{"id":24250,"date":"2025-05-24T14:14:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T11:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/binance-founder-refutes-wsj-claims-of-ties-with-wlfi\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T14:14:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T11:14:44","slug":"binance-founder-refutes-wsj-claims-of-ties-with-wlfi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/binance-founder-refutes-wsj-claims-of-ties-with-wlfi\/","title":{"rendered":"Binance Founder Refutes WSJ Claims of Ties with WLFI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao has criticized a WSJ article alleging he acted as a &#8220;middleman&#8221; for the DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLFI).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Another hit piece from Wall Street Journal. WSJ instead of doing journalism, has pretty much resorted to Cunningham\u2019s Law, with negative intentions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Cunningham&#8217;s Law: The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it&#8217;s to post the wrong answer.&#8221;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CZ ? BNB (@cz_binance) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cz_binance\/status\/1925845457307119872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to the publication, Zhao facilitated international contacts for a company affiliated with the family of former U.S. President Donald Trump following his own meetings with officials in Pakistan, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n<p>However, Zhao stated that the WSJ misleads readers and deliberately tailors facts to fit its narrative.<\/p>\n<p>He denied journalists&#8217; claims that he allegedly arranged for WLFI to meet with Bilal bin Saqib, head of the Pakistan Cryptocurrency Council. The result was the official&#8217;s appointment as a consultant to the firm and the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the country&#8217;s government.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;I am not a middleman for anyone and did not &#8216;connect Mr. Saqib with the WLFI team&#8217;,&#8221; Zhao stated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to him, &#8220;they have known each other for a long time,&#8221; whereas Zhao himself met the official for the first time during his own visit to the country.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao refuted the newspaper&#8217;s information that he participated in organizing foreign contacts for the DeFi platform.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;If you make a couple of factual errors, they can be corrected. When you initially concoct a story with negative intentions, there is no way to eliminate the &#8216;inaccuracies&#8217;,&#8221; wrote the Binance founder.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He compared the WSJ&#8217;s approach to reporting events to <a href=\"https:\/\/meta.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/Cunningham%27s_Law\/ru#:~:text=%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%20%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0%20(Cunningham's%20Law)%20%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%82,%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B0%20%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0%2C%20%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8F%20%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B8%20%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8.\">Cunningham&#8217;s Law<\/a>, which states that the best way to get the right answer on the internet is to post the wrong one. Journalism &#8220;should not work this way,&#8221; Zhao emphasized.<\/p>\n<p>He speculated that certain anti-crypto forces in the U.S. are merely using the publication as a mouthpiece.<\/p>\n<p>WLFI described the newspaper article as a &#8220;smear campaign.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The WSJ published a smear campaign, not a news story. Our Co-Founder <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/zakfolkman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@zakfolkman<\/a> set the record straight:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Wall Street Journal just published an article so full of fiction, misdirection, and political spin it could\u2019ve been labeled opinion\u2014if it weren\u2019t masquerading as\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WLFI (@worldlibertyfi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/worldlibertyfi\/status\/1925921902092058872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;WSJ just published an article so full of fiction, misdirection, and political spin that it could have been labeled opinion if it weren&#8217;t masquerading as journalism. This is a coordinated attempt to discredit honest entrepreneurship with false stories and lazy insinuations,&#8221; said company co-founder Zak Folkman.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to Reuters, in January, the U.S. President&#8217;s family <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/trump-family-secures-control-over-world-liberty-financial\">consolidated<\/a> control over WLFI. They now have the right to <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/trump-family-to-receive-75-of-revenue-from-world-liberty-financial-project\">75% of the net income<\/a> and 60% of the DeFi platform&#8217;s operations after the launch of the main product.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump is listed in company documents as the &#8220;chief crypto advocate,&#8221; while his sons Eric, Barron, and Donald Trump Jr. are named as Web3 ambassadors. They do not hold official positions in the project.<\/p>\n<p>Back in March, WSJ and Bloomberg <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/wsj-trumps-family-considered-acquiring-stake-in-binance-us\">reported on plans<\/a> by the Trumps and WLF to acquire a stake in Binance&#8217;s U.S. business.<\/p>\n<p>The information was <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/wlfi-denies-rumours-of-stake-acquisition-in-binance-us\">denied<\/a> by both Zhao and representatives of the company affiliated with the president&#8217;s family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao has criticized a WSJ article alleging he acted as a &#8220;middleman&#8221; for the DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLFI). Another hit piece from Wall Street Journal. WSJ instead of doing journalism, has pretty much resorted to Cunningham\u2019s Law, with negative intentions. &#8220;Cunningham&#8217;s Law: The best way to get [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[935,1770],"class_list":["post-24250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-changpeng-zhao","tag-world-liberty-financial-wlfi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"22","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}