Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao: SAFU Gains May Be Due to Luck
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao responded on social media that the SAFU fund purchased $1 billion worth of Bitcoin at an average price of $66,666.66, currently showing a floating profit of $270 million, which may purely be luck.
SAFU stands for Secure Asset Fund for Users, a user protection fund prepared by Binance for extreme situations such as hacking. In mid-February 2026, the fund converted about $1 billion in stablecoins into 15,000 Bitcoins, completing the conversion with the last batch of 4,545 Bitcoins on February 12, when Bitcoin was around $67,000, with a total holding of about $1.005 billion.
Based on the $1 billion corresponding to 15,000 Bitcoins, the average price is $66,666.67, which is essentially consistent with the circulated figure of $66,666.66. By early May 2026, Bitcoin was above $81,000, and the fund's value exceeded $1.2 billion, with a floating profit of about $217 million. Subsequent holdings were reported to exceed $1.27 billion, with a paper profit of about $270 million.
Zhao did not attribute this profit to trading ability, only providing luck as an explanation. He did not clarify whether he participated in the order or announce any profit-taking or conversion of Bitcoin back to stablecoins. The floating profit has not been realized, and the fund still holds Bitcoin.
The public wallet address is 1BAuq7Vho2CEkVkUxbfU26LhwQjbCmWQkD, and the balance can be verified on-chain. After the conversion was completed, the fund's valuation unit changed from stablecoins to Bitcoin, and any drawdown would directly reduce the payable assets.
The buyer is SAFU, and the seller is the Bitcoin market at that time, not Zhao's personal account. The event was driven by the protection fund actively converting stablecoins into Bitcoin. Funds moved from dollar-pegged assets into Bitcoin spot. The beneficiaries are users whose payout pool thickens when Bitcoin prices are above costs, while the pressured party is the same group of users when prices drop below $66,666.
The $270 million floating profit corresponds to a cost of about $1 billion, with an increase of about 27%. Zhao did not provide a new target position.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
SAFU has been accrued based on trading income since Binance's early days, intended to compensate users after platform incidents, not for the founder's proprietary trading. The action in February 2026 involved converting about $1 billion in stablecoins into 15,000 Bitcoins, with the last batch of 4,545 completed on February 12 at a price of about $67,000. Changpeng Zhao only referred to the $270 million floating profit as luck, without attributing the order rights to himself.
The funds remain in the public wallet, not transferred to a personal account, and no sale has been announced. After converting stablecoins to Bitcoin, the nominal dollar value of the payout pool follows the spot price: when Bitcoin was above $81,000 in early May, the floating profit was about $217 million, and the holdings later exceeded $1.27 billion. The term luck separates the outcome from strategy, while the position itself remains intact.
In comparison, MicroStrategy has converted company cash into Bitcoin since 2020, and Grayscale has created Bitcoin exposure through trust shares since 2018. The stage of SAFU is not about expanding trading but about re-pricing reserves. The insurance fund was originally dollar-pegged, now pegged to 15,000 Bitcoins.
Essentially, it is a transfer of pricing power. The thickness of user protection is no longer determined by stablecoin balances but by Bitcoin prices. The mechanism is that the fund uses a one-time conversion to swap tail payout risks for price risks; a floating profit of 27% only indicates that the current price is above $66,666, not that the price will remain when the next hacking incident occurs. By attributing the outcome to luck, Zhao effectively refuses to provide this position with a repeatable trading framework.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
The protection fund converts to coins, and the payout amount follows the price.
The floating profit is just a change in valuation until it is sold.
Calling the result luck keeps the position in place.