CZ rejects golden statue project, calls linked meme coin a ‘quick buck’ scheme

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance, recently took to X, formerly Twitter, to address a fan-funded golden statue project marketed as a way to honor ￰0￱ firmly rejected any association, citing its ties to a meme coin launch he views as a “quick buck” ￰1￱ former Binance CEO has been a constant fixture in the headlines this ￰2￱ a pardon from President Trump, the former crypto executive is allegedly planning to sue ￰3￱ Elizabeth Warren for defamation over statements she made about ￰4￱ smells fish In his post , which has since gone viral with almost a million views and considerable reposts and comments, CZ expressed appreciation for the gesture before pointing out that “the fact that there is a meme coin associated with this means the creator probably just wanted to make a quick buck off an interaction.” “This is something I don’t appreciate.

Don’t buy the meme,” he wrote. “I would also never accept a statue of ￰5￱ kind of egomaniac would have a statue of himself in his house? Someone once gave me a t-shirt with my face on it, thinking I would wear it. Again, who has an ego to wear a shirt with their own face on it?

As if seeing it once is not enough… Stay safu!” The statue , which is 4 meters tall, gold-plated, and depicts CZ in his signature “ignore FUD” four-finger salute, was sponsored by an anonymous group of four supporters who crowdfunded about $50,000 to create ￰6￱ sculpture was unveiled and displayed outside the ￰7￱ in Washington, D. C., on October 28, 2025, around the time the crypto industry was awash with talk of CZ’s recent presidential pardon by Donald ￰8￱ the display, they planned to either gift it directly to CZ or auction it off to benefit Giggle Academy, his nonprofit education initiative launched post-Binance ￰9￱ that end, the project’s X page asked CZ to provide a shipping address for it to be sent to him, and the tweet was his ￰10￱ itself has also announced it has nothing to do with the statue and even distanced itself from the ￰11￱ statue’s creation sparked excitement in crypto circles, but controversy arose because of the project’s ties to the meme token called $CZSTATUE on the BNB ￰12￱ token was launched around the statue’s promotion, and rapidly hit a market cap of over $577,000.

Despite CZ asking folks not to buy, the market cap has not suffered much, and at the time of this writing, it was hovering just below $2 million as traders continue to ￰13￱ memes, no publicity is bad publicity. So, CZ publicly denouncing the meme project might not actually be a death ￰14￱ sets sights on Elizabeth Warren On Wednesday, Changpeng Zhao kind of confirmed rumors that he has plans for a defamation lawsuit against anti-crypto Senator Elizabeth Warren over false money laundering remarks against ￰15￱ Warren and leading Senate Democrats have condemned Donald Trump’s pardon of the Binance ￰16￱ reposted two posts talking about him mulling the lawsuit on the X ￰17￱ reported that Warren proposed a resolution to condemn Trump’s pardon of CZ, which she has claimed stems from ￰18￱ after news broke of CZ’s pardon, she wrote on X: “CZ pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge and was sentenced to ￰19￱ then he financed President Trump’s stablecoin and lobbied for a pardon.

Today, he got ￰20￱ Congress does not stop this kind of corruption, it owns it.” Binance and CZ have reportedly hired former SEC attorney Teresa Goody Guillen, and according to a Cryptopolitan report , she is preparing a letter calling for Warren to retract the public statements on social ￰21￱ Guillen will wait for Warren to refuse, after which they plan to file a defamation lawsuit against the ￰22￱ smartest crypto minds already read our ￰23￱ in? Join them .