Changpeng Zhao or CZ, CEO of Binance, expressed regret for not sending an earlier tweet that led to the demise of the crypto exchange FTX.
The CEO of the largest crypto exchange in the world made the statement during a live interview on Bloomberg TV on November 24.
CZ said,
“I actually reflect on the FTX situation and I kind of blame myself for tweeting that too late. As an industry, we let FTX get too big before we started questioning some of those things.”
On November 8, Zhao tweeted that Binance would destroy every single FTT token—native FTX’s token—on its books as a result of “recent revelations,” which sparked a run on FTT.
The information he mentioned came from a CoinDesk report that suggested Alameda Research, FTX’s crypto brokerage, may have had liquidity problems.
Zhao’s comments yesterday imply that he may have had some prior knowledge of the situation because his tweet came after the publication of the report.
CZ’s remarks come after industry leaders made commitments to make their operations more transparent, including Zhao himself.
In contrast, he tweeted on November 24 that “Crypto industry will be more transparent than traditional finance industries.”
The CEO added that he anticipates “little bit of contagion” from FTX as worries grow that cryptocurrency trading firm Genesis Global Trading may soon follow suit and declare bankruptcy.
In addition, he said,
“Whenever one big player goes down, especially a trading platform, there are many other people or institutions with money on the platform.”
CZ added that Binance is saving about $1 billion in the hopes of purchasing distressed assets from FTX, but that it will hold off on making an offer until all required investigations are finished and the assets are made available through the liquidation court.
