Binance Founder CZ: Unfollowing Due to Accounts Inactive for Over 30 Days
On September 8, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) responded to the recent unfollowing of certain accounts, clarifying that his X (Twitter) account had not been hacked and that the unfollowing was simply due to a cleanup of accounts inactive for over 30 days.
Before CZ's clarification, the action of his official account unfollowing certain accounts was interpreted by the cryptocurrency community as a possible hacking incident, leading to ongoing speculation on social media.
Public records show that CZ has previously made multiple statements regarding his following/unfollowing behavior—In November 2025, he warned users "not to buy accounts I have followed" and promised to unfollow any accounts found to be for sale. At that time, accounts he followed were speculated to be worth between $3,000 and $20,000 in the gray market; such incidents have led to questions about unusual operations on his account.
Due to CZ's high profile in the crypto community, his account activities (including following, unfollowing, and brief tweets) have historically been interpreted by some traders as potential "signals," leading to short-term speculative behavior—For example, a tweet he posted in 2021 featuring a "bull" image led to the issuance of a meme coin of the same name on the Binance Smart Chain, which saw a 357-fold increase within 48 hours; there have also been cases of meme coins being hyped based on false rumors such as "CZ encountered a surfing accident."
It is worth noting that prior to this incident, Binance had suspended services to users in several EU member states, including France, Italy, Poland, and Spain, since July 1 of this year due to the failure to obtain the EU MiCA license. The company stated at that time that "assets remain safe and can be withdrawn at any time" and expressed confidence in obtaining the MiCA license in the coming months.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
CZ's social media actions in the crypto community have long been over-interpreted as some kind of "signal"—from the unexpected creation of a meme coin from the 2021 "bull" tweet, to the November 2025 hype around followed accounts reaching thousands of dollars, to the recent misinterpretation of unfollowing inactive accounts as a hack. These events reflect a persistent pattern of the crypto community's tendency to "over-interpret + quickly monetize" the social behaviors of leading founders.
From a funding reaction perspective, rumors surrounding CZ's social media dynamics historically generate speculative funds flooding into related meme coins or concept coins in a very short time—such as the 357-fold increase trade in 2021, which involved only $754.49 and yielded nearly $246,000 in profit within 48 hours. These cases indicate that some traders have adopted "riding the coattails of prominent figures and cashing out before rumors are disproven" as a mature short-term arbitrage strategy, with capital flows following the speed of attention diffusion rather than any fundamental information.
This is highly similar to the pattern of volatility in meme coins like Dogecoin triggered by Elon Musk's Twitter interactions—both share the characteristic that the social behaviors of prominent figures have a strong attention spillover effect, where any minor event can be interpreted by the crypto community as an "insider signal"; currently, Binance is in a phase of business contraction in the European market due to MiCA license issues, which increases the sensitivity of CZ's personal account to being interpreted as a significant change signal at the company level.
Essentially, this represents a "pricing power shift" under the attention economy—mechanically, the power to determine the short-term pricing of meme coins does not lie with the project parties or fundamental analysts, but rather with speculative funds that can quickly capture, amplify, and trade social signals from prominent figures; CZ himself has previously reminded the community in a similar incident in November 2025 not to purchase based on accounts he followed, which indicates that even the signal's issuer is attempting to correct the market's overpricing of his social behavior, but with limited effect, reflecting that this "social signal-speculative monetization" mechanism has formed a market inertia independent of the parties' intentions.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- A single unfollow by a prominent figure has more communicative power than ten announcements from the project party.
- The more ambiguous the signal, the greater the arbitrage space.
- Even if the individual denies it, the market will trade first and discuss later.