- Changpeng Zhao said he would no longer honor interview requests from news outlets with a clickbait history.
- He went further to say Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) spam bots are much more efficient than the outlets that fake headlines for clicks.
- At least three popular websites have misrepresented CZ’s opinion in the last eight days.
Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, said he would no longer honor interview requests from news outlets with a clickbait history. He went further to say Twitter spam bots are much more efficient than the outlets that fake headlines for clicks.
He made this decision on June 23 after having had to correct at least three wrong news items from different news websites in the last few days.
Only had to correct 3 wrong “news” articles in the past day or so.— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 19, 2022
Colin Wu’s Twitter news page reported on June 17 that CEO Zhao said “Binance is considering re-entering the Korean market,” pointing out that its defunct affiliate arm, Binance KR, had shut down in January 2021 “due to regulatory policies.”
Wu is usually good. But News is like a game of telephone.Yesterday, a guy asked for a selfie, among a few hundred others. He asked what is our plan for Korea. I said we are looking it (as we do in almost every market). Now this… 1/2 https://t.co/KPRVwIFBPF
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 17, 2022
Zhao clarified that its earlier Korean partnership ended due to poor product quality and bad user experience, not a regulatory issue. Likewise, the re-entering of the Korean market was also a misquotation.
On June 19, Coingape published the headline “Breaking: Binance Buys The Dip, Adds 101,266 Bitcoin.”
However, CEO Zhao commented, “Another wrong article. When #Binance cold wallet increases, it means more users deposited to #Binance. This journalist doesn’t seem to under the concept of cold wallets for exchanges.”
Fortune magazine also quoted the CEO of Binance out of context when they published the headline, “Binance boss CZ says the crypto downturn is far from over—and he plans to go on a spending spree.”
Instead, the CEO said, “Historically, we see four-year cycles, roughly two years bear and two years bull. But history may not predict the future. And I can’t predict the future.”