A Book Ignites a Decade-Long Feud: CZ and Star Clash Again
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A Book Ignites a Decade-Long Feud: CZ and Star Clash Again
The two big shots can keep throwing bombs at each other on X, but users remain stuck in the craters.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Xiao Bing, TechFlow
Lead: A $1 billion bet, an old contract-forgery case, whistleblower allegations… The public feud between Binance’s and OKX’s founders has reopened a deep, long-hidden wound in the crypto industry.
On April 8, 2026, Changpeng Zhao (CZ)’s autobiography, Freedom of Money, was released globally. This 457-page memoir traces his journey from childhood in a rural village in Jiangsu Province to four months in a U.S. federal prison. All proceeds from book sales were donated to charity, and it quickly topped Amazon’s cryptocurrency bestseller list.
Yet the book’s real explosive impact lies not in its inspirational narrative—but in whose name it names.
The most controversial passage recounts an incident at a dinner in 2025: Huobi founder Li Lin told CZ he had seen a screenshot showing OKX founder Star Xu personally reporting CZ to Chinese police—and that this report directly led to Li Lin’s detention at the end of 2020.
Once dropped, this bomb triggered an immediate response: Star posted multiple lengthy rebuttals on X, calling CZ a “habitual liar” and resurrecting a decade-old dispute.
Thus began a multi-day public war of words.
Old Grudge: One Contract, Two Versions
To understand the intensity of this feud, we must return to 2014.
That year, CZ joined OKCoin—founded by Star—as CTO. He stayed for less than a year. According to CZ’s account in the book, early in 2015, Star attempted to renegotiate CZ’s 10% equity stake; talks collapsed, and CZ resigned.
A resignation itself is unremarkable—but what followed captivated the entire Chinese-speaking crypto community.
The crux of the dispute centered on a commercial deal CZ brokered while at OKCoin: he introduced early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver to OKCoin, leading to a cooperation agreement concerning the Bitcoin.com domain. After CZ left, the contract unraveled. Two versions surfaced—one containing a six-month termination clause, the other lacking it. OKCoin accused CZ of forging the contract; CZ countered by accusing OKCoin of manipulating trading volumes and fabricating proof-of-reserves. Roger Ver later sued OKCoin for $570,000, citing breach of contract.
Ten years have passed—and the “who forged the contract?” Roshomon remains unresolved.
This time, Star resurfaced a QQ chat log video that OKCoin had notarized back then. He claims the video proves CZ sent two different versions of the agreement (v7 and v8) to OKCoin’s accountant in December 2014—conclusive evidence of forgery. CZ’s explanation in the book? He rarely used QQ; perhaps another OKCoin employee logged into his account and fabricated the chat record.
Each side holds firm to its version—and each insists it possesses irrefutable “evidence.” And so it has remained—for ten years.
New Grievance: Whistleblower Allegations and OKEx’s “Darkest Five Weeks”
What truly struck Star’s nerve in Freedom of Money was CZ’s retelling of the 2020 regulatory crackdown in China.
On October 16, 2020, OKEx (OKX’s predecessor) abruptly suspended all digital asset withdrawals, citing that “a private key holder is cooperating with public security authorities.” That private key holder was later confirmed by Caixin and other media outlets to be Star Xu himself. OKEx’s withdrawal suspension lasted exactly five weeks. Within 24 hours of the announcement, OKB plummeted over 15%; users flooded Weibo with furious questions: “When can we withdraw our money?”
CZ described the episode in his book, implying OKEx’s wallet architecture harbored a “single point of failure”—since the detention of one person, Star, brought the entire exchange to a halt. He contrasted this with Huobi, noting that Li Lin was also placed under soft detention around the same time for roughly 90 days—yet Huobi never suspended withdrawals, thanks to “superior wallet design.”
A month later, Li Lin was detained too. CZ writes that in 2025—five years later—Li Lin told him over dinner he’d seen a screenshot indicating Star had reported him to Chinese police.
Star dismissed the allegation outright: “Pure nonsense.” On X, he wrote that in Asia’s crypto industry, every major platform and founder faces dozens—if not hundreds—of whistleblower reports annually. If mere reporting dictated outcomes, the industry would have vanished long ago. He added: “A man who spent four months in jail emerges and lies openly to the world—proof that a habitual liar’s nature never changes.”
A contextual note: In November 2023, CZ pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws. He was fined $150 million personally; Binance paid $4.3 billion; CZ served four months in prison and was released in September 2024.
Escalation: The $1 Billion Bet and the “Divorce” Enigma
Up to this point, the feud remained within the realm of “business history.” What truly pushed things over the edge was Star dragging CZ’s personal life into the fray.
Star added one item to his list of accusations: CZ’s marital status. He challenged CZ’s claim—in both the book and media interviews—that he is “already divorced,” demanding CZ produce a divorce agreement signed by both parties.
Here’s some publicly available information: Before CZ’s sentencing in 2024, 161 letters of support were submitted to the court. One came from Yang Weiqing, who wrote: “My name is Yang Weiqing. I met Mr. Zhao Changpeng in 1999 and married him in 2003. Together, we raised two children.” Another letter was penned by He Yi, identifying herself as “a business partner and mother of three children.” In other words, at least as of the court documents made public in April 2024, CZ’s marriage to Yang Weiqing remained legally intact—even as he and He Yi had already had three children together.
Star seized on this temporal gap. If CZ now says he is “already divorced,” when exactly did the divorce conclude? More crucially: Has Binance’s equity been lawfully divided from his former spouse?
Star cited Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos as benchmarks. When Gates divorced Melinda, they pre-signed a separation agreement—and Microsoft’s SEC filings promptly updated its ownership disclosures. After Bezos’s divorce, his ex-wife MacKenzie received approximately 4% of Amazon shares—valued at roughly $38 billion—with full transparency.
Star’s implication was unmistakable: As a company supervised by multiple regulators, shouldn’t Binance’s founder’s equity transfers follow the same level of disclosure expected of public companies?
CZ responded swiftly on X: “You can apologize now. I am officially divorced. Out of respect for my ex-wife’s privacy, I will not post any legal documents online. I’ll put up a $1 billion bet that I was officially divorced before today. If you accept, we can bring in lawyers to verify.”
He gave Star a 24-hour ultimatum: Refuse the bet, and you’re misleading the public.
Star fired back just as sharply: “For the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of a regulated company to publicly propose a $1 billion bet is hardly professional. I’m curious whether Binance’s regulators consider such conduct acceptable.”
He declined the wager—and redirected the question elsewhere: “Have your Binance shares been lawfully separated from your ex-wife? Proving that alone is sufficient.”
The Governance Foundation of an Industry
Setting aside the personal grievances between these two titans, this feud exposes a longstanding, overlooked issue.
In traditional finance, any institution managing tens or hundreds of billions in client assets must disclose major developments—including changes in founders’ marital status or equity structures—to regulators and (if publicly listed) to the public. Every detail of Bezos’s divorce appears in Amazon’s proxy statement. Gates and Melinda’s separation agreement was filed with Washington State courts.
In the world of crypto exchanges, however, founders’ shareholdings, equity distribution, nominee arrangements, or trust structures remain almost entirely opaque.
The FTX collapse proved that when an exchange suffers from fundamental corporate governance failures, users ultimately foot the bill. One central question repeatedly probed during SBF’s trial was how his private relationship with Caroline Ellison influenced Alameda Research’s use of funds.
That an exchange founder’s detention could paralyze the entire platform’s withdrawal function—and lock up assets for hundreds of thousands of users—is unimaginable in traditional finance.
The personal entanglement between CZ and Star belongs to them alone; outsiders cannot judge who tells the truth. But the issue inadvertently exposed by their quarrel matters more than either party’s innocence: As crypto exchanges scale to the size of traditional financial institutions, their governance transparency remains stuck in startup mode.
The two titans may keep lobbing bombs at each other on X—but hiding in the craters are always the users.
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