CZ’s prison‑born ‘Freedom of Money’ lights up crypto’s fault lines

CZ’s memoir Freedom of Money, drafted in 15‑minute prison terminal bursts and released globally on April 8, mixes his Binance origin story with charity pledges and explosive feuds with Sam Bankman‑Fried and Star Xu.

In a Binance Square post, CZ said he will “donate the entirety of proceeds from [his] memoir Freedom of Money to nonprofit organizations,” stressing that he will “retain nothing from book sales.” The memoir itself goes beyond his own case, offering sharp character sketches of industry rivals. According to a Binance summary of the book’s “five exciting details,” Zhao refers to FTX founder Sam Bankman‑Fried as “a refined egoist” and recounts how he briefly considered a bailout of FTX in 2022 but walked away when SBF’s team “could not even provide a complete balance sheet within 24 hours.” CZ argues that Bankman‑Fried’s “business logic was not based on product competition” but on “weakening competitors through skilled political lobbying and regulatory manipulation,” a charge that cuts against SBF’s prior public branding.

The book also alleges that Li Lin, founder of Huobi, told Zhao over dinner in 2025 that he had seen a screenshot showing OKX founder Star Xu personally reporting Li to Chinese authorities, reportedly leading to Li’s arrest.

Star responded on Binance’s social platform that the claim was “completely false information,” adding that “any large‑scale platform and founder faces numerous reports and complaints every year” and that “if reports alone could determine outcomes, this industry would have ceased to exist long ago.” He has also accused Zhao of lying about his divorce and failing to properly divide Binance equity, prompting CZ to reply that he is “officially divorced” and “willing to bet $1 billion” on the accuracy of his divorce documents, saying lawyers could verify the agreement.

For a crypto industry still processing the FTX collapse and watching one of its most prominent founders navigate life after a plea deal, Freedom of Money lands as both a personal narrative and a fresh source of controversy. As one crypto recap on LinkedIn put it, CZ’s literary debut offers “his first detailed public narrative since pleading guilty,” and its mix of prison details, charity pledges and score‑settling has ensured that the book’s release is as much about reshaping reputations as retelling history.