Binance Co-Founder CZ Reflects on Missed Opportunity with Ethereum (ETH) and Its Impact on BNB Launch

On March 5th, Binance Co-Founder CZ publicly disclosed via social media that he possesses no significant holdings of Ethereum (ETH). Rather, he acknowledges that only a minuscule amount may remain in older wallets. This absence can be attributed to the historical context in which BNB was initially launched as an ERC-20 token, necessitating ETH for transaction gas fees. Reflecting on his journey, CZ lamented the missed opportunity of investing in ETH, particularly recalling an encounter with Vitalik Buterin at a Bitcoin conference in 2013 and his awareness of Ethereum’s ICO proposition in 2014. Notably, during a visit in 2015, Vitalik stayed at CZ’s modest apartment in Tokyo, where CZ skeptically questioned the feasibility of implementing a Turing-complete language on the blockchain. Vitalik’s conviction in the project, however, later manifested into a transformative reality, shaping the landscape of decentralized finance. In retrospect, had CZ invested in ETH at that nascent stage, it might have altered the trajectory that led to the inception of Binance and the BNB token.