WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040 OK, let's just let's try to unpack this, because 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:03.899 I have to be honest, if you handed me the script 00:00:03.899 --> 00:00:05.719 five years ago and told me it was a movie pitch, 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:07.500 I would have thrown it in the trash. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:10.199 I would have said it's too much. It's too unrealistic. 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:14.099 The writers are they're trying way too hard. 00:00:14.259 --> 00:00:16.379 It does strain credulity, doesn't it? I mean, 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:18.879 if this were fiction, the critics would pan it 00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:21.320 for being unbelievable. They absolutely would. 00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:24.660 We are looking at a story today that just. It 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:26.920 feels like a massive glitch in the simulation. 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:30.359 We're talking about a man who, as of right now, 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:34.399 January 24th, 2026. Right now. Is the richest 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:37.479 Canadian in history. Not just right now, but 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:42.000 ever. He is the 21st richest person on the entire 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.679 planet Earth. Which is a number that's almost 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:47.740 impossible to really comprehend. It is. He's 00:00:47.740 --> 00:00:51.259 sitting on a net worth of $88 billion. A staggering 00:00:51.259 --> 00:00:53.590 sum. Just to put that in perspective for you, 00:00:53.630 --> 00:00:56.609 that's more than the entire GDP of nations like 00:00:56.609 --> 00:00:59.890 Bulgaria or Luxembourg. Right. But here's where 00:00:59.890 --> 00:01:02.270 it gets really interesting. Yeah. Just over a 00:01:02.270 --> 00:01:05.450 year ago, this man was inmate number. Well, he 00:01:05.450 --> 00:01:07.650 was an inmate. He was wearing a jumpsuit. He 00:01:07.650 --> 00:01:09.950 was sitting in a federal prison cell at Lompocay 00:01:09.950 --> 00:01:13.090 in California. He was a convicted felon with 00:01:13.090 --> 00:01:14.849 the United States government breathing down his 00:01:14.849 --> 00:01:18.109 neck. A spectacular fall from grace, or so it 00:01:18.109 --> 00:01:22.540 seemed at the time. And now. Today, he holds 00:01:22.540 --> 00:01:25.120 a full and unconditional pardon from the president 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:27.739 of the United States. It is the ultimate turnaround 00:01:27.739 --> 00:01:31.859 story or perhaps the ultimate lesson in the physics 00:01:31.859 --> 00:01:34.739 of power. We are talking, of course, about Changpeng 00:01:34.739 --> 00:01:37.760 Zhao. CZ. Everyone knows him as CZ, the founder 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:40.340 of Binance, the man who conquered crypto, lost 00:01:40.340 --> 00:01:42.560 his freedom and somehow, I mean, truly against 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:45.519 all odds, managed to navigate the political minefield 00:01:45.519 --> 00:01:48.439 of 2025 to get right back on top. And not just 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:51.060 back on top. You could argue he is more powerful 00:01:51.060 --> 00:01:53.420 now than he was before the prison sentence. How 00:01:53.420 --> 00:01:55.819 is that even possible? Well, this isn't just 00:01:55.819 --> 00:01:58.959 a story about charisma or, you know, luck. It's 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:01.939 a story about leverage. It's about timing. And 00:02:01.939 --> 00:02:04.799 it is about the very specific, very messy intersection 00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:07.640 of high finance and political machinery that 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:09.479 we're all seeing unfold in this second Trump 00:02:09.479 --> 00:02:12.740 administration. Exactly. So our mission for this 00:02:12.740 --> 00:02:15.680 deep dive is to figure out the how. Because the 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:18.370 headline is easy to read. billionaire pardoned, 00:02:18.370 --> 00:02:21.849 but the mechanics. That is a tangled web. We 00:02:21.849 --> 00:02:24.110 need to understand how a guy goes from flipping 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:27.270 burgers at McDonald's. Literally. That's not 00:02:27.270 --> 00:02:29.430 a metaphor. Not a metaphor. From flipping burgers 00:02:29.430 --> 00:02:32.030 to building an empire faster than almost anyone 00:02:32.030 --> 00:02:33.830 in history. And then we need to understand the 00:02:33.830 --> 00:02:36.810 crash. You know, how does that mantra of growth 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:39.949 over compliance actually land you in a federal 00:02:39.949 --> 00:02:42.389 prison? What were the specific decisions? And 00:02:42.389 --> 00:02:44.669 then the third act. The part that I think really 00:02:44.669 --> 00:02:47.759 confuses people. How does he pull off this rehabilitation? 00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:50.639 How do you go from being the DOJ's number one 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:53.360 target to being the White House's friend in less 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:56.300 than 12 months? Well, we've got a really dense 00:02:56.300 --> 00:02:58.580 stack of sources today to help us answer that. 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:00.900 We're looking at his biography, obviously, but 00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:03.139 we're also pulling from the heavy legal filings 00:03:03.139 --> 00:03:06.219 from 2023 and 2024. The stuff most people just 00:03:06.219 --> 00:03:08.819 skimmed. Exactly. The stuff most people skimmed 00:03:08.819 --> 00:03:11.379 but didn't actually read. We have the pardon 00:03:11.379 --> 00:03:14.840 documents from October 2025 and some really fascinating 00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:17.740 investigative reporting on his business dealings 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:20.060 during that critical window when he was supposedly 00:03:20.060 --> 00:03:22.939 out of the game. And I wanted to ask you, the 00:03:22.939 --> 00:03:25.120 listener, right now, just put yourself in these 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:28.219 shoes for a second. Imagine having $88 billion. 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:32.490 You can buy anything, a country, an island. But 00:03:32.490 --> 00:03:34.590 you can't walk out the door. You are confined 00:03:34.590 --> 00:03:37.990 to a cell. Total power and zero freedom. And 00:03:37.990 --> 00:03:40.069 then imagine walking out and within a year shaking 00:03:40.069 --> 00:03:42.210 hands with the president. It's just a wild, wild 00:03:42.210 --> 00:03:44.849 ride. It is. And I think to understand the destination, 00:03:45.129 --> 00:03:47.900 this... pardon, this massive wealth, we have 00:03:47.900 --> 00:03:49.819 to understand the engine that drove him there. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.560 Because this isn't just a biography. It's a case 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:55.560 study in risk tolerance. I would argue almost 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:57.400 pathological risk tolerance. Let's start at the 00:03:57.400 --> 00:03:59.280 beginning then, the origin story. Because every 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:01.919 time I read about CZ's early life, I'm struck 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:05.069 by how... Well, how humble it is, but also how 00:04:05.069 --> 00:04:07.729 heavy the context is. It's the classic immigrant 00:04:07.729 --> 00:04:09.810 narrative, but you have to understand the specific 00:04:09.810 --> 00:04:13.150 intellectual backdrop of 1970s China. It's not 00:04:13.150 --> 00:04:15.569 just any immigrant story. He was born in 1977 00:04:15.569 --> 00:04:18.230 in Lianyongjiang. His parents were educators. 00:04:18.569 --> 00:04:20.949 But in the late 70s in China, being an educator 00:04:20.949 --> 00:04:24.040 wasn't exactly a safe job, was it? No. Not at 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:26.100 all. He was dangerous. His father was a university 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:29.339 instructor, which sounds prestigious to us. But 00:04:29.339 --> 00:04:31.660 the cultural revolution had just ended, and its 00:04:31.660 --> 00:04:34.579 shadow was long. An atmosphere was created where 00:04:34.579 --> 00:04:37.240 intellectuals were deeply suspect. His father 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.439 was branded a pro -bourgeois intellect. Pro -bourgeois 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:42.819 intellect? That's a label that gets you sent 00:04:42.819 --> 00:04:45.540 away. Gets you exiled, yeah. He was sent to rural 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:48.439 areas shortly after CZ was born. So right from 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:51.279 the start, from his earliest memories, CZ's life 00:04:51.279 --> 00:04:54.000 is shaped by this friction. The intellectual 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.060 versus the state. The individual with ideas versus 00:04:57.060 --> 00:04:59.500 the government with the boot. Precisely. That 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:01.879 has to leave a mark on a kid. It has to plant 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:04.279 a seed of maybe not rebellion in a political 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:07.079 sense, but certainly a deep skepticism of authority, 00:05:07.259 --> 00:05:10.259 of centralized power. I can see that. You see 00:05:10.259 --> 00:05:12.600 your own father, a smart man, punished by the 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:16.040 system. And it leads to the escape. The family 00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:19.339 managed to emigrate to Vancouver, Canada in 1989. 00:05:20.110 --> 00:05:22.629 This was very shortly after the Tiananmen Square 00:05:22.629 --> 00:05:26.350 protests. CZ was 12 years old. So he arrives 00:05:26.350 --> 00:05:28.709 in a new country, new language, new everything. 00:05:28.810 --> 00:05:30.709 And this is where the underdog narrative really 00:05:30.709 --> 00:05:33.129 kicks in. Because when you hear tech billionaire, 00:05:33.329 --> 00:05:36.470 you think, you know, boarding schools, Ivy League, 00:05:36.589 --> 00:05:38.589 maybe a small loan of a million dollars from 00:05:38.589 --> 00:05:41.889 dad. Right. But CZ was grinding. He was. The 00:05:41.889 --> 00:05:44.970 family didn't have much. In his teenage years 00:05:44.970 --> 00:05:47.529 in Vancouver, to help support them, he was working 00:05:47.529 --> 00:05:50.160 at a gas station overnight. And as you mentioned, 00:05:50.259 --> 00:05:52.480 he was flipping burgers at McDonald's. I love 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:53.939 that contrast, but I don't want to just gloss 00:05:53.939 --> 00:05:56.279 over it as hard work. Is there something in that 00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:58.740 specific experience, flipping burgers, working 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:00.939 a gas station, that you think actually translates 00:06:00.939 --> 00:06:03.500 to running a global exchange? I think there is, 00:06:03.579 --> 00:06:06.279 actually. It teaches you about systems. Fast 00:06:06.279 --> 00:06:08.180 food isn't about culinary art. It's about efficiency. 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:11.000 It's about speed. And it's about repetition under 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.850 immense pressure. Process optimization. It's 00:06:13.850 --> 00:06:16.430 all process optimization. How do you serve the 00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:18.470 most customers in the least amount of time with 00:06:18.470 --> 00:06:21.430 the fewest errors? That's the same problem as 00:06:21.430 --> 00:06:24.370 running a financial exchange. But the real foundation, 00:06:24.569 --> 00:06:26.250 the intellectual foundation for all of this, 00:06:26.310 --> 00:06:29.149 was laid at McGill University, where he majored 00:06:29.149 --> 00:06:31.889 in computer science. Okay, so this is where the 00:06:31.889 --> 00:06:35.189 tech whiz part of the equation comes in. But 00:06:35.189 --> 00:06:38.529 he didn't go the Mark Zuckerberg route. He didn't 00:06:38.529 --> 00:06:40.990 build a social network. He went straight into 00:06:40.990 --> 00:06:43.519 the belly of the beast, finance. This is the 00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:45.259 crucial missing link for a lot of people who 00:06:45.259 --> 00:06:47.180 don't understand why Binance succeeded where 00:06:47.180 --> 00:06:50.519 so many others failed. After college, CZ went 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:53.220 to Tokyo. He worked for a subcontractor of the 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:55.720 Tokyo Stock Exchange building trade order systems. 00:06:55.939 --> 00:06:58.600 Then he moves to New York City, works for Bloomberg 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:00.980 Tradebook, and he's developing futures trading 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:04.240 software. So long before Bitcoin was even a thing, 00:07:04.379 --> 00:07:07.720 before Satoshi's white paper, CZ was obsessed 00:07:07.720 --> 00:07:10.180 with speed. Exactly. He was building high frequency 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:12.680 trading systems, HFT. OK, let's pause there. 00:07:13.139 --> 00:07:16.220 Because high frequency trading is a buzzword 00:07:16.220 --> 00:07:18.199 we hear a lot. But I think for a lot of people, 00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:21.160 it's just this vague, scary thing Wall Street 00:07:21.160 --> 00:07:24.300 does. What does it actually mean in terms of 00:07:24.300 --> 00:07:27.240 the code he was writing? To understand Binance, 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:29.459 you have to understand the specific engineering 00:07:29.459 --> 00:07:32.680 problem of a matching engine. Which is the digital 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:35.079 equivalent of the guy on the floor of the NYSE 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:37.459 shouting, I'll buy at 10 and pointing at the 00:07:37.459 --> 00:07:39.360 guy who's shouting, I'll sell at 10. Right. But 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:42.000 now imagine doing that a million times a second. 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:46.100 Wow. Most crypto exchanges in 2017 were built 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:49.139 by, let's be honest, web developers. They treated 00:07:49.139 --> 00:07:52.379 buying Bitcoin like uploading a file. They built 00:07:52.379 --> 00:07:54.540 their systems using standard web technologies, 00:07:54.740 --> 00:07:57.050 PHP, JavaScript, things like that. Things that 00:07:57.050 --> 00:07:58.990 are great for building a blog, but maybe not 00:07:58.990 --> 00:08:01.449 for handling billions in transactions. Not at 00:08:01.449 --> 00:08:04.110 all. CZ approached it like a Wall Street quant. 00:08:04.750 --> 00:08:08.850 He wrote his code in C++ nation, a much lower 00:08:08.850 --> 00:08:12.310 level language, specifically to shave off microseconds 00:08:12.310 --> 00:08:14.449 from every transaction. Why does that matter 00:08:14.449 --> 00:08:16.269 to the average user, though? I mean, if I'm buying 00:08:16.269 --> 00:08:18.930 $50 of Bitcoin, do I really care about a microsecond? 00:08:19.050 --> 00:08:22.860 You don't. Until you do. You care when the market 00:08:22.860 --> 00:08:26.699 crashes. When Bitcoin drops 20 % in an hour, 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:28.540 what does everyone do? They rush for the exit 00:08:28.540 --> 00:08:30.920 door at once. Sell, sell, sell. Exactly. And 00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:33.620 the web dev exchanges would just, they'd crash 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:36.740 under the load. You'd see the infamous 404 error 00:08:36.740 --> 00:08:39.519 of death. You're watching your money vanish on 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:41.500 your phone and you can't even log in to sell. 00:08:41.659 --> 00:08:43.980 I remember that so clearly. The Coinbase is down. 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:46.720 Memes were everywhere back then. It was a running 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:48.960 joke. A very painful joke for a lot of people. 00:08:49.059 --> 00:08:52.779 But Binance stayed up. Because CZ's engine was 00:08:52.779 --> 00:08:55.659 built from the ground up to process 1 .4 million 00:08:55.659 --> 00:08:58.679 orders per second. That stability, that reliability 00:08:58.679 --> 00:09:01.820 under fire, that was the product. So that HFT 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:04.159 background wasn't just a resume point. It was 00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:06.360 the core architectural advantage that allowed 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:07.899 him to swallow the market. It was everything. 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:10.200 He knew the plumbing. He had spent his entire 00:09:10.200 --> 00:09:12.779 career building the machine that makes the sausage. 00:09:13.039 --> 00:09:16.000 And in 2005, he moves back to China, to Shanghai. 00:09:16.549 --> 00:09:19.110 And starts a company called Fusion Systems. Again, 00:09:19.190 --> 00:09:21.669 more of the same. Building high -frequency trading 00:09:21.669 --> 00:09:24.610 platforms, but this time for brokers. He was 00:09:24.610 --> 00:09:26.850 successful. He was established. He had money, 00:09:26.970 --> 00:09:29.649 a nice apartment, a career. He'd made it. But 00:09:29.649 --> 00:09:32.649 he wasn't $88 billion successful yet. Not even 00:09:32.649 --> 00:09:34.429 close. And this is where we get to the movie 00:09:34.429 --> 00:09:37.809 scene. The poker game. I feel like every great 00:09:37.809 --> 00:09:40.429 business story has a poker game or a garage moment. 00:09:40.669 --> 00:09:43.190 This was 2013. It was. He was playing a casual 00:09:43.190 --> 00:09:45.120 game of poker with Bobby Lee. Now, for those 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:47.460 who don't know, Bobby Lee is the brother of Charlie 00:09:47.460 --> 00:09:49.799 Lee, who founded Litecoin. So these are early, 00:09:49.820 --> 00:09:52.940 early crypto royalty, the first wave. And Bobby's 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:55.360 at this poker game and he drops some advice on 00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:58.460 CZ. He tells him, you should put 10 % of your 00:09:58.460 --> 00:10:01.240 net worth into Bitcoin. 10%, which, you know, 00:10:01.259 --> 00:10:04.580 that's a reasonable, diversified, financial advisor 00:10:04.580 --> 00:10:08.320 approved amount of risk. Dip your toe in. Test 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:10.539 the waters. Right. It's a hedge. It's a speculative 00:10:10.539 --> 00:10:13.500 asset in a broader portfolio. Yeah. But this 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:15.600 is where we see the psychology that separates 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:18.960 CZ from you or me or, frankly, most sane people. 00:10:19.059 --> 00:10:23.039 Yeah. He didn't do 10 percent. In 2014, he sold 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:25.179 his apartment in Shanghai. This was his home, 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:27.620 his major asset. He sells it and puts everything 00:10:27.620 --> 00:10:30.379 into Bitcoin. 100 percent. All in. OK, hang on. 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:32.740 I have to stop you there because we look back 00:10:32.740 --> 00:10:36.080 now. With Bitcoin trading at, what is it today? 00:10:36.220 --> 00:10:41.759 $150 ,000. And we call CZ a genius. But in 2014, 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:45.360 when he sold his house. Didn't the price crash 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:47.899 right after that? Oh, catastrophically. It went 00:10:47.899 --> 00:10:50.860 from around $600 down to $200. He lost two -thirds 00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:53.779 of his net worth almost overnight. See, that's 00:10:53.779 --> 00:10:55.820 not conviction to me. That looks like mental 00:10:55.820 --> 00:10:57.700 illness. That looks like a gambling addiction. 00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:00.779 Imagine that dinner table conversation. Honey, 00:11:00.899 --> 00:11:03.000 I sold the house and I lost two -thirds of the 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:05.529 money in a week on magic internet beans. It's 00:11:05.529 --> 00:11:07.350 a very fine line, isn't it? The line between 00:11:07.350 --> 00:11:10.250 a visionary and a degenerate gambler is often 00:11:10.250 --> 00:11:12.870 just the final outcome. It's barely a line. If 00:11:12.870 --> 00:11:14.929 Bitcoin had gone to zero, which was a very real 00:11:14.929 --> 00:11:18.250 possibility in 2014, he's not a visionary. He's 00:11:18.250 --> 00:11:20.330 the guy sleeping on his friend's couch because 00:11:20.330 --> 00:11:22.629 he blew the family fortune. That's absolutely 00:11:22.629 --> 00:11:24.929 fair. And his family did reportedly think he 00:11:24.929 --> 00:11:27.629 was crazy. They were dismayed. But this is the 00:11:27.629 --> 00:11:30.690 differentiator. A gambler bets on a card turn. 00:11:30.870 --> 00:11:34.149 It's pure chance. CZ was betting on a protocol. 00:11:34.590 --> 00:11:36.149 What's the difference? He was looking at the 00:11:36.149 --> 00:11:38.629 code, not the price ticker. He's a computer scientist. 00:11:38.850 --> 00:11:41.190 He understood the mathematics of it, the game 00:11:41.190 --> 00:11:43.889 theory, the distributed consensus. He believed 00:11:43.889 --> 00:11:46.070 the math was inevitable, even if the market sentiment 00:11:46.070 --> 00:11:49.350 was terrible. So he held. He held to that entire 00:11:49.350 --> 00:11:52.250 crash. He didn't sell a single coin. That is 00:11:52.250 --> 00:11:55.149 the part that gets me. Selling the house is impulsive. 00:11:55.210 --> 00:11:57.669 Holding through a 60 plus percent drop. That 00:11:57.669 --> 00:11:59.690 is, I don't know, it's almost an inhuman discipline. 00:11:59.909 --> 00:12:03.049 Or obsession. Or maybe both. Most people diversify 00:12:03.049 --> 00:12:05.820 to protect wealth. CZ concentrates to build wealth. 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:08.379 And that psychology explains everything that 00:12:08.379 --> 00:12:10.720 happens next with Binance. So let's talk about 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:12.899 the rocket ship, Section 2, Binance. He launches 00:12:12.899 --> 00:12:16.419 this thing in July 2017. The timing was impeccable, 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:18.960 just impeccable. This was right before the massive 00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:22.039 2017 crypto bull run that brought Bitcoin to 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:24.440 the mainstream. And he raised money through an 00:12:24.440 --> 00:12:27.419 ICO, an initial coin offering. He raised $15 00:12:27.419 --> 00:12:31.139 million. And back then, an ICO was just the Wild 00:12:31.139 --> 00:12:33.860 West of fundraising. It was essentially printing 00:12:33.860 --> 00:12:36.100 your own stock certificates in the form of tokens 00:12:36.100 --> 00:12:37.759 and selling them on the Internet with a white 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:40.360 paper. But look at the velocity. In less than 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:42.659 eight months, Binance became the world's largest 00:12:42.659 --> 00:12:45.679 cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Eight 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:48.759 months. Eight months. That is insane. How do 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:50.899 you go from zero to number one in eight months? 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:52.820 Eight months. That's like starting a car company 00:12:52.820 --> 00:12:56.100 today and outselling Toyota by Christmas. It 00:12:56.100 --> 00:12:58.379 just doesn't happen. It comes back to that engine 00:12:58.379 --> 00:13:01.200 we talked about, the reliability. But it was 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:05.299 also aggressive, almost predatory tactics. He 00:13:05.299 --> 00:13:08.299 listed coins faster than anyone else. What does 00:13:08.299 --> 00:13:10.679 that mean exactly? Well, if there was a new mean 00:13:10.679 --> 00:13:13.720 coin or some new project with a lot of hype, 00:13:13.879 --> 00:13:16.980 an established exchange like Coinbase would take... 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:19.919 months, maybe years to do due diligence and review 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:22.340 it. If they ever listed it at all. Right. Binance 00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:24.580 would list it in days. He understood that traders 00:13:24.580 --> 00:13:26.480 don't care about fundamentals. They care about 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:28.980 volatility. They want to gamble. So he gave the 00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:30.840 people what they wanted, even if what they wanted 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:33.580 was, you know, complete garbage. Especially if 00:13:33.580 --> 00:13:36.559 what they wanted was garbage. Volume is volume. 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:39.179 The house takes a cut on every trade. He also 00:13:39.179 --> 00:13:42.659 introduced the Binance coin, BNB. This was a 00:13:42.659 --> 00:13:45.059 brilliant loyalty play. Right. The feed discounts. 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.559 Exactly. If you held their token, BNB, you got 00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:51.059 a discount on your trading fees. It created this 00:13:51.059 --> 00:13:53.740 incredibly sticky ecosystem where it was just 00:13:53.740 --> 00:13:56.000 cheaper to trade on Binance than anywhere else. 00:13:56.299 --> 00:13:58.960 And it made people want to hold BND, which drove 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:01.519 up his price. A perfect flywheel. But he was 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:03.899 also building a moving target. We have to talk 00:14:03.899 --> 00:14:06.820 about the Nomad CEO thing, because for a long, 00:14:06.899 --> 00:14:09.500 long time, if you asked, where is Binance headquarters? 00:14:10.179 --> 00:14:13.919 The answer was essentially a shrug. Earth was 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.570 his usual answer or the Internet. And for a while, 00:14:16.590 --> 00:14:18.389 people thought that was just him being a philosophical 00:14:18.389 --> 00:14:21.610 tech bro. We're decentralized. We have no headquarters. 00:14:21.929 --> 00:14:24.029 But it was a calculated legal strategy. It's 00:14:24.029 --> 00:14:26.289 called regulatory arbitrage. It means shopping 00:14:26.289 --> 00:14:29.490 for the laws you like. He started in China. In 00:14:29.490 --> 00:14:33.750 late 2017, China banned crypto exchanges. So 00:14:33.750 --> 00:14:35.990 he didn't fight it. He just moved the servers 00:14:35.990 --> 00:14:39.230 and the team to Japan overnight. OK. Then Japan 00:14:39.230 --> 00:14:41.149 started getting strict about licensing. So he 00:14:41.149 --> 00:14:44.159 looked at Malta, the blockchain island. He was 00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:46.460 constantly on the move, staying one step ahead 00:14:46.460 --> 00:14:48.500 of any jurisdiction that tried to pin him down. 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:51.340 He was like a fugitive before he was even a criminal, 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:53.240 just staying one step ahead of the rule book. 00:14:53.299 --> 00:14:56.440 He called it decentralized operations. Regulators 00:14:56.440 --> 00:14:59.620 called it willful evasion. He eventually settled, 00:14:59.779 --> 00:15:02.740 for the most part, in Dubai, in the UAE, and 00:15:02.740 --> 00:15:05.600 became a citizen there. But for years, this lack 00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:07.340 of a headquarters meant that when a regulator 00:15:07.340 --> 00:15:10.019 in the U .S. or the U .K. wanted to sue Binance 00:15:10.019 --> 00:15:12.299 or serve them papers, they literally didn't know 00:15:12.299 --> 00:15:14.159 where to send the mail. It's the catch me if 00:15:14.159 --> 00:15:17.419 you can strategy for corporate governance. Precisely. 00:15:17.460 --> 00:15:19.419 And while he was running, the wealth was just 00:15:19.419 --> 00:15:22.779 exploding. By February 2018, just months after 00:15:22.779 --> 00:15:25.580 launch, Forbes had him as the third richest person 00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:29.659 in crypto. By 2025, just before the pardon, he's 00:15:29.659 --> 00:15:32.399 up to that $88 billion number. But you can only 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:35.039 run for so long, right? The bigger you get, the 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:37.100 bigger the target on your back. And the U .S. 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:38.980 government especially does not like it when you 00:15:38.980 --> 00:15:41.159 play in their sandbox, but refuse to follow their 00:15:41.159 --> 00:15:44.539 rules. And that brings us to section three, the 00:15:44.539 --> 00:15:47.620 crash. The fall. The walls started closing in 00:15:47.620 --> 00:15:51.799 around 2023. You had the CFTC, that's the Commodity 00:15:51.799 --> 00:15:54.279 Futures Trading Commission, and the SEC both 00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:57.240 filing massive civil lawsuits. And behind the 00:15:57.240 --> 00:15:59.320 scenes, the Department of Justice was building 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:01.960 a criminal case. And these weren't just you forgot 00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:04.659 to file a form lawsuits. These were heavy, heavy 00:16:04.659 --> 00:16:07.700 accusations. Very heavy. The CFTC lawsuit was 00:16:07.700 --> 00:16:10.340 particularly damaging because they had the receipts. 00:16:10.340 --> 00:16:12.860 They had internal chat logs from Binance employees. 00:16:13.179 --> 00:16:15.539 Oh, the golden rule of corporate crime. Never, 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.539 ever write it down. They broke that rule spectacularly. 00:16:18.539 --> 00:16:22.039 The CFTC lawsuit cited internal chats where senior 00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:24.539 employees and compliance officers explicitly 00:16:24.539 --> 00:16:26.720 acknowledged that illicit groups were transacting 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.139 on the platform. Like who? Groups like Hamas, 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:32.440 Al -Qaeda, and various darknet markets and ransomware 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:35.259 gangs. They knew. There was one chat where a 00:16:35.259 --> 00:16:37.879 compliance officer wrote something like, we need 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:40.580 a banner that says, is washing drug money too 00:16:40.580 --> 00:16:44.159 hard these days? Come to Binance. No way. They 00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:46.740 actually wrote that in a company chat. They did. 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:49.570 It was obviously dark humor. But it proved they 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:53.450 knew. It showed a culture of, at best, willful 00:16:53.450 --> 00:16:56.529 blindness. They knew bad actors were using the 00:16:56.529 --> 00:16:59.139 platform, and they let it happen. because turning 00:16:59.139 --> 00:17:01.740 them off would mean turning off revenue. So this 00:17:01.740 --> 00:17:03.639 is the growth over compliance mantra we mentioned 00:17:03.639 --> 00:17:06.319 in the intro. They prioritize the fees over the 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:09.259 law. Absolutely. But, and this is a really critical 00:17:09.259 --> 00:17:11.539 point for you to understand, we have to separate 00:17:11.539 --> 00:17:14.579 CZ from someone like Sam Bankman, freed of FTX. 00:17:14.779 --> 00:17:17.480 Please, let's clarify that, because to the average 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:21.000 person, to my mom, crypto CEO in jail, sounds 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:22.779 the same. They just think they're all thieves. 00:17:23.019 --> 00:17:24.960 They're fundamentally different cases, and that 00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:27.240 difference is everything. I want to use an analogy 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:30.039 here. Think of Sam Bankman -Fried as a valet 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:31.960 parking attendant at a fancy restaurant. Okay, 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.559 I'm with you. You drove your car, your asset, 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.000 to his restaurant. You gave him the keys for 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:39.359 safekeeping. While you're inside eating dinner, 00:17:39.539 --> 00:17:42.660 he took your car, drove it to a casino, gambled 00:17:42.660 --> 00:17:45.420 with it, lost, and crashed it into a wall. That 00:17:45.420 --> 00:17:48.299 is theft. That is fraud. He stole the customer's 00:17:48.299 --> 00:17:51.480 asset. Precisely. He stole customer money. Now, 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.710 CZ is different. CZ... ran a toll road, a very 00:17:54.710 --> 00:17:57.230 fast, very efficient toll road. He didn't touch 00:17:57.230 --> 00:17:59.529 the cars. He didn't siphon the gas. If you put 00:17:59.529 --> 00:18:01.029 your money on Binance, your money was there. 00:18:01.150 --> 00:18:04.250 But he let everyone use the road, the school 00:18:04.250 --> 00:18:07.009 buses, the family minivans, but also the drug 00:18:07.009 --> 00:18:09.529 cartel convoys, the terrorists, the money launderers. 00:18:10.069 --> 00:18:11.930 The U .S. government came to him and said, you 00:18:11.930 --> 00:18:13.529 have to put up a checkpoint. You have to check 00:18:13.529 --> 00:18:15.630 IDs. You have to implement anti -money laundering 00:18:15.630 --> 00:18:18.569 or AML controls. And CZ said what? He essentially 00:18:18.569 --> 00:18:21.910 said, checkpoints slow down traffic. I am the 00:18:21.910 --> 00:18:24.490 business of speed. My customers don't want checkpoints. 00:18:24.650 --> 00:18:27.349 He prioritized the toll fees over the security 00:18:27.349 --> 00:18:30.009 check. Exactly. And in the eyes of the law, that 00:18:30.009 --> 00:18:32.990 is a serious crime, specifically violating the 00:18:32.990 --> 00:18:35.490 Bank Secrecy Act. It's a felony. But he didn't 00:18:35.490 --> 00:18:37.849 steal customer money. Binance had the funds. 00:18:38.069 --> 00:18:42.750 At any point, every user could withdraw 100 % 00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:45.890 of their money. That nuance is huge because one 00:18:45.890 --> 00:18:49.390 guy is a thief and the other guy is what? Negligent? 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:52.039 Or willfully blind. Willfully noncompliant. And 00:18:52.039 --> 00:18:54.259 that distinction is the only reason he got the 00:18:54.259 --> 00:18:56.980 deal he got. Okay, so November 2023, the hammer 00:18:56.980 --> 00:18:59.680 finally dropped. It did. The DOJ announced a 00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:02.720 global settlement. CZ agreed to step down as 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:05.960 CEO of Binance, effective immediately. He agreed 00:19:05.960 --> 00:19:09.119 to pay a $50 million personal fine. $50 million. 00:19:09.220 --> 00:19:11.319 A lot of money, but for him, it's a rounding 00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:13.779 error. A speeding ticket. Yeah. But the big number 00:19:13.779 --> 00:19:16.500 was for Binance, the company. They agreed to 00:19:16.500 --> 00:19:19.980 pay $4 .3 billion in fines and forfeitures. Which 00:19:19.980 --> 00:19:22.220 is a GDP of a small country level of fine. Which 00:19:22.220 --> 00:19:24.119 is one of the largest corporate penalties in 00:19:24.119 --> 00:19:26.480 United States history. And yet, Binance could 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:28.420 pay it. That tells you how much money they were 00:19:28.420 --> 00:19:30.740 making. They wrote a check for $4 .3 billion 00:19:30.740 --> 00:19:33.559 and stayed in business. And then came the sentencing 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:37.680 for CZ himself, April 2024. The lawyers argued 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:40.259 for no jail time. They said, look, he's a billionaire. 00:19:40.730 --> 00:19:43.450 He's a public figure. He's a target. Prison is 00:19:43.450 --> 00:19:46.130 unsafe for him. And the Biden administration's 00:19:46.130 --> 00:19:49.490 DOJ, they pushed hard. They wanted three years. 00:19:49.769 --> 00:19:52.150 They wanted to make an example of him, to send 00:19:52.150 --> 00:19:54.589 a message to the entire crypto industry that 00:19:54.589 --> 00:19:56.869 no one was above the law. But the judge landed 00:19:56.869 --> 00:19:59.369 somewhere in the middle. Much closer to the defense's 00:19:59.369 --> 00:20:02.539 side, actually. The judge. looked at the sentencing 00:20:02.539 --> 00:20:04.440 guidelines. He noted the fact that there was 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:07.579 no fraud, no loss of customer funds, and he decided 00:20:07.579 --> 00:20:10.259 four months was appropriate. Four months. It 00:20:10.259 --> 00:20:13.819 feels light. It was seen as very light by critics 00:20:13.819 --> 00:20:16.000 of the industry. They were outraged. But it goes 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:17.920 back to that distinction we made. It wasn't theft. 00:20:18.099 --> 00:20:21.000 It was a failure of controls. So he goes to Lompoc 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:23.500 High, a federal correctional institution in California. 00:20:23.900 --> 00:20:26.299 Not a club -fed minimum security camp, but a 00:20:26.299 --> 00:20:28.920 low security facility. He had to surrender. He 00:20:28.920 --> 00:20:31.759 put on the uniform. So just picture that scene. 00:20:32.059 --> 00:20:36.000 It's mid -2024. CZ's an inmate. He's worth nearly 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.460 $50 billion at this point. But he has to stand 00:20:39.460 --> 00:20:42.240 in line for the cafeteria. The humiliation must 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:44.420 have been total. It was the system's way of saying, 00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:47.279 we own you now. Doesn't matter how rich you are. 00:20:47.339 --> 00:20:49.500 The state is stronger. At least that's the message 00:20:49.500 --> 00:20:51.059 they wanted to send. And usually that breaks 00:20:51.059 --> 00:20:53.559 people. They fade away. They do their time. They 00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:56.140 get out. They retire to a yacht in the Mediterranean 00:20:56.140 --> 00:20:59.400 and stay very, very quiet. But CZ was looking 00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:02.839 at the calendar. He was looking at November 2024. 00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:06.440 He knew that the entire regulatory environment 00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:08.359 that put him in that cell was up for a vote. 00:21:08.619 --> 00:21:11.380 The entire philosophy of government was on the 00:21:11.380 --> 00:21:13.299 ballot. This is where the story shifts, isn't 00:21:13.299 --> 00:21:16.039 it? It goes from a crime drama. to a political 00:21:16.039 --> 00:21:18.160 thriller. Because while he was sitting in that 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:20.940 cell, his checkbook was still very active on 00:21:20.940 --> 00:21:22.799 the outside. This is where we get into the intersection 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.539 of crypto and the new political reality of 2025. 00:21:25.940 --> 00:21:28.319 This is Section 4, The Twist. Because he didn't 00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:30.859 just sit there and meditate. He, or rather his 00:21:30.859 --> 00:21:33.359 organization, started spending money on influence. 00:21:33.740 --> 00:21:37.220 A lot of it. Lobbying money first. Binance spent 00:21:37.220 --> 00:21:41.440 over $800 ,000 in 2024 and 2025 lobbying for 00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:44.519 clemency and for broader pro -crypto policy issues. 00:21:45.180 --> 00:21:47.240 But that's small change. That's the front door. 00:21:47.380 --> 00:21:49.359 The real leverage came from business alignment. 00:21:49.539 --> 00:21:50.859 We have to talk about World Liberty Financial. 00:21:51.180 --> 00:21:53.180 This is the part of the story that just makes 00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:56.880 my head spin. Yes. This is the smoking gun, if 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:00.440 you will, of the 2025 crypto resurgence. In early 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:03.539 2025, after Trump's inauguration, reports began 00:22:03.539 --> 00:22:06.559 to surface that Binance was quietly administering 00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:08.579 the trading platform for a new project called 00:22:08.579 --> 00:22:10.619 World Liberty Financial. And for those who have 00:22:10.619 --> 00:22:12.920 been living under a rock for the past year, tell 00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:15.809 us what World Liberty Financial is. It is a decentralized 00:22:15.809 --> 00:22:18.970 finance or DeFi protocol that was launched and 00:22:18.970 --> 00:22:20.910 heavily promoted by the Trump family. Family 00:22:20.910 --> 00:22:23.150 itself. Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and the 00:22:23.150 --> 00:22:25.430 president himself have promoted it at rallies 00:22:25.430 --> 00:22:28.130 and on social media. OK, so let me get this straight. 00:22:28.289 --> 00:22:30.950 You have the president of the United States or 00:22:30.950 --> 00:22:33.450 at least his immediate family. launching a branded 00:22:33.450 --> 00:22:36.890 crypto business. And the back end infrastructure, 00:22:37.289 --> 00:22:40.230 the engine for that business, is being run by 00:22:40.230 --> 00:22:42.269 the company founded by the guy who is currently 00:22:42.269 --> 00:22:44.390 sitting in federal prison for financial crimes. 00:22:44.589 --> 00:22:46.750 That is the reported connection. It's a deeply 00:22:46.750 --> 00:22:49.690 symbiotic relationship. The Trump project needed 00:22:49.690 --> 00:22:52.809 liquidity, a global reach and reliable infrastructure, 00:22:53.069 --> 00:22:55.930 the kind of HFT engine that only CZ had built. 00:22:56.069 --> 00:22:58.769 And Binance, well, Binance needed political cover. 00:22:58.869 --> 00:23:00.549 They needed a friend in the White House. It's 00:23:00.549 --> 00:23:02.950 so transactional. It's almost too obvious to 00:23:02.950 --> 00:23:05.170 be a conspiracy. It's transactional politics 00:23:05.170 --> 00:23:07.849 at its finest. And that business relationship 00:23:07.849 --> 00:23:11.930 leads to access. CZ's chief lobbyist, a man named 00:23:11.930 --> 00:23:13.910 Chess McDowell, was introduced to Donald Trump 00:23:13.910 --> 00:23:16.430 Jr. That introduction, according to reports, 00:23:16.670 --> 00:23:18.470 led to a meeting with President Trump. And this 00:23:18.470 --> 00:23:21.450 all culminated on October 23, 2025. President 00:23:21.450 --> 00:23:23.430 Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon 00:23:23.430 --> 00:23:26.490 for Changpeng Zhao. Now, when a president pardons 00:23:26.490 --> 00:23:28.349 someone, they usually have to give a reason, 00:23:28.509 --> 00:23:31.500 a rationale. What was the White House's explanation 00:23:31.500 --> 00:23:33.960 for pardoning a guy who had just pleaded guilty 00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:37.160 to massive money laundering violations? The statement 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:39.680 from the White House spokesperson, Caroline Leavitt, 00:23:39.779 --> 00:23:43.079 was absolutely fascinating. It didn't focus on 00:23:43.079 --> 00:23:46.279 remorse or rehabilitation. It framed the entire 00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:48.940 pardon as a correction of a political injustice. 00:23:49.380 --> 00:23:51.740 How so? She said, and I'm paraphrasing here, 00:23:51.859 --> 00:23:54.839 that CZ was a victim of the Biden administration's 00:23:54.839 --> 00:23:58.019 war on cryptocurrency. A war on crypto. So they 00:23:58.019 --> 00:24:00.440 turned him from a felon into a political martyr. 00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:03.440 Exactly. The narrative they spun was there were 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:05.960 no identifiable victims. No customer funds were 00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:09.480 lost. This wasn't fraud. The Biden DOJ wanted 00:24:09.480 --> 00:24:11.720 to put him away to kill a rising industry that 00:24:11.720 --> 00:24:14.460 threatens the establishment. Therefore, this 00:24:14.460 --> 00:24:16.940 prosecution was political and we are fixing a 00:24:16.940 --> 00:24:19.140 political wrong. It's a complete rewriting of 00:24:19.140 --> 00:24:21.420 the narrative. It's no longer he broke the law. 00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:24.339 It's he was persecuted by the other team. And 00:24:24.339 --> 00:24:26.180 remember that crucial distinction we made earlier 00:24:26.180 --> 00:24:29.480 between the valet who commits fraud and the toll 00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:32.539 road operator who has BSA violations. That distinction 00:24:32.539 --> 00:24:35.119 is the only reason this narrative holds even 00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:38.539 a drop of water. If CZ had stolen money like 00:24:38.539 --> 00:24:41.380 SBS, Trump could never have pardoned him without 00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:44.779 a massive bipartisan backlash. But because it 00:24:44.779 --> 00:24:47.339 was a process crime, they could successfully 00:24:47.339 --> 00:24:50.970 spin it as government overregulation. Democrats 00:24:50.970 --> 00:24:53.069 obviously must have lost their minds over this. 00:24:53.170 --> 00:24:56.049 They called it brazen corruption. They pointed 00:24:56.049 --> 00:24:57.930 to the business dealings between Binance and 00:24:57.930 --> 00:25:00.029 the Trump family and said, this is pay to play 00:25:00.029 --> 00:25:02.809 clear as day. But in the political climate of 00:25:02.809 --> 00:25:05.970 2025, with crypto prices soaring and the economy 00:25:05.970 --> 00:25:08.470 doing well, the public outrage just didn't stick. 00:25:08.710 --> 00:25:11.049 But then, then we have to talk about the mystery. 00:25:11.210 --> 00:25:13.630 The 60 Minutes interview, this happened on Halloween 00:25:13.630 --> 00:25:16.960 2025. Very spooky timing. It was bizarre. Absolutely 00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:20.079 bizarre. A week after signing this major controversial 00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:22.819 pardon, Trump sits down with 60 Minutes. He's 00:25:22.819 --> 00:25:25.180 asked directly about pardoning Changpeng Zhao. 00:25:25.460 --> 00:25:28.039 And he says, quote, I have no idea who he is. 00:25:28.220 --> 00:25:30.140 What? You just pardoned the guy. Your family 00:25:30.140 --> 00:25:31.940 is actively doing business with this company. 00:25:32.059 --> 00:25:33.960 How can you possibly say you don't know who he 00:25:33.960 --> 00:25:36.420 is? He then added, I know he got a four month 00:25:36.420 --> 00:25:38.299 sentence or something like that. And I heard 00:25:38.299 --> 00:25:40.380 it was a Biden wish hunt. A terrible thing. I 00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:43.380 heard. It's the classic Trump shrug. Total deniability. 00:25:43.539 --> 00:25:46.819 It's tactical, plausible deniability. By saying, 00:25:46.819 --> 00:25:49.500 I don't know him, he distances himself personally 00:25:49.500 --> 00:25:52.180 from the individual, just in case more dirt comes 00:25:52.180 --> 00:25:55.039 out later, while still endorsing the action of 00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:57.119 the pardon as a political statement against the 00:25:57.119 --> 00:25:58.880 previous administration. So it signals to the 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:02.079 entire crypto industry, I am your protector, 00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:05.200 without technically embracing CZ the man. Precisely. 00:26:05.380 --> 00:26:08.799 It's baffling, but politically, it was effective. 00:26:09.180 --> 00:26:12.339 CZ is free. His criminal record is pardoned. 00:26:12.779 --> 00:26:15.579 And he is richer than ever. $88 billion richer. 00:26:16.019 --> 00:26:18.420 So where does that leave us today? We're in early 00:26:18.420 --> 00:26:22.000 2026. The war is over. You could say crypto won. 00:26:22.220 --> 00:26:25.279 CZ is free. Let's look at Section 5, the aftermath. 00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:27.460 Because even with a presidential pardon, you 00:26:27.460 --> 00:26:29.299 can't just wipe away everything. No, you can't. 00:26:29.339 --> 00:26:31.440 The criminal side is cleared, but the civil side. 00:26:32.359 --> 00:26:35.299 The ghosts of the past are still there. Specifically, 00:26:35.619 --> 00:26:39.099 the ghost of FTX. They're still suing him, even 00:26:39.099 --> 00:26:43.200 from the grave. Yes. In November 2024, the bankruptcy 00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:46.420 estate of FTX filed a massive lawsuit against 00:26:46.420 --> 00:26:49.019 Binance and CZ personally. They're trying to 00:26:49.019 --> 00:26:52.400 claw back $1 .8 billion. Wait, I thought FTX 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:54.119 collapsed years ago. Why are they suing now? 00:26:54.279 --> 00:26:56.259 What's the basis for this? This goes back to 00:26:56.259 --> 00:26:59.940 a deal in 2021, before FTX imploded. Binance 00:26:59.940 --> 00:27:03.880 was an early investor in FTX. In 2021, CZ sold 00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:06.500 his stake in FTX back to Sam Bankman -Fried. 00:27:07.099 --> 00:27:11.500 FTX paid him $1 .8 billion for it. Now, the lawyers 00:27:11.500 --> 00:27:14.579 for the bankrupt FTX estate are arguing, hey, 00:27:14.759 --> 00:27:17.000 FTX was actually insolvent when they paid you 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:18.920 that money. That was a fraudulent transfer of 00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:21.059 funds out of a failing company. You have to give 00:27:21.059 --> 00:27:22.920 it back to the estate so we can pay back the 00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:25.880 victims of SBS fraud. Wow. So even when you win, 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:27.759 you're still fighting armies of lawyers. But 00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:31.200 for a guy worth $88 billion, a $1 .8 billion 00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:34.960 lawsuit, it's manageable. It's a 2 % hit. It's 00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:36.960 a nuisance, not a death blow. And he's not just 00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:38.500 sitting around fighting lawsuits. He's taken 00:27:38.500 --> 00:27:41.240 on this new role, this global advisor persona. 00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:44.440 This is the pivot to statesman. It's fascinating 00:27:44.440 --> 00:27:47.880 to watch. Since his release, he's been appointed 00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:50.259 as a strategic advisor to the Pakistan Crypto 00:27:50.259 --> 00:27:52.759 Council. He's also advising the president of 00:27:52.759 --> 00:27:55.980 Kyrgyzstan on digital assets. Why those countries 00:27:55.980 --> 00:27:58.319 specifically? Why not, you know, France or Germany? 00:27:58.500 --> 00:28:00.740 Because the West is still tricky for him, even 00:28:00.740 --> 00:28:03.240 with the U .S. pardon. The reputational stain 00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:05.420 is still there in places like London or Brussels. 00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:08.940 But emerging markets, places like Pakistan or 00:28:08.940 --> 00:28:11.259 Kyrgyzstan, are looking to leapfrog the traditional 00:28:11.259 --> 00:28:13.519 banking system entirely. They want a shortcut. 00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:16.460 They do. They don't care about the U .S. SEC's 00:28:16.460 --> 00:28:20.049 opinion of him. They see CZ not as a convict, 00:28:20.049 --> 00:28:22.490 but as the visionary who built the fastest, most 00:28:22.490 --> 00:28:24.930 efficient financial engine in the world. They 00:28:24.930 --> 00:28:26.970 want that expertise to modernize their entire 00:28:26.970 --> 00:28:29.730 economies. So he's positioning himself almost 00:28:29.730 --> 00:28:32.170 above national laws, or at least outside the 00:28:32.170 --> 00:28:34.569 traditional Western financial system. He's positioning 00:28:34.569 --> 00:28:37.589 himself as a sovereign level asset. If you are 00:28:37.589 --> 00:28:39.630 a smaller nation and you want to opt out of the 00:28:39.630 --> 00:28:42.329 dollar based system, who better to ask for advice 00:28:42.329 --> 00:28:43.930 than the guy who built the biggest alternative 00:28:43.930 --> 00:28:46.410 financial system in history? And personally. 00:28:46.940 --> 00:28:48.680 What is he doing with all that money? Is he just 00:28:48.680 --> 00:28:50.980 buying yachts? He claims he's giving it away. 00:28:51.420 --> 00:28:54.140 He has stated publicly that he plans to donate 00:28:54.140 --> 00:28:56.779 99 percent of his wealth following the Bill Gates 00:28:56.779 --> 00:28:59.180 and Warren Buffett giving pledge model. Ninety 00:28:59.180 --> 00:29:02.400 nine percent of eighty eight billion. That is. 00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:06.940 That's a lot of schools or hospitals or whatever 00:29:06.940 --> 00:29:09.900 he decides to fund. And that is the big question, 00:29:09.960 --> 00:29:11.660 isn't it? When you have that kind of capital, 00:29:11.859 --> 00:29:14.700 philanthropy is just another form of power. Is 00:29:14.700 --> 00:29:18.009 he funding education? Or is he funding think 00:29:18.009 --> 00:29:20.650 tanks that promote the kind of radical deregulation 00:29:20.650 --> 00:29:22.809 that allowed him to get rich in the first place? 00:29:22.990 --> 00:29:24.910 He also has this funny quote where he says he's 00:29:24.910 --> 00:29:28.250 not a complete libertarian. Which is deeply ironic 00:29:28.250 --> 00:29:31.049 coming from a man convicted for ignoring rules. 00:29:31.490 --> 00:29:34.049 But he says civilization needs rules. He just 00:29:34.049 --> 00:29:36.690 prefers to be the one writing them, perhaps. 00:29:36.970 --> 00:29:38.950 And his personal portfolio, this is the part 00:29:38.950 --> 00:29:41.210 that still scares me, even after all his success. 00:29:41.390 --> 00:29:44.109 He calls it being crypto liquid. What does that 00:29:44.109 --> 00:29:47.119 mean? As of the last public reports, he holds 00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:49.960 nearly 100 % of his personal net worth in crypto. 00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:53.839 Not in Binance stock, but in crypto assets themselves, 00:29:54.220 --> 00:29:57.900 Bitcoin, BNB, etc. He doesn't own a diverse portfolio 00:29:57.900 --> 00:30:00.440 of stocks and bonds and real estate like other 00:30:00.440 --> 00:30:03.500 billionaires. He owns tokens. That is insane, 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:06.599 even for a true believer. That means if the crypto 00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:09.660 market tanks 50 % tomorrow, his net worth gets 00:30:09.660 --> 00:30:12.940 cut in half in an afternoon. It could. But you 00:30:12.940 --> 00:30:15.259 have to remember the poker game. Remember him 00:30:15.259 --> 00:30:17.299 selling his house and holding through that massive 00:30:17.299 --> 00:30:20.599 crash in 2014? He is comfortable with the level 00:30:20.599 --> 00:30:22.880 of volatility that would give a normal person 00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:25.799 a series of heart attacks. He truly believes 00:30:25.799 --> 00:30:28.160 that over a long enough timeline, the line only 00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:30.460 goes up. So let's try to wrap this all up. Let's 00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:32.339 look at the big picture here. We've gone from 00:30:32.339 --> 00:30:35.240 Lianyuan to a McDonald's in Vancouver to a poker 00:30:35.240 --> 00:30:37.720 table to the absolute top of the world down to 00:30:37.720 --> 00:30:40.019 a prison cell and now to the president's pardon 00:30:40.019 --> 00:30:42.759 list. It's not just his story. In a way, it is 00:30:42.759 --> 00:30:44.960 the arc of the crypto industry itself. How so? 00:30:45.099 --> 00:30:47.400 What do you mean? Think about it. Crypto started 00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:51.400 on the fringes. It was rebels, cypherpunks, people 00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:54.180 actively ignoring the rules. That's early CZ 00:30:54.180 --> 00:30:56.019 building Binance without a headquarters. Okay. 00:30:56.180 --> 00:30:58.759 Then it grew explosively, faster than regulators 00:30:58.759 --> 00:31:01.079 could possibly catch up. Okay. There's Binance 00:31:01.079 --> 00:31:04.920 from 2017 to 2021. Then came the crackdown, the 00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:07.740 compliance era, the lawsuits, the arrests. That's 00:31:07.740 --> 00:31:10.019 the prison sentence. And now. Where are we now? 00:31:10.180 --> 00:31:12.599 Now we are in the era of institutional adoption 00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:16.119 and political integration. The final stage. The 00:31:16.119 --> 00:31:18.160 era where you don't fight the White House, you 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:20.980 get into business with them. Exactly. Crypto 00:31:20.980 --> 00:31:22.700 isn't an outside force fighting the government 00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:25.180 anymore. It's an inside force lobbying the government. 00:31:25.539 --> 00:31:28.440 It's a major donor class. It's powering the president's 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:30.779 family business. See's personal journey mirrors 00:31:30.779 --> 00:31:33.099 that perfectly from outlaw to establishment. 00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:35.180 It really makes you think about the definition 00:31:35.180 --> 00:31:38.500 of a criminal in the world of high finance. It 00:31:38.500 --> 00:31:41.259 does. The line between a criminal and a visionary 00:31:41.259 --> 00:31:44.660 is often just a matter of timing and who is sitting 00:31:44.660 --> 00:31:47.839 in the Oval Office. If the 2024 election had 00:31:47.839 --> 00:31:50.779 gone differently, CZ might still be a pariah, 00:31:50.839 --> 00:31:53.960 maybe even still in prison. Instead, he's a pardoned 00:31:53.960 --> 00:31:56.819 billionaire advising nations. That is a wild 00:31:56.819 --> 00:31:58.940 thought. History is written by the victors, and 00:31:58.940 --> 00:32:01.839 it seems like in 2026, crypto is the victor. 00:32:01.859 --> 00:32:03.920 That is the reality on the ground. So here is 00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:06.019 my final thought for you, the listener, and I 00:32:06.019 --> 00:32:09.099 want you to really mull this over. If CZ is really 00:32:09.099 --> 00:32:12.480 willing to donate 99 % of his wealth, and he 00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:14.960 is now politically bulletproof, thanks to that 00:32:14.960 --> 00:32:18.380 pardon, what is his next move? He's only 49 years 00:32:18.380 --> 00:32:20.940 old. Yeah. He has, for all practical purposes, 00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:23.319 Infinite capital, powerful friends across the 00:32:23.319 --> 00:32:25.480 globe, and a clean slate from the U .S. government. 00:32:25.660 --> 00:32:28.619 Exactly. Does a man who conquered finance, survived 00:32:28.619 --> 00:32:31.519 prison, and beat the system just retire and sail 00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:34.299 off into the sunset? Or does he aim for something 00:32:34.299 --> 00:32:37.160 even bigger than money? That is the $88 billion 00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:40.319 question. My bad. He's past building a company. 00:32:40.400 --> 00:32:42.279 He attempts to build something that fundamentally 00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:45.619 replaces the dollar system itself. A truly global, 00:32:45.700 --> 00:32:49.039 neutral settlement layer. Now, that is a scary 00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:51.339 thought. And while you are thinking about that, 00:32:51.420 --> 00:32:53.920 do yourself a favor. Go look up World Liberty 00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.420 Financial. See who's on the board. Dig into the 00:32:56.420 --> 00:32:58.960 tokenomics. It might explain a lot more than 00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:01.200 the news headlines do about who really runs the 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:04.759 world in 2026. Follow the money. Always. Thanks 00:33:04.759 --> 00:33:06.460 for listening to The Deep Dive. We'll catch you 00:33:06.460 --> 00:33:06.859 on the next one.