CZ Steps Down As Binance CEO

In a surprising turn of events, Changpeng Zhao — popularly known as CZ — the charismatic leader of Binance has announced that he is stepping down as the CEO of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

With a brief Twitter/X post which garnered over 8.2M views in the first 4 hours after being made public, CZ made the announcement on Tuesday 21st November 2023 and named Richard Teng as the new CEO of Binance. Richard was the former Global Head of Regional Markets at Binance.

CZ resigns

The move comes amid mounting regulatory scrutiny of the cryptocurrency exchange. As detailed by The Wall Street Journal, CZ reportedly plans to plead guilty to violation of U.S. Anti-Money Laundering requirements and is slated to appear in a federal court in Seattle; with Binance securing a $4.3 Billion settlement with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).

Crypto Market Reaction

Whilst a major news in the cryptocurrency space, the market has managed to hold up quite solidly, with most top coins by market caps taking less than 5% decline in prices within the last 24 hours. However, the native token of Binance — BNB — took a major decline by 🔻14%, tanking in price to $228.83 as at the time of writing this article.

Crypto Market, 22nd Nov. (Source: CoinGecko)

Also, in a tweet by Nansen — a blockchain data aggregator — it is outlined that over 1 Billion USD in value has outflowed from Binance since the news of CZ's departure broke in the crypto space. This estimation is a combined result of price drops and liquidity exiting the crypto exchange. The operational status of Binance is still optimal with withdrawals and deposits working, as there remains 65 Billion USD worth of asset's in Binance's control at the time of writing.

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