Bologna Billionaire: CZ’s Memoir Spills SBF’s $FTT Soup and the $7B Binance “Bank Run” That Was Just a Snack

In his new memoir "Freedom of Money," Binance founder Changpeng Zhao serves up a juicy origin story for crypto’s most infamous near-bailout — the November 2022 phone call where Sam Bankman-Fried casually requested “a couple of billion dollars” like he was ordering a bologna sandwich at a deli with a Black Card. CZ, ever the degen, didn’t flinch — but he also didn’t reach for his wallet. “I didn’t have any interest in owning FTX. I also wasn’t that interested in helping SBF,” Zhao writes, as if declining a friend request from a rug-puller on X. But like any responsible exchange overlord, he knew optics mattered. So he signed a non-binding Letter of Intent — less a lifeline, more a participation trophy. “I was explicit that we were not making any commitment. Our team would simply assess the numbers and then decide.” Spoiler: the numbers were wearing clown shoes.

Turns out, no amount of FTT-powered hopium could paper over the math when Alameda’s Caroline Ellison accidentally streamed her floor price live to the entire trading floor of the internet. “She had just revealed her floor price,” CZ recounts, the crypto equivalent of yelling “I’ll take $22!” on a sinking ship with a megaphone. Traders, smelling blood and leverage, promptly shorted $FTT into the stratosphere — or rather, the sewer. The token plummeted from $22 to $15, then $10, then $5 like a Solana dApp during peak congestion. In 72 hours, $6 billion had fled FTX faster than a VC from a failing launchpad. The only thing more liquid than the withdrawals? The excuses.

CZ also confirms the existence of “Exchange Collaboration,” a Signal group so exclusive it made the Bilderberg Club look like a Telegram spam channel. Assembled during the Terra/$LUNA meltdown, the chat hosted Zhao, SBF, Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Kraken’s Jesse Powell, and other crypto A-listers — basically the Avengers, but with more KYC and fewer capes. Regulators later came knocking, with DOJ and SEC agents salivating over potential collusion. “They were keen to find any possible hint of collusion or market manipulation between the exchanges,” CZ notes dryly. “Of course there was no such thing in this case.” (Though one can’t help but wonder if they were just coordinating emoji reactions to each other’s market takes.)

By November 9, Binance officially ghosted the FTX rescue plot. The company’s own $FTT stash — once valued at a cool $580 million — had, like a poorly coded airdrop, become “basically worthless.” It was déjà vu all over again, echoing Binance’s $1.6 billion $LUNA meltdown just six months prior. CZ seems to treat both as occupational hazards, like carpal tunnel from too much trading or emotional damage from watching $SOL’s volatility chart.

Then came the so-called “bank run” on Binance: $7 billion pulled in a single day on December 14. A bloodbath? A collapse? Nah — just Tuesday. CZ claims he spent the evening sipping wine with friends, unfazed. “I was not worried,” he writes. “All user funds were in our reserves.” The narrative writes itself: while plebs panic-sold, CZ dined. And within a month, not only did users return the $7 billion — they tossed in extra, like repentant degens aping back into a dip. The only thing more resilient than Binance