Degens Have Already Found a Way to Make Money on CZ Stepping Down

Crypto degens have found a silver lining to the news that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) plans to step down and plead guilty to violating anti-money-laundering laws: speculating on a freshly launched shitcoin called "CZ."

The now ex-CEO, famous for touting “4” on Twitter to calm his millions of followers whenever FUD rears its ugly head, will see his company pay $4.3 billion in fines to the U.S. government. People across the industry are rushing to Twitter to voice their opinions on the matter, and the jury seems to still be out on whether this is negative or positive for the industry. 

But while the best and brightest in crypto rack their brains analyzing the impact this news will have, degens have found a way to speculate on it.  

Enter, the CZ token, already trading on Ethereum DeFi exchange Uniswap.

Launched within a couple hours of the news breaking, CZ is currently up a humble 18,000%.

To be clear, this coin has no relation to Binance, or CZ. It’s just some anonymous dev who saw the news and capitalized on it—but who doesn’t love a little entrepreneurial spirit?

At the time of writing this, CZ is sitting at a cool $130,000 market cap, but its fluctuating rapidly. So rapidly in fact, that in the time we've spent editing this article, it’s gone from 130K, to 200K, back to 130K, and has now landed at 300K. 

Meanwhile, as the "CZ" token does its thing, a second token associated with the drama is getting in on the action: TENG. The token is named for Richard Teng, who earlier today Forbes named as a likely contender to replace CZ as CEO. The token is up 14,000% since it began trading just hours ago.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to Step Down, Plead Guilty to Money Laundering

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has agreed to step down from his role at the world's largest crypto exchange as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. He also plans to plead guilty to violating criminal U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements that would potentially allow the exchange to keep operating, people familiar with the matter have told the Wall Street Journal. Zhao will appear in federal court in Seattle on Tuesday to enter his guilty plea, the sources told the news outlet....

Of course, none of this is meant to be financial advice. This Ethereum-based token was launched by an anonymous dev, and there’s a high chance the dev will eventually rug, pull liquidity from the project, and break the hearts of those left holding the bag.

For what it's worth, Ethereum charting site Dexscreener says the liquidity has been locked, but there’s always the chance that the dev bought up a bunch of the supply.

Regardless, it's all a reminder that when times get tough, degens find a way.

Editor's note: This story was updated to include details regarding the TENG token.