Written by: Xiao Bing, Deep Tide TechFlow

Introduction: A $1 billion bet, old cases of forgery, allegations of whistleblowing... The public feud between the founders of Binance and OKX reveals one of the deepest old scars in the cryptocurrency industry.

On April 8, 2026, Zhao Changpeng (CZ)'s autobiography "Binance Life" (Freedom of Money) was released globally. This 457-page memoir spans from his childhood in a rural area of Jiangsu to four months in a federal prison in the United States, with all sales proceeds donated to charity, topping Amazon's cryptocurrency bestseller list.

However, the real explosive factor of this book lies not in the inspirational stories it tells, but in who it names.

The most controversial part of the book is this: at a dinner in 2025, Huobi founder Li Lin told CZ that he had seen a screenshot showing that OKX founder Xu Mingxing (Star) had personally reported him to the Chinese police, and it was this report that led to Li Lin's detention at the end of 2020.

After this bomb was dropped, Star made several long posts on the X platform in response, directly calling CZ a "habitual liar" and bringing up an old case from ten years ago.

A public feud that lasted for several days thus began.

Old Grievance: One Contract, Two Versions

To understand the intensity of this feud, we must go back to 2014.

That year, CZ joined OKCoin, founded by Xu Mingxing, as CTO. He stayed there for less than a year. According to CZ's account in the book, in early 2015, Xu attempted to renegotiate his 10% stake, and after the talks broke down, CZ left.

Leaving a job isn’t unusual, but what happened next turned into a major drama for the Chinese cryptocurrency community.

The core of the controversy was a business partnership facilitated during CZ's tenure: he brought in early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver, and the two parties signed a cooperation agreement regarding the Bitcoin.com domain name. After CZ left, an issue arose with this contract. Two versions of the contract surfaced, one containing a six-month termination clause and the other not. OKCoin accused CZ of forging the contract, while CZ countered by accusing OKCoin of manipulating trading volumes and falsifying reserve proofs. Roger Ver later sued OKCoin for $570,000, citing breach of contract.

Ten years have passed, and the "who forged the contract" mystery has never been concluded.

This time, Star dug up a notarized QQ chat record video from OKCoin from back then. He claimed the video proved that CZ sent two different versions of the agreement (v7 and v8) to OKCoin's accountant in December 2014, with definitive evidence of forgery. CZ explained in the book that he rarely used QQ, and it was possible that other employees of OKCoin logged into his account to forge the chat records.

Both sides hold steadfastly to their claims, each equipped with their own "ironclad evidence," the dispute remaining unchanged over the years.

New Grievance: Whistleblowing Allegations and OKEx's "Darkest Five Weeks"

The real sore spot touched by "Binance Life" for Star is the narrative about the regulatory storm in China in 2020.

On October 16, 2020, OKEx (the predecessor of OKX) suddenly announced the suspension of all digital asset withdrawals, citing that a key holder "was cooperating with the police investigation." This key holder was later confirmed by media such as Caixin to be Xu Mingxing. The suspension of withdrawals at OKEx lasted a full five weeks, with the OKB token dropping over 15% within 24 hours of the announcement, prompting furious users to question on Weibo, "When can we withdraw our money?"

CZ described the event in the book, insinuating that OKEx's wallet system had a "single point of failure" risk, as the detention of Xu Mingxing alone rendered the entire exchange inoperable. He contrasted this with Huobi, mentioning that Li Lin had also been under house arrest for about 90 days around the same time, but Huobi never interrupted withdrawals because "Huobi's wallet setup is better."

A month later, Li Lin was detained as well. CZ claimed in the book that five years later in 2025, Li Lin told him at a dinner that he saw a screenshot showing Xu Mingxing had reported him to the Chinese police.

Star's response to this accusation was straightforward: complete nonsense. He wrote on X that in the Asian cryptocurrency industry, any sizable platform and founder face numerous reports every year, and if reports alone could determine outcomes, the industry would have ceased to exist long ago. He added: a person who spent four months in prison coming out and lying to the world shows that a habitual liar's nature never changes.

It’s necessary to add some context: CZ pled guilty to charges of violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws in November 2023, was fined $150 million personally, Binance was fined $4.3 billion, and CZ himself spent four months in jail, being released in September 2024.

Escalation: The $1 Billion Bet and the "Divorce" Mystery

At this point, the feud still falls within the realm of "business history." What truly caused the situation to spiral out of control was Star dragging the flames into CZ's personal life.

Star added a line to his list of attacks: CZ's marital status. He questioned CZ's claim in the book and media that he was "already divorced," asking CZ to provide a signed divorce agreement from both parties.

There is a piece of public information: before being sentenced in 2024, CZ had 161 character reference letters submitted to the court. One of them was from Yang Weiqing, who wrote, "My name is Yang Weiqing, I met Mr. Zhao Changpeng in 1999, and we married in 2003. We jointly raised two children." Meanwhile, He Yi also wrote a letter appearing as "a business partner and mother of three children." This means that at least when the court documents were made public in April 2024, CZ's marriage to Yang Weiqing still existed, while he had already had three children with He Yi.

Star seized upon this time discrepancy. If CZ now claims to be "already divorced," when did the divorce occur? More importantly: has Binance's equity been legally divided from his ex-wife?

Star referenced the divorces of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos as a comparison. Gates signed a separation agreement with Melinda beforehand during his divorce, and Microsoft's SEC filings were promptly updated with the shareholding information. After Bezos's divorce, his ex-wife MacKenzie received roughly 4% of Amazon shares, worth about $38 billion, everything being public and transparent.

Star's implied message was clear: as a company regulated by multiple authorities, shouldn't changes in the equity of Binance’s founder be traceable like that of public companies?

CZ's response came quickly. He posted on X: "You can apologize now. I am officially divorced. Out of respect for my ex-wife's privacy, I won’t be posting any legal documents online. I am willing to bet $1 billion that I was officially divorced well before today. If you accept this bet, we can find a lawyer to verify it."

He also gave Star a 24-hour ultimatum: if you do not take the bet, it indicates you are misleading the public.

Star's counterattack was equally straightforward: "As the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of a regulated company, publicly proposing a $1 billion bet can hardly be called professional. I am curious if Binance's regulators find this behavior acceptable."

He did not take the bet but diverted the question elsewhere: "Has your Binance equity been legally separated from your ex-wife? Just proving that is enough."

The Governance Background of an Industry

Setting aside the personal grievances of the two titans, this feud reflects a long-neglected issue in the industry.

In the traditional financial world, the changes in marriage status or ownership structure of a founder of an institution managing hundreds of billions of dollars in client assets are major matters that need to be disclosed to regulatory bodies and (if it's a publicly listed company) the public. Every detail of Bezos's divorce is traceable in Amazon's proxy statements. The separation agreement between Gates and Melinda was submitted to the Washington State court.

But in the world of cryptocurrency exchanges, how much equity founders hold, how it is distributed, and whether there are holding or trust structures are almost entirely black box. Binance has yet to disclose a complete equity structure. While OKX has always emphasized its compliance with multiple jurisdictions, the equity history of its parent company, OK Group, is equally complex.

The collapse of FTX has already proven that when a exchange has fundamental deficiencies in corporate governance, the ones who ultimately pay the price are the users. The private relationship between SBF and Caroline Ellison and how it affected Alameda Research’s fund management was one of the core questions repeatedly asked during FTX's subsequent trial.

OKEx's "darkest five weeks" in 2020 serves as another cautionary tale. When a founder of an exchange is detained, the entire platform's withdrawals come to a halt, and hundreds of thousands of users' assets are locked up—such a thing is unimaginable in the traditional finance sector.

The entanglements between CZ and Star belong to them alone, and outsiders cannot judge who is telling the truth. But the issue inadvertently exposed by this dispute is far more concerning than the innocence of either side: when cryptocurrency exchanges have reached a scale comparable to traditional financial institutions, their governance transparency remains stuck in the early stages of development.

Two titans can continue throwing bombs at each other on X, but hiding in the shell crater are still the users.