Binance Founder CZ on Memecoins, Aster, BNB vs SOL and More | TG Podcast
Speakers
ThreadGuy
Podcast Host and Web3 Content Creator
CZ (Changpeng Zhao)
Former CEO of Binance
- •Post-Binance mission shift: CZ (Changpeng Zhao) is prioritizing education at scale and founder support, running investments distinct from binance.com and leaning into the BNB Chain ecosystem as a coach and capital allocator.
- •BTC cycle view intact: He still views $500K to $1M per Bitcoin as plausible over the next cycle, expecting typical four-year dynamics with peaks often late in the year, and noting volatility is mild compared with prior cycles.
- •BNB Chain’s role: He frames BNB Chain as utility and trading-liquidity centric, with BNB Greenfield, BNB Smart Chain, and opBNB serving different needs; recent meme activity suggests it can rival Solana’s on-chain virality.
- •Memes as infra stress-test: He is not a memecoin trader, but sees memes as a demanding on-chain use case that forces better infrastructure for speed, data, and UX; the Chinese-ticker wave was an organic culture moment, not a planned strategy.
- •Perp DEX endgame: He expects perp DEX volumes could rival CEXs by the next cycle, with privacy features like hidden orders and dark-pool-style execution as a key differentiator for professional flow.
- •Measurement matters: Airdrops distort on-chain leaderboards; the most honest test for users is net execution quality after all fees and slippage, not a single headline metric.
- •CEX influence and missteps: The Meme Rush rollout showed how perceived exchange preferences can shock fragmented meme markets; he emphasized it was not an exclusive listing funnel and he was not involved.
On CZ’s post-jail priorities and identity
CZ emphasized he is not driven by money, power, or reputation. Jail clarified his priorities around health, family, and doing work that helps others at scale. He wants to be satisfied, late in life, that he did his best to help. That translates to two tracks: building a scalable digital education platform and helping founders as a hands-on investor and advisor. He remains a shareholder of Binance but does not run binance.com. He is focusing on BNB Chain and investing through a vehicle separate from the centralized exchange to keep mandates clean. His investing preference is early-stage, which is why a meeting with Hyperliquid’s founder in 2024 did not progress; Binance generally does not do large, late-stage acquisitions, with CoinMarketCap at a few hundred million dollars cited as the historical upper bound.
On market structure, adoption, and cycles
He sees a larger, more diverse crypto landscape with ETFs, stablecoins, RWAs, DeFi, NFTs, and memes coexisting across regions and communities. Fragmentation is a byproduct of growth and is healthy in a decentralized ecosystem. He remains constructive on Bitcoin’s multi-cycle trajectory and warns against overreacting to 1 to 2 percent swings that look trivial versus prior 50 percent drawdowns within days. He continues to view late-year windows as statistically likely cycle peaks but stresses that no one truly knows.
On BNB Chain versus Solana and the meme arc
He presents BNB Chain as three active networks: BNB Greenfield for storage, BNB Smart Chain as the EVM execution layer, and opBNB as an L2, with more architectures coming. The chain’s community skews toward utility and trading liquidity. He respects Solana’s performance and community and acknowledges it became the primary meme arena after the FTX era, aided by tools like Pump.fun. Recent weeks saw heavier meme action on BNB Chain, with some BNB memes reportedly reaching $100M to $500M market caps faster than on Solana. He attributes the Chinese-ticker burst to organic culture around Mid-Autumn Festival and playful reactions to his tweets, not a top-down plan. He stresses the Binance ecosystem is more open than critics claim: Trust Wallet supports BNB Chain and Solana, while Phantom is primarily Solana-only, and Binance.com lists across chains.
On Meme Rush and the CEX shadow
He learned about Meme Rush only after launch and shared the community’s confusion. The main misperception he flagged was that token listings would be exclusive to that funnel, which he said was not the intent. The KYC (Know Your Customer) gating under a $1M market cap and regional access constraints added to frustration. He was tied up traveling to Bahrain during the rollout and reiterated how memecoins, lacking price support, can swing violently when sentiment sours. His takeaway was that miscommunication from a central venue can cascade across a fragile meme market.
On perp DEXs, Hyperliquid versus Aster, and the path
to flipping CEXs He credits Hyperliquid’s rise to strong on-chain accounting, vault mechanics, marketing, and attention-grabbing large orders. However, his 20 years in markets lead him to believe professional traders do not want their intent visible; transparency invites strategy reverse engineering. He publicly called for privacy primitives like hidden orders and dark-pool-style execution, and Aster implemented a hidden order feature. He invested in multiple teams exploring privacy-first DEXs. He expects perp DEX volumes could rival CEXs by the next cycle, but believes user progression starts with CEXs for convenience before migrating to DEXs for breadth and early access. He frames Aster and Hyperliquid as different use cases that will copy features and evolve, potentially into their own L1 appchains with distinct ecosystems. Being first is not decisive; execution cadence, user protection, and ecosystem depth will matter more than any single feature.
On right metrics and how to measure “real” volume
There is no perfect single metric. Volume, user count, fees, and revenue all have caveats, especially during airdrops. He suggested data platforms flag airdrop periods rather than suppress listings. For practitioners, he offered a simple benchmark: split a test order across two venues and compare net tokens received after fees, slippage, deposits, and withdrawals. Over time, users gravitate to the venue with best price, deepest liquidity, lowest fees, and consistent security.
On building conviction, career timing, and founder
advice His 2013 Bitcoin conviction took six months of study and a life-level decision to go all-in with a fallback. After enduring a multi-year drawdown, later cycles felt easier. He rejects the myth that you must “make it” by age 25; he founded Binance at 40. His advice for a 23-year-old is to do startups earlier but manage risk, accumulate experience, and always maintain a viable fallback so failures are survivable.
On crypto media’s direction
He expects traditional media to fade and social-native media to dominate globally, with independent outlets serving cross-border audiences. Crypto-native micropayments can enable per-episode monetization at scale, alongside sponsorships. The world needs credible sources, which is an open opportunity for builders who execute consistently.
- →Track privacy features on perp DEXs, including hidden orders and dark-pool-style execution, as a magnet for professional flow and a likely competitive frontier.
- →Monitor BNB Chain meme infra and wallet tooling improvements; sustained UX gains could entrench on-chain activity beyond the current cultural wave.
- →During airdrops, discount headline DEX volumes and prioritize execution-quality tests and liquidity depth when assessing venue leadership.