CZ’s Comeback Ignites BNB Rally - Market Surges on Founder’s Return

Binance's prodigal founder returns—and the market responds with fireworks. CZ's reappearance sends BNB soaring, proving once again that in crypto, personality moves markets more than fundamentals.

The Catalyst Effect

When Changpeng Zhao steps back into the spotlight, tokens dance. His mere presence triggered double-digit percentage gains as traders bet on renewed institutional confidence. The 'CZ effect' remains one of crypto's most reliable trading signals.

Market Mechanics at Play

BNB's surge isn't just sentiment—it's structural. The token serves as the lifeblood of the Binance ecosystem, from trading fee discounts to launchpad access. When CZ speaks, the entire machine hums louder.

Regulatory Reality Check

Meanwhile, traditional finance watches with mixed amusement and horror. Because nothing says 'healthy market' like a single individual's return moving billions in value—take that, FSA stress tests.

The Bottom Line: In crypto, founders still trump fundamentals. For better or worse.

A standout major this week has been BNB, which is up over 10% in the last seven days. While often overlooked, BNB has quietly delivered some of the strongest returns this year, outperforming most L1s and ranking second only to HYPE.

Both quantitative and qualitative factors help explain the strength seen since the start of the month. On the narrative side, rumors have been swirling that Binance founder CZ may be returning after changing his X profile from ex-Binance back to Binance. At the same time, Polymarket odds for a TRUMP presidential pardon for CZ have surged from 25% to 46% since early September. CZ, who pleaded guilty in November 2023 for failing to maintain an effective AML program, resigned as CEO as part of Binance’s $4.3 billion settlement. These shifts may not be a mere coincidence.

Adding to the mix, Binance is reportedly in talks with the DOJ to remove a key oversight measure from that settlement, which, if approved, could ease regulatory and compliance pressures on the exchange.

On the onchain side, momentum is clear. Weekly net revenue is up 45% WoW.

Average daily transactions are up 8.5% MoM and an eye-popping 200% since the start of the year. Recent token launches on BSC, such as STBL and ASTER, are fueling activity as well, surging 250% and 450%, respectively, since launch. Whether these gains are organic or orchestrated, such opportunities are drawing more traders onchain, eager to catch the next multiple.

BNB has successfully Leveraged the synergy between its centralized exchange and its native chain, creating a powerful feedback loop. Once dismissed as a background player, BNB is proving that sometimes the quietest performers make the loudest statements.

Alongside BNB’s recent outperformance, Binance’s ecosystem has seen isolated pockets of extreme performance that don’t appear entirely fundamentals-driven. The clearest example is MYX Finance, a perpetual DEX on BNB Chain, which has skyrocketed to a $3.32 billion market cap and a $16.9 billion FDV.

Like many other similar coins, the run-up has been violent. MYX rose from $0.10 in August to $16.82 today, a 168x increase. Yet, daily volumes have remained relatively flat since the initial surge in May-June. Open interest on MYX, often a better gauge of real perpetual activity, is just $1.8 million, compared with Hyperliquid’s $14.2 billion. Put differently, MYX trades at 3.3x lower FDV than Hyperliquid while holding 7,888x less open interest.

Despite this disconnect, shorting MYX has been nearly impossible. The token’s supply appears tightly cornered, and funding rates remain deeply negative (–20% every eight hours), punishing shorts even as price grinds higher. Historically, such divergences between price and funding are rare, but the same setup has appeared in assets like TRB and AUCTION, which also experienced sharp, thin-float rallies.

On that note, Aster has emerged as another “flavor of the month,” with the narrative framing it as CZ’s response to Hyperliquid. With MYX showing how stretched valuations can become, and YZi Labs (Binance Labs investment arm, with CZ on the team) as backers, many see this as an opportunity to position early in AsterDEX. Beyond being a perp DEX, AsterDEX highlights:

• Hidden Orders (dark-pool style execution)
• USDF (a stablecoin backed by delta-neutral positions)
• Leverage up to 1001×

However, for now, metrics like open interest or latency are secondary, and the orderbook makes trading in meaningful size nearly impossible.

Regardless, this is not shaping up as a fundamentals-driven story. Instead, there is a large pool of HYPE sideliners who have watched the token rip higher for months with zero exposure, and when they finally get their moment they are likely to be equally as loud and aggressive. In my opinion, from a metrics standpoint it is hard to make a good-faith case to buy, but it makes even less sense to short, which seems a lot like standing in front of a steamroller to pick up pennies, especially when that steamroller might have CZ in the driver’s seat.

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