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Binance CEO CZ Calls Out Mr. Wonderful, Continues to Knock SBF, FTX

The recent thread from CZ doesn't hold back when reminding the crypto community of which of history O'Leary choses to side with.

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December 11, 2022

CZ Hits at Kevin O’Leary Comments

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) took to Twitter on Friday, December 9 to call out notable charlatan Kevin O’Leary for his recent comments on a Dec. 8 episode of CNBC’s Squawk Box.

O’Leary is in the crosshairs for his defense of the collapse of now disgraced crypto co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his fraudulent venture, FTX. O’Leary also made comments toward Binance, claiming that their “opaque” leadership caused FTX problems around the world.

CZ dove into a 12-tweet thread that unraveled more of the situation between the FTX and Binance. The thread made sure to call out what CZ says are “baseless” attacks from O’Leary.

It seems $15m not only changed @kevinolearytv’s mind about crypto, it also made him align with a fraudster. Is he seriously defending SBF?https://t.co/JoKapOcMXr (baseless attacks start around 4:20).

A thread. 1/11
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) December 9, 2022

CZ took note of the direct conflict of interest at hand in O’Leary’s supportive commentary and his acceptance to be a $15 million spokesperson. O’Leary also recently said he would support SBF in another venture if requested.

The Binance CEO notably feels his ethnicity is one of the reasons for O’Leary’s ire. Both Canadians, O’Leary has previously accused Binance of being a Chinese company. One tweet notes how Binance has the license to operate in more than a dozen countries.

8/ My ethnicity was a focus of those attacks and @kevinolearytv signaled his intention to continue those attacks in the media and will likely repeat them at next week’s Senate hearing. I’m Canadian and Binance is not a Chinese company.
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) December 9, 2022

O’Leary will testify at the request of Sen. Pat Toomey in the Dec. 13 Senate Banking Committee hearing regarding FTX. While he did admit to the failure of due diligence around SBF, it is hard to take anything O’Leary says on the matter at face value.

The thread was spicy enough for SBF himself to chime in as well. SBF directed his comments to Tweet 5, where CZ said it was Binance who initiated the buyout of their 20% equity in FTX. CZ says Binance’s increasing weariness of FTX led to initiating the talks.

Ole Sam says that FTX initiated the talks and added that Binance demanded an extra $75M in the negotiations.

You threatened to walk at the last minute if we didn't kick in an extra ~$75m.

We did it anyway because this just made us feel more confident we didn't want Binance on our cap table.

But again, none of this is necessary. You won. Why are you lying about this now?
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 9, 2022

The fallout from FTX is sure to get more sound bites and analysis when both houses of US Congress have committee meetings on Dec. 13. The CEX wars continue.

What is Binance:

Binance positions itself as the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem and crypto-asset infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by volume. The Binance platform aims to increase the freedom of money for users and features a comprehensive portfolio of crypto-asset products and offerings, including trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralization, and infrastructure solutions.