Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Tesla CEO Elon Musk revived their recent spat on Friday, trading memes as a stock selloff spilled into a crypto market crash. The exchange started under a post by Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus, who had just woken up in Japan and asked how the market was doing.
The jokes landed on traders who were nursing real losses, as Bitcoin (BTC) slid alongside stocks. Holders of leveraged long bets, which use borrowed money to wager on rising prices, carried the most risk.
How Did Musk and CZ React to the Crypto Market Crash?
Musk replied to the Dogecoin co-creator first. His post showed a blurry, red-tinted image of CZ himself, a nod to the red candles on price charts.
The jab revived an earlier spat between the two. After North Korea-linked hackers took about $6.3 billion from Binance on October 29, Musk posted laughing emojis under a security warning from CZ.
At the time, CZ called it a bad time to troll and asked Musk for “a little support.”
This time, the Binance founder played along with a cartoon of a figure crouching on the ground, an arrow stuck in its bleeding leg.
Binance co-founder and co-CEO Yi He joined in about an hour later. She quoted Musk’s post with the red and blue pill scene from the film The Matrix, in which the red pill reveals a harsh truth and the blue pill keeps a comforting illusion.
Her post also showed a green-tinted and a red-tinted version of Musk’s CZ image, asking followers: “Which colored pill do you choose?”
A Wall Street Rout Reached Asia Before Dogecoin’s Co-Creator Woke Up
The selling started in US equities. On Thursday, a slump in AI chip stocks set off a $2 trillion stock wipeout that spread across global markets overnight.
By the time the Dogecoin co-creator logged on in Japan, Asian markets were under heavy pressure. In South Korea, the KOSPI index fell below 5,000 and triggered a circuit breaker after an 8% slide.
The stock rout soon turned into a crypto market crash. One trader lost 201 BTC, worth about $15.6 million at the time, in eight successive liquidations.
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin price dropped below $80,000 and sank to its lowest level in a month.
For now, the next move may depend less on memes than on stocks. Crypto analyst Ben Cowen has warned that a 2018-style selloff could send Bitcoin back to $58,000. Such a drop would extend the crypto market crash well beyond this week’s losses.
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