When all the flowers have faded, it all comes down to one person: the face, the backdoor, and the accountant of the encrypted world.

Author: danny

In the 1990s, Huanghe Road in Shanghai was a dazzling spectacle at night. The neon lights, like bold strokes of ink, painted on everyone's faces, a mixture of arrogance and melancholy.

On the day Zhizhen Garden opened, the sound of firecrackers almost shattered the eardrums of the entire street. Li Li stood at the top-floor window, looking down at the bustling scene below. At that time, everyone thought that as long as the lights were bright enough and the scene was grand enough, this continuous banquet could last forever.

My uncle once said: "After the Great Heat, there will surely be the Great Cold."

Zhizhenyuan's overwhelming success sent chills down the spines of everyone on Huanghe Road. That night, Zhizhenyuan suffered a power outage, food shortages, its chef was poached, it was blocked at its door by the female owner on Huanghe Road, and Lu Meilin even staged a dramatic power grab with her old flame...

Binance is currently embroiled in the infamous "siege of Zhizhenyuan." Is this a business game, or the growing pains of an era in settlement?

Part One: The Art of Pumping Water and the Anger of Checking Out

"His mind is on business, and his eyes are full of calculations."

The essence of the exchange business is actually the "rake" on Huanghe Road. Whether it's king cod or stir-fried beef noodles, the customers at the table are discussing deals worth millions, and the restaurant is taking a cut of the table and drinks, just like the exchange is taking a fixed position.

When business was good, everyone was a "big spender," throwing money around like water, treating their meager meal and drink allowances as gifts. The louder the laughter at Zhizhen Garden, the thicker the ledger of their extortion grew. Back then, nobody thought there was anything wrong with extortion; everyone was dreaming in a bubble.

But when the "1011" thunderbolt of 2025 struck, two hundred billion US dollars vanished in a few hours, and the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike storm and the black swan event in global geopolitics came together—the world on Huanghe Road changed.

When customers are left with only a few coins in their pockets, the previously invisible and taken-for-granted "skimming" becomes the most glaring evidence of wrongdoing. Everyone begins to settle scores and search for the "person who took the money." Just as Zhizhenyuan was targeted by a group, it wasn't entirely because Li Li did anything wrong, but because on this cold street, her place still had the brightest lights and the largest skimming counter.

At times like these, attacking Binance becomes a physiological instinct and a form of political correctness. Retail investors need an outlet for their anger, competitors need a way to share the spoils, and regulators need a respectable altar to vent their frustrations.

Second: Politics is about appearances, business is about substance.

"Laymen look at the facade, experts look at the back door."

Some say it was a political necessity, that someone had to be blamed for the devastation following 10/11. That's true, but also false.

On Huanghe Road, politics is never an abstract concept, but rather a matter of practical matters. When the macro environment deteriorates and businesses across the street are losing money, order needs to be redistributed. Binance was targeted because it was an easily understood target. It was too high-profile, so high-profile that it made the rules of the old world uneasy; it was too profitable, so profitable that it aroused envy and resentment.

"On the Yellow River Road, everyone is waiting for someone else to stumble so that they can make room for themselves."

The attacks from competitors and the insults from CT scan specialists in both Chinese and English are all just waiting for the sound of someone stumbling. People aren't pursuing justice; they're fighting for "living space." But if Zhizhenyuan is demolished, will the customers, ingredients, and funds that originally went to Zhizhenyuan really flow to Jinmeilin? Or to the neighboring Honglu? It's really hard to say.

But they forgot that the reason Zhizhen Garden became Zhizhen Garden was because it upheld the grandeur of the entire Yellow River Road.

It's hard to say whether the company that takes over Zhizhenyuan will be the next Zhizhenyuan, but it certainly won't be Honglu or Jin Meilin, who are still there.

Part Three: Zhizhen Garden is not just Binance, but every one of us.

"I am my own dock."

You asked where Binance's "Boss Bao" is?

In the play, when Zhizhen Garden was besieged by various bosses, Uncle Ye invited a Hong Kong chef, and Boss Bao sent a giant king cobra, saving Zhizhen Garden. But in the wasteland of reality, no one can save Binance unless it can, like Li Li, cultivate a kind of "silent" confidence in the dead of night when the power is out.

But the deeper truth is: Zhizhenyuan is not just referring to Binance, but to our entire crypto industry.

The chef who was poached was an elite lost to the industry; the supply of goods that was cut off was a sign of depleted global liquidity; the mudslinging against Li Li was a decade-long prejudice and fear of this "wild child" by the mainstream world.

If we only sabotage each other when we lose money and look for scapegoats when it's time to settle accounts, then our industry will forever remain a nouveau riche on Huanghe Road, never amounting to anything. When Zhizhenyuan was besieged, the entire Huanghe Road was essentially committing slow suicide. Because once the tallest neon light went out, the street would revert to that drab, old-fashioned era.

Who remembers how long it took for the industry to dispel the notion that blockchain equals fraud after FTX collapsed?

Part Four: When all the splendor fades, only one person remains.

"You know the Empire State Building in New York, right? It takes an hour to run from the bottom to the roof, but only eight and a half seconds to jump from the roof."

We are all experiencing those 8.8 seconds.

Those screams on Chinese and English social media, those cold glints in regulatory documents, will eventually fade into silence with the passage of time. Zhizhen Garden eventually closed, Li Li became a nun, and Bao Zong returned to the fields. The prosperity of Huanghe Road was ultimately nothing more than a rehearsal for desire.

This siege of the crypto industry is actually a painful "rebirth." It forces us to think: if we lose that lucrative "profiteering," if we lose that benchmark that provides shelter from the storm, what will we have left?

"Most of life is fake, and the other half is where the truth and falsehood are indistinguishable."

Binance's current predicament is a long corridor it must traverse alone. For our industry, the true "Baidu founder" isn't any one person, but rather every believer who, after recognizing the truth of "the flowers have faded," remains willing to uphold the belief of "one Bitcoin per person."

If we cannot unite as one, then when the last neon light goes out, there will be no more legends on Huanghe Road, only scraps of paper and cold wind.

"Back then, I couldn't see her clearly, and ten years later, I still can't see her clearly, but I can see myself clearly now."

postscript

Those who know me well know that I've never been interested in incentivizing traffic, so I believe an article should be what it is. Some people say I'm being pretentious, and they're not entirely wrong. To put it bluntly, even if I used a BTC for this promotion, I probably wouldn't reach the level of other writers, since my influence isn't there.

Then the clever ones will start to think: Is this time different?

???? Don't worry, it's still the same.

I also hope to achieve the feat of writing a single 1MB article to impress people, but algorithms have their limitations, and so do human capabilities. It's enough that I can combine and record my emotions, the paths I've walked, the books (movies) I've read, the exercises, and my observations in those occasional moments of brilliance.

A salute to every brave soul who, even in times of fear, is willing to speak out and advocate for the industry.

What is the Great Cold? It is the cold that occurs when no one cares about you.