Just last month, Changpeng Zhao looked like the undisputed king of crypto. The upstart exchange FTX had spectacularly imploded in early November, and Zhao, the CEO of the exchange giant Binance, had carried out the kill shot by dumping FTX's native crypto token and triggering a liquidity crisis that sank FTX and its founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. For a few days, it even looked like Binance would acquire FTX.
In the weeks since, FTX's disordered collapse has risked pushing an already-stressed crypto industry over the brink. Prosecutors and regulators have alleged that FTX was not just a company in distress, but a massive fraud, and Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas. The FTX debacle has also triggered widespread mistrust among crypto survivors, who are watching for what dominoes might fall next—and whether one of them might be Binance.
