Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao took to Twitter to comment on the publication of a fake news story that reported the alleged arrest of the crypto exchange’s founder “during an FBI raid.” The material with unverified data was published by the well-known Chinese portal 163.com, and later other sites began to link to it, thus spreading false information.
In addition to denying his own arrest, Zhao also drew attention to the absurdity of the text of the news: the authors of the material noted that “the founder of Binance was arrested in his estate during an FBI raid, and in the basement of the house they found a room filled with BNB and BUSD.” Zhao scoffed at the mention of a room filled with digital tokens, hinting at the absurdity of the claim.
CZ also noted that despite the material’s obvious falsehood and clickbait audacity, it was copied and quoted by numerous other sites. That is why he decided to speak out and deny what was written, saying that no arrests had taken place.
However, fake information about the arrest of the head of the crypto exchange was able to affect the BNB rate, which fell to $280.
BNB rate for the last 7 days according to Coinmarketcap
The head of Binance also recalled the case with the material of the publication The Block, for which the journalists chose a too “loud” headline, writing about the “police raid” of the Binance office in Shanghai.
Later, the authors of the material removed the mention of the “raid”, changing the wording to “visit by representatives of the authorities”, which, according to CZ, actually corresponded to reality. However, a few days turned out to be enough for the material to spread quickly on the network and significantly excite the crypto community.
Zhao noted that the poor choice of wording at the time not only damaged the company’s reputation, but also negatively affected the exchange rate of the coin and its market capitalization.
