{"id":24222,"date":"2026-06-29T15:47:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/29\/cz-wants-to-make-the-u-s-the-capital-of-crypto-nft-plazas\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T15:47:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:47:48","slug":"cz-wants-to-make-the-u-s-the-capital-of-crypto-nft-plazas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/29\/cz-wants-to-make-the-u-s-the-capital-of-crypto-nft-plazas\/","title":{"rendered":"CZ Wants to Make the U.S. the ‘Capital of Crypto’ – NFT Plazas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Changpeng \u201cCZ\u201d Zhao is making his most visible return to the American stage yet \u2014 and this time, he arrives bearing a mission rather than just an apology. CZ sat down with CoinDesk for a pair of interviews earlier this month, sharing his views on the exchange he founded, crypto\u2019s trajectory in the U.S., and his post-prison activities. Across both conversations, the message was strikingly consistent: the United States has fundamentally turned a corner on crypto policy, and CZ intends to plant himself at the center of what comes next \u2014 whether Washington is entirely ready for that or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Pardoned Man With a Plan<\/span><\/h2>\n

CZ resigned as <\/span>Binance<\/span><\/a> CEO in November 2023 after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged he violated the Bank Secrecy Act. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024, and completed his sentence by September. In October 2025, he received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

That pardon proved the critical turning point for his reentry into American public life. In a post on X shortly after, Zhao vowed to \u201chelp make America the capital of crypto and advance Web3 worldwide.\u201d Since then he has appeared at Consensus Miami, held meetings with Washington policymakers, and given his most detailed public remarks yet about Binance\u2019s U.S. ambitions. \u201cWe want to do more in the U.S., and personally, I really want to help make the U.S. the capital of crypto,\u201d he told CoinDesk. \u201cI want to bring more crypto services into America.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Binance Founder \u2013 Changpeng \u201cCZ\u201d Zhao<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Liquidity Gap Hurting American Traders<\/span><\/h2>\n

Beneath the headline ambitions sits a specific, data-grounded argument about what is structurally broken in the U.S. crypto market. CZ believes the U.S. is fundamentally disadvantaged by lower liquidity compared to global exchanges, meaning American consumers pay higher trading fees and face wider slippage on every transaction. \u201cU.S. consumers don\u2019t have access to the best liquidity,\u201d he said. \u201cThat means they pay a much higher price to buy and sell crypto.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The framing is pointed: crypto is the only place where U.S. consumers \u2014 operating within the largest capital markets in the world \u2014 do not get the best prices. With 80% of global GDP sitting outside the U.S. and other countries actively welcoming crypto activity, he argued there is no guarantee that domestic-only exchange growth closes the pricing gap fast enough to matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

His proposed solution is to allow Binance.US to access Binance Global\u2019s deeper order book. \u201cWe would love to be able to provide that in some way, either revitalize Binance.US or somehow provide U.S. consumers the best liquidity in the world and the best prices,\u201d CZ said at Consensus Miami 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

CZ wants to make the U.S. the \u2018capital of crypto<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Ownership Without Operations<\/span><\/h2>\n

Diagnosing the 2026 Bear Market<\/span><\/h2>\n

CZ\u2019s return has coincided with a painful stretch for the broader crypto market. Bitcoin hit an all-time high above $126,000 last October and has since dropped approximately 50%, trading near $60,000 at the time of CoinDesk\u2019s interviews. It opened 2026 near $89,000, briefly climbed above $96,000, then declined steadily.<\/span><\/p>\n

CZ cited multiple drivers behind the downturn: investors rotating capital into AI, geopolitical tensions, and the typical four-year crypto market cycle. He remained measured rather than alarmed. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be more and more demand for financial technologies, because there will be more and more transactions, so the industry will grow. So I\u2019m not worried about the industry or the short-term price fluctuations,\u201d he said. On the AI rotation specifically, he argued that capital moving into emerging technology sectors would ultimately prove positive for the broader digital asset ecosystem long term.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regulation: Real Progress, Still Incomplete<\/span><\/h2>\n

CZ\u2019s Washington tour has inevitably involved commentary on the regulatory environment that once made the U.S. hostile territory for Binance. He credited the passage of the <\/span>GENIUS Act<\/span><\/a> \u2014 establishing a federal stablecoin framework \u2014 as a meaningful step. On the broader Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, however, he struck a more tempered tone. He described such bills as \u201csmall, tactical things, which are really important, but not gonna impact the growth of crypto longer-term,\u201d adding that U.S. regulatory leadership would likely persist even if the <\/span>Clarity Act<\/span><\/a> fails to pass this year. At the same time, he warned that delays risk ceding America\u2019s competitive position to countries that move faster to establish their own frameworks.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Stakes of the Comeback<\/span><\/h2>\n

According to Forbes, Zhao is currently the 17th-richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at $111.1 billion as of April 2026 \u2014 much of it tied to BNB, giving him enormous personal stakes in the health of the very market he is championing. In 2026, he is building again through investments via YZi Labs and ongoing conversations with governments on crypto policy, but the biggest challenge that remains is trust following his legal case and pardon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether CZ can convert his renewed access \u2014 to Washington, to regulators, to the American builder community \u2014 into concrete improvements in U.S. market structure is still an open question. But for an industry that spent years watching its biggest names retreat from American shores, the world\u2019s most recognizable crypto founder now actively lobbying for U.S. dominance in digital assets is a signal that the political and regulatory winds have shifted in ways that seemed unthinkable just two years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Changpeng \u201cCZ\u201d Zhao is making his most visible return to the American stage yet \u2014 and this time, he arrives bearing a mission rather than just an apology. CZ sat down with CoinDesk for a pair of interviews earlier this month, sharing his views on the exchange he founded, crypto\u2019s trajectory in the U.S., and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nftplazas.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1-2-21.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

A recurring and carefully managed theme in CZ\u2019s reemergence is the distinction between owning companies and running them. \u201cI\u2019m still the single largest shareholder of Binance, but I don\u2019t run <\/span>Binance<\/span><\/a>,\u201d he said. The same applies to Binance.US, where he now sits as a board member rather than an operator. Despite both companies sharing CZ as majority shareholder, they maintain separate leaderships and different investor groups \u2014 \u201ctwo very separate companies,\u201d in his words. Zhao ruled out directly leading Binance.US, expressing a clear preference for informally advising founders and portfolio companies rather than taking any executive seat.<\/span><\/p>\n