[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong] Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao (창펑자오), known as CZ, has directly rebutted four major rumours surrounding him and Binance.

On Feb. 3 (local time), blockchain outlet CoinPost reported that CZ took to X, formerly Twitter, to address recent speculative claims circulating in the market, saying many were untrue.

CZ first referred to a post related to prediction market platform Polymarket. Some social media posts claimed that a specific event had occurred and that betting on the market generated trading volume of $7 million. CZ dismissed the claim, saying the event itself did not exist and that the $7 million volume was also untrue.

Second, CZ rejected a rumour that he had halted a cryptocurrency supercycle. "If I had that kind of power, I would not be talking to you on social media," he said, adding that his remarks had been overinterpreted. He said he had only said he was less certain than before and did not mean he had stopped the market’s momentum.

The third rumour was a claim that Binance sold $1 billion worth of bitcoin. CZ drew a distinction, saying Binance did not sell bitcoin but Binance users sold $1 billion worth of bitcoin. He said Binance wallet balances change only when users deposit and withdraw, and that interpreting this as the exchange selling its own assets was wrong.

Finally, he also addressed talk about the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU). CZ said the process of converting part of the SAFU fund from stablecoins to bitcoin would proceed in stages over about 30 days. "Even if you buy $1 billion over 30 days, the impact on the bitcoin market, with a market capitalisation of about $1.7 trillion, is limited," he said. "Now we go back to Build," he added.

The explanations came as distrust around Binance continues after a large forced liquidation event last year. On Oct. 10 last year, about $19 billion in forced liquidations occurred on Binance, and criticism has since been raised over the exchange’s system stability and risk management.

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood said in a Fox Business interview on Jan. 26 that a software failure at Binance triggered about $28 billion in deleveraging, pointing to the incident as the cause of a sharp drop in bitcoin prices at the time. The remarks reignited criticism of Binance and CZ.

Binance compensated affected users about $283 million at the time, but criticism persisted that it was not enough because it amounted to about 1 percent of total liquidations. As restoring market trust emerged as a task, Binance announced on Jan. 30 that it would convert $1 billion of the SAFU fund from stablecoins into bitcoin.

Binance promised that if the SAFU fund’s value falls below $800 million due to bitcoin price fluctuations, it would replenish it back to about $1 billion. CZ’s explanations are interpreted as an attempt to calm persistent rumours and uncertainty despite those measures.

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