that he will devote more time and resources to charity (and education) in the future, and will continue to focus on blockchain/decentralized technology, AI, and biotechnology. But in the generally sluggish market environment of VC narratives, CZ has not stuck to the BUIDL rhetoric, but has become a qualified "BNB community leader" in the heat of Memes and the mockery of netizens.
Returning to the crypto world: From DeSci frontman to Meme master
CZ's first major move upon his return was to shill a wave of DeSci (Decentralized Science) in the long-dormant technology/track area.
CZ attended a DeSci conference in Bangkok in November 2024 with Vitalik, instantly making the originally niche DeSci track the target of hot money and spotlights. Subsequently, Binance Labs (now renamed Yzi Labs) announced an investment in the decentralized science finance project Bio protocol, which aims to use blockchain technology to achieve the confirmation of research data, transparent allocation of experimental funds, and profit sharing of commercial results.
Now, Yzi Labs has added investment in Biotech in its website and Twitter introduction. The most popular meme launch platform on the Bnb Chain, Four.meme, also provides a DeSci tag when creating tokens.
The heat of DeSci has already garnered the attention of a large number of researchers. After traditional finance practitioners were attracted by Defi, and artists were drawn into Web3 by NFT, perhaps small and large scientists will also rush in, bringing new narratives and new increments to Web3.
In addition to investing in tracks he is optimistic about, CZ often extends his influence to new market phenomena in the name of experimentation.
Take Meme coins as an example, CZ has gone from openly stating that Meme coins have no real value, to acknowledging Meme coins in interviews, to "getting involved" and observing the Degens fighting over the name of his own dog Broccoli, to mocking that the TST test coin should pay a Binance Logo fee, to publicly posting a donation address to stir up a Meme donation frenzy, to forwarding the celebrity coin issued on the Bnb chain for Little Luo and causing a stir, and finally to the recent investment in MUBARAK derived from Binance in Abu Dhabi. It can be said that it is CZ's busy figure that has created every big market cap Meme on the BNB Chain.
What is particularly noteworthy is CZ's operations in the MUBARAK incident, which can be considered textbook-level: on March 13, the day Binance announced the investment from Abu Dhabi's MGX, CZ personally forwarded the Middle Eastern-style post of Binance's Chinese account and captioned it "mubarak"; the next day, he forwarded the "MUBARAK=CZ" meme created by the community; on the 15th, he posted a dynamic with the Mubarak image, causing the token price to soar 150% in a single day; on the 16th, he directly drove the MUBARAK market cap to over $100 million by on-chain purchasing 1BNB of MUBARAK and TST.
This "tweet interaction - community creation - on-chain operation" triple-hit pattern directly translates CZ's personal influence into strong market momentum. Data shows that MUBARAK went from concept to a market cap of over $100 million in just 4 days, with a single-day trading volume peak of $88.1 million, but a liquidity pool depth of less than $5 million, fully reflecting the "attention is capital" nature of the Meme economy dominated by CZ. This mode of operation is in stark contrast to the "Broccoli" name dispute incident, where CZ only triggered a brief $20 million market cap frenzy by passively observing the community quarrel, while now the BNB Chain Meme has evolved into a systematic traffic operation with CZ as the attention anchor.
Although CZ has basically disavowed any direct relationship with these Meme tokens, his change in attitude towards Meme does reflect the changes in his relationship with the community and the entire crypto industry, and has given a vivid lesson to all top KOLs on how to use the "attention economy" to maintain the heat of the ecosystem when the market is sluggish.
Entering education: The social reform practice of the billionaire
However, the thing CZ talks about the most is still his Giggle Academy, a transformative strategic project. On March 3, CZ posted "One kid at a time, times 6000 now." to celebrate the breakthrough in the number of users of Giggle Academy.
Giggle Academy was launched on March 19, 2024, using blockchain technology to gamify basic education in mathematics, literature, science, physics, biology, finance, and even programming and AI, and to reconstruct the learning certification system in a decentralized way through NFTs and on-chain badges.
Giggle Academy is trying to solve two major pain points: one is to improve the retention rate of learners through gamification design (platform data shows that the average daily learning time of users has increased by 23% compared to traditional online courses), and the other is to break the dilemma of degree inflation - when the learning process is immutably recorded, talent evaluation will focus more on actual abilities rather than diploma packaging. In an interview, CZ emphasized "teaching people to fish is better than giving them fish". Education is a key tool to solve global inequality, and blockchain can provide transparent and verifiable solutions.
However, he also emphasized that Giggle Academy will not issue tokens and will be fully funded by individuals, and will not adopt the traditional Web3 education promotion model of "Learn to earn". "This may cause a lot of problems," he said. On March 14, CZ posted that he would launch a points-earning recommendation mechanism, but not in the form of cryptocurrencies. This "anti-Web3 bubble" design precisely highlights his pragmatism in promoting technology implementation. It can be seen that what CZ is trying to reconstruct with blockchain technology is not only the learning evaluation mechanism, but also the inclusive model of global education.
Crypto leader: Finding the middle ground between industry and individual
In just 170 days, CZ's average daily posting volume has increased by 37% compared to his tenure as Binance CEO, and more than 60% of the content involves industry trend analysis, project incubation progress, and personal investment philosophy. This high-frequency interaction is more like a precise identity reshaping experiment than the leisurely "retirement life" - by diluting the "Binance founder" label, CZ is constantly shifting his personal IP from the "exchange strongman" to the "crypto ecosystem enabler".
Before going to prison, CZ, as an early crypto evangelist and the de facto manager of the first centralized exchange, was subject to industry compliance and regulatory pressure. He even explicitly stated in 2023 that "he would not invest in such projects (Meme)". This stance is closely related to the compliance image of his centralized exchange - at the time, Binance was facing global regulatory pressure and needed to distance itself from high-risk assets. So CZ appeared more in the role of a builder, calling on people in the industry to BUIDL Web3 together. In fact, CZ has admitted in interviews that he has never used DeFi.
However, after CZ was released from prison, Binance fully paid off the settlement fee with the U.S. Department of Justice, and CZ was forced to leave the nominal Binance management, the CZ who could once set the tone has, whether actively or not, objectively become the biggest KOL of the BNB chain and the entire Binance ecosystem. When the BNB Meme market was booming, most people's attention was focused on CZ, hoping he could represent BNB to take over SOL and ignite the BNB Chain ecosystem. In fact, CZ's response to Meme and his participation in the community have gradually transitioned from tentative to a systematic overall layout.
Undoubtedly, whether or not he holds the position of Binance CEO, CZ is still difficult to separate from his relationship with the crypto empire he has built. As the largest shareholder with a 90% stake, although he does not participate in daily decision-making, major strategic adjustments still require the consensus of the board of directors; and as the founder, the market's over-interpretation of his remarks is more likely to trigger a chain reaction. The crypto community often says "profits and losses come from the same source", and CZ's influence and resistance also come from his most successful product - Binance.
