Author: danny
In the 1990s, Huanghe Road in Shanghai was a place of golden powder and sand as night fell. The shadows of neon lights were like heavy ink strokes, painting half of everyone’s face with arrogance and half with desolation.
On the day Zhi Zhen Yuan opened, the sound of firecrackers nearly shattered the eardrums of the entire street. Li Li stood at the top floor window, overlooking the boiling crowd below. At that time, everyone believed that as long as the lights were bright enough and the scene grand enough, this flowing banquet could last until the end of time.
Uncle once said: "After the great heat, there must be a great cold."
The overwhelming success of Zhi Zhen Yuan made the entire Huanghe Road start to feel apprehensive. That night, Zhi Zhen Yuan experienced a power outage, a shortage of ingredients, chefs being poached, and even the boss lady from Huanghe Road blocking the entrance, while Lu Meilin brought her old partner to stage a coup…
And now Binance is caught in that famous "siege of Zhi Zhen Yuan." Is this a business game? Or is it the labor pains of an era settling accounts?
I: The Art of Taking a Cut and the Anger of Settling Accounts
"What’s on the mind is business, what’s in the eyes is calculation."
The essence of the exchange business is actually the "taking a cut" on Huanghe Road. Whether it’s a king cobra or dry-fried beef ho fun, customers at the table are discussing orders worth millions, while the restaurant takes the table and drinks, just like the exchange takes its unshakeable positions.
When the market is good, everyone is a "treasure boss," spending lavishly, treating that little bit of meal and drink money as rewards. The louder the laughter in Zhi Zhen Yuan, the thicker the ledger of cuts. At that time, no one thought there was anything wrong with taking a cut; everyone was dreaming in the bubble.
But when the "1011" thunder struck in 2025, two hundred billion dollars vanished in a few hours, and the storm of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve combined with global geopolitical black swans—Huanghe Road changed.
When customers had only a few coins left in their pockets, that originally invisible, taken-for-granted "cut" became the most glaring evidence of guilt. Everyone began to settle accounts, searching for the one who "made off with the money." Just as Zhi Zhen Yuan was targeted collectively, it wasn’t entirely because Li Li did something wrong, but because in this cooling street, her lights were still the brightest, and her table for taking cuts was still the largest.
At such times, attacking Binance became a physiological instinct and political correctness. Retail investors needed an outlet for their anger, peers needed a gap to share the spoils, and regulators needed a visible altar.
II: Politics is Facade, Business is Substance
"Outsiders look at the facade, insiders look at the back door."
Some say this is a political necessity, that someone must be found to take the blame for the devastation after "1011." This is both true and not true.
On Huanghe Road, politics has never been clouds hanging in the sky, but mud on the ground. When the macro environment deteriorates and the entire street's business is losing money, order needs to be redistributed. Binance was targeted because it was an "easily understood" target. It was too high-profile, high-profile enough to make the old world’s rules feel uneasy; it was too profitable, making others envious and resentful.
"On Huanghe Road, everyone is waiting for others to stumble, so they can make room for themselves."
The siege from peers and the insults in both Chinese and English CT are actually waiting for that sound of stumbling. Everyone is not pursuing justice but rather "survival space." But if Zhi Zhen Yuan were to be dismantled, would the customers, ingredients, and funds that originally flowed to Zhi Zhen Yuan really flow to Jin Meilin? Or to the neighboring Hong Lu? It’s hard to say.
But they forgot that Zhi Zhen Yuan became Zhi Zhen Yuan because it upheld the momentum of the entire Huanghe Road.
It’s hard to say whether the one that can take over Zhi Zhen Yuan will be the next Zhi Zhen Yuan, but it definitely won’t be the Hong Lu and Jin Meilin still there.
III: Zhi Zhen Yuan is Not Just Binance, But Every One of Us
"I am my own dock."
You ask where Binance's "treasure boss" is?
In the play, when Zhi Zhen Yuan was besieged by various bosses, Uncle invited a Hong Kong chef, and the treasure boss brought a king cobra to save Zhi Zhen Yuan. But in the reality of the wasteland, no one can save Binance unless it can, like Li Li, endure through the power outage in the deep night and cultivate a kind of "silent" confidence.
But the deeper truth is: Zhi Zhen Yuan is not just about Binance alone, but about our entire crypto industry.
The poached chef represents the lost elite in the industry; the severed supply line symbolizes the exhausted global liquidity; the dirty water splashed on Li Li reflects the mainstream world's decade-long prejudice and fear towards this "wild child."
If we only tear each other down when losing money and look for scapegoats when settling accounts, our industry will forever remain the nouveau riche on Huanghe Road and will never become a force to be reckoned with. When Zhi Zhen Yuan was besieged, the entire Huanghe Road was actually committing slow suicide. Because once the highest neon light goes out, this street will return to that gray old era.
Who still remembers how long it took the industry to dissociate the equation of blockchain = fraud after the collapse of FTX?
IV: After the Splendor, Only One Remains
"Do you know the Empire State Building in New York? It takes an hour to run from the bottom to the top, but only eight point eight seconds to jump down."
We are all experiencing those eight point eight seconds.
Those voices screaming on Chinese and English social media, those cold glimmers flashing in regulatory documents, will ultimately fade into silence with the passage of time. Zhi Zhen Yuan eventually closed, Li Li became a nun, and the treasure boss returned to the fields. The splendor of Huanghe Road was ultimately just a rehearsal about desire.
This siege on the crypto industry is actually a painful "rebirth." It forces us to think: if the splendor of "taking a cut" is gone, if that benchmark that can shield us from the wind and rain is gone, what do we have left?
"Most of life is false; the remaining half is indistinguishable between true and false."
The current predicament of Binance is a long corridor it must walk through alone. And for our industry, the true "treasure boss" is not a specific person, but every believer who, after recognizing the truth of "the splendor has faded," is still willing to uphold the idea of "one person, one Bitcoin."
If we cannot unite as one, then when the last neon light goes out, there will be no more legends on Huanghe Road, only scraps of paper and cold winds.
"When the time came, I couldn’t see her face clearly; ten years later, I still couldn’t see her face clearly, but I saw myself clearly."
Postscript
Those familiar with me know that I have never been interested in incentivizing traffic, so I believe an article should be what it is. Some say I am pretending to be aloof, which isn’t wrong either. To put it bluntly, even if I put out a BTC for this promotion, I probably wouldn’t reach the heights of other teachers, after all, the influence isn’t there.
Then the clever ones will start to wonder: is this time different?
????, rest assured, it’s still the same.
I also hope to achieve my own single article of 1M, to impress people, but algorithms sometimes, human effort sometimes. When I occasionally have those shining moments to combine and record my emotions, the paths I’ve walked, the books (movies) I’ve seen, and my observations, that’s enough.
Salute to every brave soul willing to speak up and call out for the industry in times of fear.
What is the great cold? It is the coldness when no one cares.
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