Our exclusive sit-down with CZ on freedom, prison, and the future of money.
CoinDesk Spotlight
Exclusive Interview
A Conversation With Changpeng Zhao
CZ on freedom, prison, and why he's betting on America again
In a rare, wide-ranging sit-down, the Binance founder opens up about the meaning of financial freedom, the four months that changed him, where AI and crypto collide next, and why he's done staying away from the U.S.
“The U.S. Constitution is actually an extremely good white paper.”
— CZ
What He Told Us
Two kinds of freedom
CZ draws a sharp line between financial freedom — having enough to live the way you want — and freedom of money, the right to spend, send, receive, and invest without gatekeepers. The first, he argues, is within reach for anyone willing to live frugally. The second is where most of the world is still stuck: billions of people with a phone and a connection but no access to the financial tools Americans take for granted. Closing that gap, he says, not chasing the next price spike, is still what drives him.
Why he's betting on America again
After his prosecution under the previous administration, CZ admits he wanted to stay as far from the U.S. as possible — a year and a half ago he wouldn't have sat for an interview on American soil. What changed his mind was watching the country correct course. He now describes the Constitution as a system brilliantly built to self-heal, and credits that resilience for America's role as the world's economic and policy leader. His goal now: help make the U.S. the capital of crypto — and fix the fact that, in his view, U.S. consumers still pay some of the worst prices in the world to buy and sell crypto.
AI and crypto are about to collide
His clearest conviction is about where AI and crypto meet. Today an AI can find your flight but can't buy it — the moment agents can transact, he argues, they'll do it on crypto rails, making financial infrastructure for machines one of the biggest demands on the horizon. He's already watching the lines blur: people are buying AI stocks with crypto, and in his view crypto shouldn't be its own industry any more than “the internet” is. It's foundational plumbing every other sector will eventually run on.
On the hype — then and now
He's blunt about 2022: the industry got drunk on its own story, the way the dot-com era did before it. He expects AI to run the same cycle — an overpriced peak, a crash, and steady growth underneath it all. The upside for crypto, he says, is that the speculative money has largely rotated into AI, leaving the long-term builders behind — a healthier base, even if prices don't moonshot overnight. On the CLARITY Act, he's measured: important, but a tactical milestone, not the thing that decides the industry's trajectory over five, ten, or twenty years.
Four months, a book, and what he saw
CZ wrote much of his book, Freedom of Money, behind bars, in 15-minute increments grabbed between routines. The first draft, he says, came out angry — full of blame — and the real work was subtracting it, coming to terms with what happened and letting it go. The experience exposed his blind spots (he admits he never learned enough about legal and compliance, and it cost him) and his strengths (a calm, almost stoic temperament he credits for steadying his teams). He has since donated roughly $2 million to Prison Professors, a nonprofit run by a man who served 26 years, and says plainly that many of the people he met inside should never have been there.
Life after running Binance
Still the single largest shareholder, CZ no longer runs Binance day to day — and says he doesn't want to. By his own account, the company may execute better without him. His wealth remains overwhelmingly in BNB, and his focus has shifted to early-stage founders, where small teams move fast. He's a zero-to-one person, he says; the weekly status meetings of a large organization were never his thing.
The full conversation goes deeper.
Hear CZ in his own words on security in 2026, advice to founders, and what he'd tell the 12-year-old who landed in Canada.
Bitcoin volatility looks cheap heading into Friday’s $10.5 billion quarterly options expiry — and that matters because cheap vol is an invitation. Deribit’s DVOL index sits at 41.5%, well below February’s peak of 90%, which means the market is pricing small swings precisely when large ones may be coming. South Korea’s Kospi circuit-broke for the fourth time this year, down 10% as Samsung and SK Hynix plunged on AI spending doubts. SpaceX has shed $600 billion in market value over three days. QQQ futures are down 3%. BTC is slipping toward $63,000 — but it’s holding the 200-week moving average better than anything else in risk assets today.
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1 As of 6/4/26
2 Stakingrewards.com. The range observed is from 09/16/22 to 09/28/25 and the average over this period is 7.10%. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets.
L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal.
What matters today
Markets
Story 1 of 3
Bitcoin volatility looks cheap as a $10.5 billion options settlement nears.
Deribit’s bitcoin volatility index, DVOL, is trading at 41.5% — well below February’s peak of 90% and slightly above May’s lows — heading into Friday’s $10.5 billion quarterly options expiry, the largest of the year. “Vol is cheap relative to its own history but no longer at fire-sale levels,” Deribit CCO Jean-David Péquignot told CoinDesk. The significance: cheap implied volatility means options premium is low, making it inexpensive to buy directional exposure — particularly on the bullish side — right before a catalyst event. The quarterly expiry on Friday is one of the largest scheduled volatility events of the year. Most of the open call interest is now underwater as spot has fallen through the quarter. An altcoin season signal also flashed this week: BTC has declined faster than alts, causing the BTC dominance ratio to briefly drop — the classic mechanical trigger. But in this case it was set off by BTC weakness rather than alt strength, a distinction that matters for reading the signal correctly.
An altcoin season signal flashed — but it was bitcoin’s slide that set it off.
South Korea’s Kospi triggered its fourth circuit breaker of the year, closing down 10%, as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell more than 12% and foreign investors dumped over $2.5 billion of Korean shares. The catalyst: AI spending doubt. Samsung and SK Hynix are global proxies for AI chip demand, so their slide is the same trade hitting SpaceX — down another 15% Tuesday — and the Nasdaq, where QQQ futures are off nearly 3% in pre-market. Leveraged ETFs tracking the chip names amplified the Korean selloff, with one fund targeting twice SK Hynix’s daily return losing more than 25%. Korea’s volatility gauge spiked toward 90. Bitcoin absorbed the backdrop and fell less than 1% over three days while SpaceX lost $600 billion in market cap. The average crypto RSI sits at 39.05, in oversold territory — a condition that has historically preceded short-term relief rallies but requires a catalyst to sustain.
Bitcoin slips toward $63,000 as a tech selloff drags risk assets lower.
Bitcoin fell to $62,840 on Tuesday, down 1.1% over 24 hours and 3.5% on the week, as a rotation out of AI and chip stocks bled into crypto. The Coinbase premium remains negative — signalling absent U.S. institutional spot demand — and Strategy’s STRC preferred stock is under renewed pressure, adding a company-specific headwind to the macro backdrop. BTC is holding above the 200-week moving average, currently sitting just above $64,000, which has served as key support throughout this bear phase. Analysts identify $59,000–$60,000 as the next significant support zone if current levels break; a move into that range would likely represent the deepest test of the bull thesis since the October 2025 peak. Micron earnings and the core PCE print later this week are the two macro catalysts that could either extend the selling or trigger the relief rally the oversold RSI readings are hinting at.
CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets.
L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal.
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