I’ve been in this space long enough to know that whenever crypto starts moving, the fear‑mongering begins. Certainly some panic is warranted, however, the larger part is racket and intended to frighten new entrants and to discredit the builders. I have been hearing the same arguments all over again lately; Binance has a stablecoin; the DOJ lawsuit was fraudulent; AI bots say Binance is bankrupt; why is it not giving to charity? I am fed up with half-truth and blatant lies of panderers and perennial popularizers.
I find it interesting how some people pretend this is all organic concern, while at the same time influencers are being approached with real money to push fear for an entire month. Let’s be honest when someone is offered $25,000 just to spread FUD, that’s not activism, that’s marketing. And while some are busy negotiating briefcases, Binance is reporting 300 million users globally, processing $34 trillion in trading volume in 2025 alone, maintaining over $162.8 billion in proof-of-reserves, and helping prevent $6.69 billion in fraud while protecting 5.4 million users. If you need paid noise to compete with those numbers, maybe the problem isn’t Binance maybe the problem is that infrastructure beats influence every single time.
A Man Sold His Apartment. So What?
Among the most absurd slurs, there is the argument that CZ sold his apartment to purchase Bitcoin. People re-share an interview in which he was interviewed many years ago and gasp with horror as though he mortgaged the future of Binance. He didn’t. He just applied his own money and his capacity to take risks. In my case, this narrative is a demonstration of belief, rather than a warning sign. When you really believe in paradigm shift, you put skin on the game. CZ made a bet on himself that it was all right to lose everything. That is not even misappropriation of customer money. This is contrasted with other personalities in the industry, who were playing with the deposits of users, there is a sharp contrast that justifies the reason as to why some are jailed up to 30 years and CZ served just four months and continued with his life.
This is the Guilty Plea that Everybody Loves to Misread.
It is time to discuss the elephant in the room the settlement of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2023. The critics scream criminal, fraud and scammer, like Binance stole the coins of the users. The charges were actually failure to adopt an effective anti-money-laundering program and failure to be registered as a money transmitter. Different and severe mistakes in compliance, yes, however, the DOJ did not charge CZ or Binance with embezzling the funds of customers. The result: Binance was fined 4.3billion, and CZ was fined 50 million criminal money. He stepped down as the CEO and took responsibility and was not conducting a fraudulent exchange. The prosecutor admitted that he is not implying that Mr. Zhao is Sam Bankman-Fried, or that he is a monster. Concisely, non-compliance is not equivalent to stealing money by users.
Others attempt to use the pardon of Trump as a weapon and argue that it erases wrong or is an indicator of a dirty deal. It is just a matter of fact that in October of 2025, President Trump handed over a full and unconditional pardon. At this time CZ had already been released and fined. He is not a fugitive shareholder living on a yacht. In my opinion, the pardon is a political gesture, and not an exoneration. It does not alter anything regarding the daily affairs of Binance-regulatory compliance remains an issue and the new CEO, Richard Teng, remains in charge of the ship.
We Still Means Something
The fact that many people become agitated about CZ using we in his posts is surprising. How can he say we about Binance, having resigned? This is a man who is a founder of the company, he still has a big share and is interested in the success of the company. By we, he means the fellowship of the builders, the users and the shareholders who have the common mission. I no longer do my projects day-to-day, but still, I employ we when making references to them. It is a sense of pride and ownership. When that fires you, have you ever made anything worthy of a defense?
Stablecoins and the 87 Percent Myth.
A report by Forbes is the most consistent FUD and suggests that wallets that are linked to Binance contain approximately 87 percent of the supply of the USD1 stablecoins. 87 per cent is worrisome on its own but the report indicates that Binance holds a share in the form of about 4.7 billion USD1 of the total amount of 5.4 billion supplied by USD1.
It also points out that it is not exceptional to have stablecoin concentration on one venue, Ethena is 77.48 on its own site, USDe, and Sky Dollar is 55.78 on Sky. Satoshi Club and other people mentioned that these tokens are possessed by users and not Binance. According to CZ himself, looking at the holdings in centralized exchanges across the board in stablecoins, Binance has a total share of approximately 60-70 percent. Meaning, USD1 concentration just represents users depositing their stablecoins on the most liquid exchange; no cabal is involved.
An Associated Cost: Systemic Risk?
It is said that this concentration is systemic risk. That claim ignores facts. The evidence of reserves program at Binance demonstrates that all user deposits raise reserves at the same rate. The assets are subjected to 1:1 holding, no corporate debt, and an emergency Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) is provided as a backstop. According to independent on-chain analysts AMBCrypto, the reserves of Bitcoin at Binance were approximately 650,000 BTC in February 2026, or less than a decade after such a small volume could be speculated about across social media. The netflow data demonstrated the regular inflows and outflows, and there were no signs of the rush to self-custody. Those figures are no bank run, they are just standard trading.
Orchestrated FUD? You Bet
Individuals tend to say that the worries about Binance are grassroots only and that they would have to be authentic. Research disagrees. In February 2026, a report found a smear campaign against Binance organised by AI. Co-founder He Yi has indicated that the FUD wave was meant to turn active traders into sellers and long-term holders into discouraged traders. She used a fall in the Fear and Greed Index to the single digits to indicate that negativity was not formed on the fundamentals. The report implicated that the increase in the fear was not just spontaneous but an organized effort to work with the psychology. Although other people refer to this paranoia, every person in trading markets will understand that some stories are always used to push prices. To me this recognition of this coordination is realistic rather than conspiratorial.
Fraud, scam, Ponzi? Hardly.
The least irritating FUD line is the comparison of Binance to collapsed exchanges such as FTX. The DoJ case has been turned into a stick to assert similarity. It is necessary to be straightforward FTX failed as the executives embezzled the billions of deposits of its customers. The Binance problem was related to compliance and not the misuse of customer funds. This is unjustified and false.
The Binance annual report of 2025 provides figures that FUD bunnies can easily overlook. By 2025 Binance will have achieved a trading volume of $34 trillion in total on all products and will have expanded its spot offering to 490 coins, as well as 1,889 trading pairs. The separate surveys established that Binance processed between a quarter and close to fifty percent of all Bitcoin and Ethereum dealings. The books are due to the fact that the world trusts the platform to be liquid, rather than a cult. Notably, the report mentions that the direct exposure of Binance to illicit money was reduced by 96 per cent since 2023. The exchange prevented over 5.4 million users, answering more than 71,000 law-enforcement inquiries and aiding in the capture of 131M in criminal activity, in 2025 alone, the exchange halted potential 6.69 billion dollars in fraud losses. That is how a compliance oriented company acts and not a company that conceals skeletons.
In Binance 2025 proof-of-reserves, it was announced that it had a user balance of 162.8 billion in 45 assets, which was 32 percent more than it was previously. Such reserves are maintained due to the fact that users hold their assets in the exchange. In case people were panicking, those balances would drop, rather than increase. Facts still trump rumors.
SAFU Fund and the Bitcoin Conversion.
Criticizers of Binance note that Binance has a reported 1-billion emergency fund that it converted to Bitcoin and question, What happens when Bitcoin crashes in an emergency? Secure Asset Fund for Users In 2018, the Secure Asset Fund for Users was launched, which keeps approximately a billion dollars, and is invested in cold storage obtained through the fees of the trade. It is an actual insurance pool rather than a marketing slogan. Early in 2026, Binance had resolved to move a portion of the capital off stablecoins and into Bitcoin, which is an open bet on the asset that pegs the crypto market. Binance declared that it would purchase approximately 33 million dollars of Bitcoin every day over the course of approximately 1 month which amounts to approximately 11,900 BTC. It further promised to inject additional funds into the fund in case of market fluctuations reduced its worth to less than 800m dollars. The wallet address is visible, it is public. This is what transparency appears to be.
Charity Isn’t Just PR
In the event of stalling in criticism, the detractors turn to virtue signalling: Where’s the giving back? The answer is everywhere. The Binance Charity Foundation was founded in 2018 and it is incorporated in the United States and Malta as a tax-exempt entity. By the Q1 of 2025, it has donated more than 40m since its inception, benefiting an approximation of 3.8m people. CZ also introduced a self-sovereign charity system, czcharity.com, with no fees of administration and end-to-end on-chain tracking. This implies that all the money donated can be tracked and it reaches beneficiaries.
How would that appear down on the ground? The platform restored ten community food stations in Sudan. They have currently 12,000 hot meals per day, and offer monthly food packages to 6,340 households. In Kenya, the orphanage was a charity partner of CZ who provided 104,755 doses of anti-HIV medicine. This has reduced viral loads of the children to zero levels. The foundation established seven medical points along the Thailand-Myanmar border which was staffed by 23 professionals. They conducted significant surgeries and health care services to close to 19,000 refugees. The charity does not only react to crises. It is also a long-term investor.
CZ gave approximately 10m BNB as a donation to open-source biotechnology. He established a 2 million permanent education fund on behalf of children of American soldiers and airdropped 1000 BNB personally in an earthquake relief program where up to 1.5 million dollars were distributed to users which were affected. These are not tweets but actual deeds.
In case those numbers are not sufficient, look at smaller stories. CZ himself financed operation on cardiac patients and extremely disfigured jaws. In 2024, when he had completed his term, his charity organization said that its projects helped more than 69,360 individuals in Sudan, Kenya, Thailand, and Myanmar. They aren’t PR stunts those are lives altered. Honestly, I would prefer that the executives invest their millions of dollars in surgery and food initiatives rather than invest in super-PAC.
The Power of Community, Liquidity and Volume.
It is no wonder that FUD campaigns continue returning to Binance: it is the largest player in the room. Having 300 million registered users and trading up to 34 trillion by 2025, Binance will still be the liquidity provider to the crypto market. According to studies, Binance processed up to half of all Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions in the global market during times of stress. Such liquidity is appealing to the traders and poses threat to competitors. All the trolls screaming toward the bank to run want to hope that in case enough people believe this, the liquidity will move to the exchange of their choice. On-chain evidence however does not reflect this: reserves of Bitcoin remain within their usual range, and netflows are standard. Users are not actually purchasing the FUD.
The community is stronger than a trading community. According to Binance 2025 report, the Alpha 2.0 platform obtained 17m users and achieved more than 1trillion volume. It rewarded 782,000,000 and prevented 270,000 attempts of participation by fraudsters. These figures show how innovation and security may co-exist. Trading volumes increased 21 per cent and over-the-counter fiat trading increased 210 per cent in the institutional arena. These are not the measures of a platform that is dying.
And finally, FUD is a success factor. No one is bothered to create fear regarding irrelevant projects. When you move 34 trillion dollars of volume, cut exposure to illicit funds by 96 percent, save 5.4 million users $6.69 billion of fraud and give tens of millions to charity, you are a target. The boundaries between healthy skepticism and wicked gossip are shallow and most walk across them to gain power or even wealth. I have a simple method of this; I read the data, and I disregard the noise.
Whenever a coordinated smear occurs, I enquire about whether the numbers coincide with the narration. Do withdrawals spike? Do reserves fall? Is there a collapse in trading volume? The first response has been a resounding no. I would rather view it as an investment by a company in compliance, developing new products, assisting regulators, and returning to communities. As soon as critics stick up their noses with a man who is selling his apartment or is abusing the term criminal, I see an element of desperation and not hard work.
Keep your money and your eyes open then yes. However, keep in mind that FUD usually speaks more of the origin than of the object of the fear. Binance and CZ are storm resistant and emerge stronger after each storm. They will repeat the same thing, as history tells us, and we shall be here trading, building, and laughing at the trolls.
