This article is reprinted from Crypto City, originally titled "CZ Attacked by Netizens for One Sentence! Urgent Clarification of Accusations, Community Resurfaces Controversy Over Binance Listing Black Box."
CZ was attacked by the community for his "buy and hold" remarks, accused of coordinated attacks. At the same time, Binance's listing mechanism and technical issues once again sparked industry doubts.
The buy-and-hold strategy has sparked controversy, with CZ accusing the community of launching a coordinated attack.
Yesterday (January 28), Binance founder CZ(CZ) publicly responded to the large number of negative comments that emerged on the X platform, and characterized the storm of public opinion as a "coordinated attack".
The controversy can be traced back to January 25th, when CZshared his personal trading insights, pointing out that in his years of observation, few trading strategies could beat the "buy and hold" approach, which he also stated was his personal preference. Although he later clarified that this did not constitute financial advice, the statement quickly went viral in the crypto community (CT), drawing fierce criticism from numerous accounts.
CZ pointed out that many accounts he didn't recognize suddenly posted almost identical content on the same topic, and this "copy-and-paste" pattern was a clear sign of an attack. Because some media outlets distorted his statements as "blindly holding all tokens,"CZfurther clarified that this strategy is obviously not applicable to every currency, because if investors held every cryptocurrency that has ever appeared, their portfolio performance would be extremely poor.
He emphasized that most projects in any industry will fail, with only a few standing the test of time and achieving exponential growth. This is the same logic behind early-stage investment in internet or artificial intelligence (AI) companies. Zach Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, also agreed , believing that the "anger" directed at CZ, Binance, and co-CEO He Yi always appears in unison, and this sense of coordination is evidence of organized manipulation behind the scenes.
The October 10th crash and technical glitches raise questions; industry peers criticize Binance for harming the sector.
Besides the attacks from social media accounts, industry leaders and professional investment institutions have also issued a stern review of Binance's recent performance. Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, mentioned in an interview with Fox News that the crypto industry is currently experiencing a shock triggered by the "10/10" event. She pointed out that the market crash last October was related to a software glitch on Binance , specifically involving Ethena's decoupling on the Binance platform, which Binance attributed to market volatility at the time.
OKX CEO Star Xu then shared Wood's interview video and criticized Binance's business model.
Star Xu believes this incident has caused substantial and lasting damage to the industry, emphasizing that a leading company should focus on strengthening infrastructure and building trust with users and regulators, rather than pursuing short-term profits. He accused certain companies of repeatedly launching Ponzi-like schemes, manipulating the prices of low-quality tokens, and diverting millions of users to assets closely tied to their own interests.
Meanwhile, data provided by analytics account Chris Jack further fueled market discontent, showing that the median performance of new futures tokens listed on Binance in 2025 was a 94% drop. This data was seen by many critics as direct evidence of Binance's declining listing standards.
The listing mechanism has been questioned for its opaque operation; CZ cites the Nasdaq case to refute this.
On the X platform, a user named " UnicornBitcoin " challenged CZ, questioning Binance's listing standards. This user argued that as a top-tier exchange, Binance's listings are filled with random projects and even "rug pull" projects, and that the exchange should prioritize listing high-quality assets that users can confidently hold. The user suggested that Binance emulate Nasdaq's listing standards and establish transparent regulations, rather than maintaining its current "black box" status.
In response to this criticism, CZ took a counter-argument, asking how many of the thousands of internet startups that emerged on Nasdaq after the 1990s could have met such expectations. He argued that no one can accurately predict the future development of a project, and the responsibility of exchanges is to try to give opportunities to hard-working projects, but this does not mean that exchanges are omnipotent, nor can they guarantee that token prices will only rise and never fall.
CZ emphasized that the final investment decision-making power and responsibility still lie with the users, and investors must bear the obligation of research (DYOR). He even told those who disagreed with his views that they could choose to unfollow him, after all, "out of sight, out of mind."
However, this statement was refuted by netizens again, who pointed out that "Nasdaq has clear listing standards, which are the bottom line for screening projects, leaving the upper limit of projects to be determined by the market." But Binance's opaque listing rules simply don't even have a "bottom line."
Extreme accusations and unconventional recruitment tactics: Binance's response to negative public opinion.
This week's negative comments even included extreme remarks, with some posts directly accusing CZ and Binance of being "terrorists" in the crypto industry, and alleging that the crash in October last year was deliberately orchestrated by exchanges to "devour" users, and even suggesting that CZ should be imprisoned again.
The allegations include: Binance charging an 8% "tax" on token supply, deliberately listing the token "$JELLY" to undermine Hyperliquid, and blaming Binance for FTX's collapse. While these allegations lack substantial evidence, slogans such as " BoycottBinance " and "Biggest Scammer" continue to circulate on some social media accounts.
Faced with an overwhelming wave of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), CZ continued to defend the trading logic and brand reputation with netizens on the front lines. Meanwhile, Binance co-CEO He Yi chose to turn this negative attention into action. Leveraging the community's focus on Binance, she posted job openings, attempting to demonstrate the company's continued expansion amidst the media storm.
Whether this public relations battle surrounding the world's largest stock exchange will fade over time or prompt the exchange to change its opaque listing practices remains to be seen.
This article by CZ has sparked negative public opinion! Binance's listing irregularities have once again become the focus of attention, with netizens saying: "He should be sent back to prison ." It first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
