Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
It was yet another historic week for the crypto industry, with Tuesday’s shocker—Binance CEO Chengpeng Zhao stepping down and pleading guilty to violating U.S. money laundering laws, and his exchange agreeing to pay a massive $4.3 billion fine—sending Crypto Twitter into a frenzy.
Many Twitter users quickly seized on the irony that Zhao had, prior to this week, routinely used the symbol “4” to dismiss rumors of Binance’s legal troubles as baseless misinformation—now, not only were the rumors proven to be true, but the number four was back with a vengeance.
CZ always knew.
He has been telling us this whole time. 🤯
DOJ Seeks $4 Billion From Binance For Settlement pic.twitter.com/N4dbCwvphG
— Altcoin Daily (@AltcoinDailyio) November 20, 2023
With the real possibility that Zhao might be headed to prison hanging in the air, Twitter users processed the surreal reality that, in just over a year, two of crypto’s biggest names have ended up guilty of criminal charges. Some poked fun at the fact that Zhao and his one-time rival, disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, might be on track for a prison yard reunion.
#BTC Sam & CZ in prison pic.twitter.com/QAM8tVnu8r
— naiive (@naiivememe) November 22, 2023
here we go again.@cz_binance jail aint so bad, ill put in a good word with flacco and dem https://t.co/yx0wpeIWx7
— Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@wagieeacc) November 21, 2023
Even this week’s historic Binance settlement, though, could only keep people’s attention so long: several other industry developments came to dominate discourse on the back half of Thanksgiving week.
Blast, a new layer-2 blockchain from the creators of controversial NFT marketplace Blur, saw an astonishing level of deposits this week, with degens locking over $400 million onto the network in hopes of accumulating lucrative rewards.
Some Blast users, though, soon began complaining about the network’s lack of transparency, and accused its makers of orchestrating an elaborate Ponzi scheme.
In just 2 days, $400M+ has been deposited into @Blast_L2.
I personally invested more than 10 #ETH.
But, I realized late, it’s one of the biggest PONZI of 2023.
Open this thread to save your hard-earned money: pic.twitter.com/SVP2WZUBkA
— EvanLuthra.eth (@EvanLuthra) November 24, 2023
I physically can not believe this industry put in 300 million dollars into this thing without even thinking twice
and I can not believe the “top VC” in crypto promotes this
this is an industry of — and I’m being generous here — clowns
everyone should be deeply embarrassed pic.twitter.com/q8wCvmTltV
— mert | helius.dev (d/acc) (@0xMert_) November 23, 2023
The negative commentary surrounding Blast reached enough of a fever pitch that Blur’s pseudonymous creator, Pacman, took to Twitter Friday afternoon to quell the community’s concerns.
I’ve seen a number of misunderstandings about Blast spreading around. While many of these are humorous memes, it’s important to set the record straight on a few points:
— Pacman | Blur + Blast (@PacmanBlur) November 24, 2023
Meanwhile, on Solana, the emergence of a booming market for SPL20 tokens—digital assets that are inscribed on denominations of Solana in the same way Bitcoin Ordinals are generated—stirred up excitement among the blockchain’s dedicated community.
Volume is insane on these SPL20
We are so back pic.twitter.com/Y7V0VXeLmj
— D ᴜ ɴ ɴ ᴏ ᴏ (@dunnooworld) November 24, 2023
Some, though, scratched their heads at the development, given the fact that NFTs already exist in large numbers on Solana, thanks to the network’s support of smart contracts. Bitcoin didn’t have that same capability, which is why Ordinals were born out of necessity.
spl20 more like
why are you doing this
— KEMOSABE (@KEMOS4BE) November 24, 2023
SPL20 inscriptions on solana are incredibly stupid and all my bitcoin and ordinals friends hate them
bullish
— Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) November 23, 2023
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
