Author: zhou, ChainCatcher
Retail investors fear being cut off the market the most, but they fear missing out even more. CZ stands at the intersection of these two emotions; a single statement can double someone's investment overnight or cause it to drop to zero. The volatile price movements related to CZ are numerous, and it seems that once a connection is made with him, price trends deviate from fundamentals and instead respond to emotional factors.
CZ is not known for actively favoring and publicly buying many cryptocurrencies, yet each time he does, he stirs the market. On November 2, CZ posted that he bought ASTER on Binance with personal funds and shared a screenshot of the on-chain transfer (2.09 million tokens, approximately $1.9 million). The market quickly ignited, with ASTER rising from $0.91 to $1.26, an increase of over 30%.
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, after CZ bought ASTER, a major whale shorted $50.62 million worth of ASTER at a price of $1.20. Currently, as ASTER's price has retreated, this short position has gained over $12 million; meanwhile, CZ's previous purchase price was around $0.913, putting him at a loss.
This is not the first time CZ has "ignited" ASTER. During the ASTER TGE in September, he retweeted a post calling for action, causing ASTER to soar from $0.02 to $2.42, a nearly 7000% increase, making it the market's focus.
On October 30, ASTER taught the market a lesson: a certain KOL claimed that a CZ-related wallet sold 35 million ASTER, leading to a rapid price drop of 16.8%, with over $4 million in on-chain liquidations. Two hours later, Lookonchain and EmberCN pointed out that it was an internal transfer from Binance's hot wallet, and CZ rebutted the "fake news," allowing the price to recover.
It can be said that every significant tremor of ASTER is almost inseparable from CZ's name. He stated that every time he buys coins, he is 100% trapped in the short term: in 2014, he bought BTC at an average price of $600, which dropped to $200 within a month and remained there for 18 months; in 2017, he bought BNB, which also fell by 20-30% and lasted for several weeks. This time, after ASTER's decline, he added to his position, but the outcome remains uncertain. He also reminded everyone to pay attention to risks and stated that he would no longer disclose trading content to avoid impacting the market.
Previously, CZ mentioned that BNB accounted for over 98% of his personal holdings and that he had never sold. He held BNB at $0.1 during its ICO, and eight years later, the price of BNB has long surpassed the $1,000 mark, with its market cap gradually exceeding SOL, currently ranking fifth in the crypto space.
As CZ's core asset, he publicly stated in August 2020 that BNB holders are the smartest; in June 2023, he encouraged holding during the SEC lawsuit; and on November 2, 2025, he indicated he hadn't sold for eight years. It is precisely BNB's long-term performance that provides credibility for his subsequent calls.
In addition to BNB and ASTER, VANA is also worth mentioning, as this is his first project in which he participated as an advisor (without a clear purchase).
Reportedly, Vana is an AI identity generation application, and the VANA token landed on Binance as early as December 2024, skyrocketing to a historical high of $35.8 at launch. As the only data decentralized autonomous organization (Data DAO) listed on Binance, it perfectly caught the Q4 AI wave. However, after the Data Liquidity Pool (DLP) opened in January 2025, data quality issues emerged, causing the token price to drop to around $6.
On February 24, YZi Labs announced a strategic investment in Vana, and on the same day, CZ became an advisor and posted, "Crypto is AI money, data is AI food," which significantly boosted the topic's popularity, causing the VANA token to surge over 50% within 48 hours. However, after the initial hype faded, the project showed no improvement, and the token price fell back to $2.8, a decline of 92% from its peak. CZ has stated that he is an advisor, not a babysitter; while he invests in infrastructure, the execution relies on the team. This proves that CZ's advisory title can ignite market sentiment but cannot sustain the fundamentals.
CZ Ignites, Community Adds Fuel: The Traffic Code of Meme Frenzy
As a public figure, when CZ publicly mentions certain tokens, it naturally attracts a large number of investors to follow suit. Although he often tries to distance himself from certain meme coins, the follow-the-leader effect created by the market is hard to isolate. Especially after many projects launched on Binance Alpha, combined with the FOMO effect, a single statement can create significant waves.
Take the SZN token as an example; on October 7, CZ posted that the BNB meme season had arrived, and the token price skyrocketed by 5600% within 24 hours. The four tokens originated from CZ's gesture, and he repeatedly responded to fake news with the number 4 in his posts, which the community meme-ified, leading to a peak increase of 2000%. BROCCOLI came from CZ's public dog name, reaching a market cap of $52 million within 2 hours. CZSTATUE is a meme coin based on a 14-foot statue of CZ; when CZ joked not to buy it, the price surged by 3000%. PALU is derived from a cartoon avatar that CZ liked, briefly surpassing a market cap of $100 million. MAXI is a response to CZSTATUE, which surged over 1500% after CZ's criticism. SCI6900 is a project CZ retweeted that linked the Shanghai index on-chain, which rose by 300% within 24 hours. In March 2025, CZ claimed to have spent 1 BNB to buy TST and Mubarak for testing purposes, resulting in both tokens skyrocketing (TST +50%, Mubarak +300%).
Additionally, the recently popular Chinese meme coin "Binance Life" originated from He Yi's reply to a netizen's comment, "Wishing you a Binance life." Base founder @jessepollak posted a video saying, "Turn on Binance life mode in the Base App," and CZ randomly retweeted, stating that "Binance Life" is the first Chinese platform launched on the Base App, originating from the BNB chain. This back-and-forth interaction pushed its market cap to over $500 million in a short time, with the community forcefully promoting it as the banner of "Chinese Meme Renaissance." However, many of these coins, which once shone brightly, have now significantly retraced, with current prices generally down 80%–95% from their highs, and liquidity and attention have noticeably cooled.
GIGGLE is also a typical example. On September 21, 2025, after CZ publicly shared the BNB donation address for Giggle Academy on X, the price of GIGGLE, issued on Four.meme, quickly surged, with a peak increase of about 14 times. CZ later posted that the GIGGLE token is not an official project, leading to an 80% price drop.
However, on the day GIGGLE first launched on Binance Alpha and subsequently on Binance spot trading in October, the price saw significant increases. On November 3, Binance announced that starting in December, it would donate 50% of GIGGLE's spot and leverage trading fees directly to Giggle Academy; the Giggle Academy officially responded by burning an additional 50% of the received donations. This news caused GIGGLE's trading volume to surge and its price to double during a general market correction in early November.
From Binance Alpha to spot trading launch, and then to an announcement, each step has resulted in exponential price increases. Although GIGGLE is not officially issued by Giggle Academy, the community still capitalized on the momentum, pushing the topic and sentiment to a peak. This illustrates that in the meme world, Binance remains the ultimate endorsement of traffic and confidence.
YZi Labs Investment Endorsement
In addition to CZ's personal calls, YZi Labs' investment endorsements can also attract market attention. According to publicly available information, YZi Labs has invested in over 20 projects this year, focusing on infrastructure, settlement and stablecoins, and AI applications, while also considering RWA and Bitcoin programmability. Projects that have issued tokens include SIGN, VANA, EDU (Open Campus), and ENA (Ethena).
SIGN is an airdrop protocol that YZi Labs led with a $16 million investment in January 2025, followed by an additional $25.5 million in October. On April 25, Binance announced that SIGN would be listed on the HODLer Airdrops page, and in the two days before launch, the token price rose from $0.03 to $0.133, an increase of over three times, before falling back to around $0.08.
On September 19, YZi Labs announced an increased stake in Ethena Labs, but the ENA price reacted tepidly. However, USDe's TVL peaked at $14.15 billion that month, and during the October 11 crash, USDe decoupled, with the current TVL falling back to $9.5 billion. According to Coingecko data, ENA currently has a market cap of about $2.3 billion, ranking 56th in the crypto market.
On September 24, CZ publicly acknowledged his early investment in SafePal on social media, causing SFP's price to rise from $0.4 to around $0.7, an increase of over 70%, although the price has since fallen back to $0.3.
On October 20, YZi Labs participated in a $5 million strategic financing round for Open Campus, but since the education sector is not a market hotspot, the EDU token's performance has been lackluster.
It is worth noting that YZi Labs typically announces investment information only after tokens are listed on exchanges, which naturally amplifies the event-driven price and volume impulses. However, from Vana's cold start to the subsequent lack of momentum for SIGN/EDU, it can be seen that the market does not always respond positively to YZi Labs' investment endorsements.
Conclusion
Ultimately, whether CZ personally engages or collaborates with the community to create a meme atmosphere, or whether YZi Labs provides investment endorsements, the so-called CZ calls are merely a spark, while the community's concept-hopping adds the fuel. Only when the two meet does the market ignite, indicating that the market itself needs hot topics to maintain attention and liquidity. A single fire can illuminate the present, but it cannot sustain the future; what truly endures is still the fundamentals.
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