When Changpeng "CZ" Zhao of 1st place crypto exchange Binance started the crypto equivalent of a bank run against his rival, 2nd place crypto exchange FTX, I imagine that he thought it would remain relatively contained. Sure, FTX would go down, and it would probably take Alameda Research with it, ruining SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) in the process, along with anyone who had significant holdings in either firm, but CZ was clearly okay with that.
After all, CZ and SBF did not like each other, and misanthropy bordering on sociopathy seem to be pretty commonplace in the cryptosphere. WAGMI, except for those who don't make it, who clearly didn't deserve to make it. HFSP, paper hands losers. Such is the ethos of crypto.
I don't think that CZ truly appreciated just how unstable crypto's house of cards had become. He should have; the wide swath of destruction wrought by the collapse of Terra/Luna, a crash so disastrous that Terra/Luna's founder, Do Kwon, is still on the run from prosecution and fighting extradition, really should have been warning enough.
But crypto people, in addition to being immune to ethics and devoid of empathy, and also pathologically incapable of learning from experience. Terra/Luna, according to this world view, didn't crash because of any sort of systemic weakness in the cryptosphere; that couldn't have been the reason. That had to be FUD. Right? RIGHT??
And so CZ, oblivious to history, heedless of the suffering of others, driven by a combination of pettiness and greed, pushed SBF, FTX, and Alameda Research over the edge. And, in the process, set in motion a chain reaction that may destroy the cryptosphere completely.
And Molly White is tracking it all on her blog, Web3 is Going Just Fine (and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet).
CZ, having belatedly realized just how far-reaching and catastrophic the chain of events is that he's set in motion here, has made a gesture in the direction of stemming the tide, but it's far too little, and much too late.
I can't emphasize enough just how cynical and self-serving CZ's "industry recovery fund" is here. This fund isn't about assisting others in surviving a crisis that CZ precipitated; it's about ensuring that the cyptosphere's catastrophic collapse doesn't also take out Binance in the process.
Yes, the cryptosphere has always been a house of cards, and its collapse was always going to happen. But it wasn't necessarily going to happen as the direct and predictable result of a single deliberate act of petty, greedy vengeance by one dude.
Yes, SBF was a grifter, and his ponzi business was always going to collapse under its own weight of bullshit eventually, but CZ is the person who willed that collapse into motion today... only to realize afterwards, with dawning horror, that he's also collapsed the rest of the crypto industry, torpedoing his own future business prospects along with SBF's.
CZ is trying to save himself, here. He's willing to save a few other people in the process, but those people aren't the point. CZ is the point; everyone else is incidental.
And, what's more, it's not going to work.
Even at the height of the Terra/Luna collapse event, when SBF was bailing out crypto projects that are now going under along with him, the state of the cryptosphere was not nearly as dire as it is right now. I don't believe that CZ has enough resources to salvage this situation, but even if he does, the result won't be a thriving cryptosphere - it will be CZ, by himself, owning everything that's left, with just a few hangers-on hoping against hope that CZ will somehow be able to resurrect the crypto grift cycle, all by himself.
It's all over but the shouting. Only the biggest of idiots will want to be a part of this disaster. Look for every major non-crypto corporate entity who's announced a blockchain initiative to quietly round-file those projects, and then never mention them again.
Crypto is dead. Good riddance.