Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on January 28 that recent social media attacks against him appeared coordinated after he spoke in favor of a buy-and-hold strategy. The backlash followed his claim that long-term holding can outperform more complex trading methods in many cases. Zhao said many unfamiliar accounts were posting nearly identical criticism at the same time.
CZ argues for patience over short-term reactions
Zhao said his comments were meant to help investors keep a steadier mindset during bear markets instead of letting short-term price swings drive every decision. In his view, market history has often rewarded people who stayed patient through longer cycles. His point was simple: time horizon matters, and constant trading is not always the stronger approach.
That argument did not win broad agreement across the crypto community. Some analysts said a general buy-and-hold message could mislead investors because not every digital asset is capable of creating long-term value. The discussion quickly widened to include derivatives and short-lived projects, shifting the focus from one strategy alone to the quality of asset selection behind any strategy.
Zhao says the criticism looked unusually synchronized
Zhao said he expected pushback, but the recent wave stood out because of its scale and repetition. He claimed that many unknown accounts were sharing almost the same wording, all aimed at discrediting the buy-and-hold thesis. From his perspective, the pattern did not look like ordinary disagreement.
One of the better-known counterarguments came from data posted by @WazzCrypto. The post argued that if someone had bought and held every token listed on Binance’s futures market last year, the portfolio would have almost gone to zero. That example was used to argue that a long-term holding strategy can break down in practice, especially when the assets being held vary widely in quality.
He says most projects may fail, only a few may scale sharply
In response, Zhao did not present buy-and-hold as a rule for every coin. He said clearly that the approach is not suitable for all cryptocurrencies. He added that, much like the internet and artificial intelligence sectors, most crypto projects are likely to fail, while a small number of successful ones may grow exponentially over time.
The dispute pushed the conversation back to a narrower question: whether long-term holding works depends heavily on what is being held in the first place and how investors judge risk. Zhao’s comments did not settle the argument, but they sharpened the divide between a long-term mindset and blanket assumptions about the whole market.