CZ LIFE FRUSTRATION: EATING, BNB, UP-TO-CLOSE, AMERICA
Editor, Wu said the block chain
The editor of this article has obtained permission to ask readers to buy a proper version of the book in the Amazon to support charity。
THIS POST IS BASED ON THE CZ MEMOIRS "LIVE IN MONEY" AND RELATED MATERIALS. THE BOOK IS A FIRST PERSON ' S MEMOIR, WHICH IS BASED ON THE AUTHOR ' S PERSONAL MEMORY, UNDERSTANDING AND OPINION, AND SUGGESTS THAT IT SHOULD NOT BE REGARDED AS A STATEMENT OF LAW OR AS A JUDICIAL EVIDENCE, AND THAT THE FACTS STILL NEED TO BE READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH PUBLIC INFORMATION。
CZ'S LIFE SETBACKS ARE RARELY SUCH A SINGLE, DRAMATIC FALL. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, IT MANIFESTS ITSELF IN THE SUDDEN BREAKDOWN OF SOMETHING THAT WAS ORIGINALLY STABLE: THE LOSS OF LANGUAGE, THE BREAKDOWN OF THE HOUSE, THE LOSS OF CAREER PATHS, THE DEMISE OF THE COMPANY ' S LOCATION, THE LAPSE OF EXTERNAL EVALUATION AND, FINALLY, OF FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT。
The kids in the storeroom
IN 1989, 12-YEAR-OLD CZ FOLLOWED HIS MOTHER AND SISTER TO VANCOUVER. HIS FATHER'S FRIENDS CAME TO THE AIRPORT IN AN OLD CHEVY. FOR A CHILD WHO TRAVELS ALL THE WAY FROM SMALL TOWNS AND UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES IN CHINA, THE CAR IS FRESH ENOUGH。
JUST IN THE FIRST FEW WEEKS IN CANADA, FOUR MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY WERE IN A SINGLE ROOM IN THE UBC STUDENT DORMITORY. THE ROOM WAS PACKED WITH TWO TOPS AND BOTTOMS, THE BATHROOM WAS AT THE END OF THE CORRIDOR AND THE KITCHEN WAS PUBLIC. THEY THEN MOVED INTO A VILLA IN THE UBC FACULTY RESIDENTIAL AREA, WHICH WAS MORE SPACIOUS THAN BEFORE, BUT STILL DID NOT HAVE A COMPLETE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FOUR MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY。
PARENTS AND SISTERS SHARE A BEDROOM, AND CZ'S “ROOM” IS A SMALL STOREROOM UPSTAIRS. AFTER THE ONE-PERSON MATTRESS WAS INSERTED, ALL THREE SIDES WERE ATTACHED TO THE WALL, AND HE WAS FORCED TO GO TO SLEEP EVERY DAY FROM THE END OF THE BED. THERE WERE NO WINDOWS AND NO SPARE SPACE IN THE ROOM, AND ALMOST ALL THAT REMAINED WAS FOR THE PURPOSE OF LYING DOWN。
SHE SAW HIM SLEEPING THERE FOR A LONG TIME AND OFFERED TO CHANGE HIS ROOM WITH HIM EVERY FEW WEEKS, ALLOWING HIM TO SLEEP IN THE REAL BEDROOM FOR A FEW DAYS. THIS FAMILY DOES NOT HAVE MUCH TO DEPLOY, BUT ONLY A FEW SQUARE METRES OF SPACE, WHO SLEEPS IN WHICH BED AND WHO BREATHES MORE THAN A FEW DAYS. CZ DIDN'T WRITE IT VERY HARD WHEN HE MENTIONED IT IN THE BOOK. HE SAID THE LITTLE SPACE WOULD MAKE HIM FEEL SAFE。
Captain
ANOTHER OBSTACLE IN CANADA IS LANGUAGE. WHEN HE FIRST ARRIVED IN VANCOUVER, HE HAD TO GO TO ESL LANGUAGE CLASSES FIRST BECAUSE OF HIS BAD ENGLISH. TWO YEARS LATER, IN REGULAR CLASSES, MATH CLASSES WERE DROPPED BY TWO LEVELS. MATH PRE-EMPTS ENGLISH INTO A SYSTEM THAT HE CAN UNDERSTAND STEADILY。
But really embarrassing is stutter. In the ninth and tenth grades, his mouth was so bad that every time he had to talk, it was stuck in 89 times. The more critical the occasion, the easier to say. He's the volleyball captain. He needs to talk to the referee in the game. He was often too nervous to make a sound when his eyes were on him. One of the most difficult things in childhood, when faced with the media, users, regulators, courts, was to speak out in public。
He has also served as an assistant in line for girls of the same grade. He used to stammer and talk to girls. The team didn't make fun of him like boys. Whenever he's stuck, just make a gesture, the girls understand what he wants to say。
Later, the school tutor, Sheila, took him to the office and told him there was a professional language therapist who could help. She knew that he had no money and had recommended a retired language therapist who was willing to provide free counselling. The therapist left a dent in his eyebrow as a result of the accident, and his eyesight was not good, but he was willing to help him. CZ went to see him twice a week. A few weeks later, his stutter was almost relaxed。
After selling the house, bitcoin fell by two thirds
He sold the three-bedroom apartment in Shanghai and exchanged a large portion of the money for bitcoin at an average cost of about $600. Soon, Mt. Gox crashed, bitcoin fell near $200. The house had been sold, the money had become the number on the screen, and those figures had been reduced by two thirds in a short period of time。
MOTHERS DON'T UNDERSTAND. SHE ASKED HIM WHY HE WOULD NOT FIND A DECENT JOB, WHY HE WOULD START A BUSINESS AND WHY HE WOULD TOUCH BITCOIN. IT WAS WRITTEN THAT AT THAT TIME, MOTHERS OFTEN TRIED TO SLAP HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD AND ASKED HIM WHY HE COULD NOT DO DECENT WORK LIKE HIS SISTER AND WHY HE WAS STUPID ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND BITCOIN. CZ IS NOT COMPLETELY UNSHAKABLE. HE'D WONDER IF MOST PEOPLE WERE WRONG OR ONLY THEMSELVES. BUT HE DIDN'T END UP SELLING BITCOIN. THERE WAS NOT MUCH HE COULD EXPLAIN, AT LEAST NOT ENOUGH TO REASSURE HIS MOTHER. THE HOUSE WAS NO LONGER IN EXISTENCE AND THERE WERE LOSSES ON THE BOOKS, AND HE HAD TO REMAIN IN HIS OWN JUDGEMENT。
THE DAY BNB WENT ONLINE, IT WAS FULL OF BILLS
ON JULY 14TH, 2017, AT NOON, IT OFFICIALLY WENT ONLINE. AFTER THE COUNTDOWN, THE BNB DEAL OPENS. CZ AND THE TECH TEAM ARE WATCHING THE SCREEN. SOON, THE TRADE PAGES WERE FULL OF BILLS, VERY FEW OF THEM, AND THE PRICES WENT DOWN A LITTLE BIT. A FEW HOURS AGO, THERE WERE PEOPLE AFTER BNB LEVELS; WHEN THE DEAL WAS OPEN, IT SEEMED EVERYONE WAS SELLING. THE MOOD IN THE OFFICE IS RAPIDLY CHANGING. THE FRONT OFFICE EMPLOYEE, FONG, WHO WAS RECORDING THE HISTORIC MOMENT WITH HIS MOBILE PHONE, QUIETLY DROPPED THE PHONE AND RETURNED TO HIS PLACE OF WORK. IN THE CHAT ROOM, A LOT OF INSULTS BEGAN TO APPEAR, AND EVEN “HONOR” HIS ANCESTORS. USERS SEE ONLY ONE THING: THE CURRENCY THEY BUY FALLS。
CZ IS NOT FACING AN ABSTRACT MARKET, BUT A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE JUST INVESTED MONEY IN HIM. THESE INDIVIDUALS DO NOT NECESSARILY UNDERSTAND THE STABILITY OF THE TRADING SYSTEM, NOR DO THEY CARE ABOUT HOW MUCH FUNCTIONALITY THE TEAM HAS PUT ON THE LINE, AND THEY DIRECTLY FEEL LOSSES. FOR A PLATFORM THAT IS JUST ON THE LINE, THIS SENTIMENT MAY QUICKLY TURN INTO A RUN-DOWN MISTRUST。
IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, THE BIAN OFFICE ALMOST LIT THE LIGHTS OVERNIGHT. API, ZERO FEES, MORE CURRENCY, MOBILE END, NEW UI, MULTILINGUAL VERSION. BUT THESE CONSTRUCTIONS WERE NOT IMMEDIATELY REFLECTED IN BNB PRICES IN THE SHORT TERM. CZ'S CHOICE IS TO BROADCAST LIVE THE NEXT DAY. THERE ARE STILL SCOLDINGS IN THE SCREEN. INSTEAD OF CHOOSING TO HIDE BEHIND THE PR TEXT, HE APPEARED REPEATEDLY AND TOLD THE USER TEAM THAT THINGS WERE STILL GOING ON。
Evacuate late in the night before September 4th
It's been less than two months since Min-An went online, and Chinese regulatory pressure has come。
At the beginning of September, 2017, the CZ and the one who heard the next day might have a clean-up. Late in the night, they convened the core team and decided that some members would leave China immediately. Soon after Hoichi moved to Shanghai, her mother had broken her tail vertebrae a few days earlier and was unable to walk. She woke up her mother in the middle of the night and told her she had to go to Tokyo immediately. Heina, without a Japanese visa, had to go to Thailand first, and her two-year-old child was sleeping in her home。
THE FOLLOWING DAY, SEVEN CHINESE MINISTRIES ISSUED A “9/4 BULLETIN” PROHIBITING THE OPERATION OF AN ENCRYPTED CURRENCY EXCHANGE AND IC0 AND REQUIRING FULL REFUNDS TO INVESTORS FROM THE PROJECT OWNERS WHO HAD ISSUED IC0. CHEONAN WAS OFTEN LATER DESCRIBED AS A GLOBAL COMPANY WITH NO HEADQUARTERS. HOWEVER, THE STRUCTURE WAS NOT DESIGNED AS AN IDEAL AT THE OUTSET, BUT WAS FORCED TO FORM UNDER EARLY REGULATORY SHOCKS. CZ'S HABIT OF MOVING FREQUENTLY IN THE EARLY YEARS AND NOT RELYING ON HEAVY ASSETS TRANSLATES HERE INTO THE ABILITY TO MIGRATE AT THE COMPANY LEVEL: WHEN ONE PLACE CANNOT CONTINUE, TURN TO ANOTHER。
Problems have also arisen. The lack of headquarters provides flexibility and also leads to long-standing disputes over the regulation of narratives. In the years that followed, while benefiting from global flows, Bian was constantly asked: where is it? Who will regulate it? With what entity? September 2017 was not a mere “leave from China” node, but one of the sources of all the subsequent regulatory contradictions in Bianan. The company chooses to move under existential pressure, while regulation continues to require it to return to a clear coordinates。
FROM CEO TO DEFENDANT
IN NOVEMBER 2023, CZ VOLUNTEERED TO FLY TO THE UNITED STATES TO PLEAD GUILTY TO VIOLATING THE RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES BANK SECRECY ACT. ACCORDING TO HIM, THE CORE OF THE CASE WAS THE EARLY SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES USER, BUT NOT REGISTERED IN THE UNITED STATES. ACCORDING TO HIS BOOK
No fraud, no money laundering, no loss of user funds. However, this remains a concentration of long-term pressure on the currency by the United States regulatory system。
THE REAL CHANGE TOOK PLACE NOT ONLY IN COURT, BUT ALSO AFTER HE LEFT THE CEO POSITION. PRIOR TO THAT, HE HAD LONG BEEN WORKING AT HIGH SPEED. ITS RHYTHM IS ON LINE, GROWTH, EXPANSION, RESPONDING TO REGULATION, DEALING WITH USER ISSUES AND DEALING WITH INTERNAL ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES. AFTER HE PLEADED GUILTY, HE RESIGNED FROM HIS DUTIES AS CEO AND COULD NO LONGER PARTICIPATE IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CURRENCY. AS A RESULT OF AN APPEAL BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR HIS DEPARTURE THAT HE HAD ORIGINALLY RECEIVED WERE OVERTURNED AND HE HAD TO STAY IN THE UNITED STATES PENDING A JUDGEMENT. HE WAS NOT PREPARED TO STAY FOR A LONG TIME AND HAD TO BUY WINTER CLOTHES TEMPORARILY。
On Thanksgiving, a friend drove to see him from Dallas, many restaurants were closed, bodyguards baked ribs and several people drank beer. He was eventually sentenced to four months ' imprisonment. He then entered Lompoc to serve his sentence。
After entering Lompoc prison, restrictions became specific. Prison facilities are old and the vents are stained. Shortly after his imprisonment, he suffered from a sore throat and a high fever, asked if he could obtain medication and was told to go to the Welfare Society, which was opened only once every two weeks. During the dental examination, he asked if he could wash his teeth and was told that it might take a year or two。
There was no real quiet in the cell. Iron bars keep the sound of flushing throughout the cell block, with some of the 200 inmates always using toilets. The breakfast notice is usually between 6:00 and 6:30 in the morning, and if it is not ready within a minute, one miss. Breakfast is tasteless cereals, rare milk and sweet bread; lunch dinners are mostly carbon water, sugar, imitating meat and little vegetable protein. There's a chicken leg at dinner every Thursday, which is already relatively good. For 76 days, he lost 12 pounds。
He wrote a first draft in prison. They can't copy paste or network. To adjust a paragraph, we cannot drag, cut, reset as usual, but we can only hit again. A person who has a long-standing habit of using high-efficiency tools to handle matters has returned to the status of a close typewriter: no search, no real-time information, no teamwork, only memory and keyboard。
These experiences come together, and CZ's setbacks are not some kind of continuous history of suffering. They are more like a series of forced changes: When he was a child, he moved from the countryside to compost and then went to Vancouver; when he arrived in Canada, he squeezed the dormitories and then slept in the storage room; then sold Shanghai's house and exchanged his assets for bitcoin; when the money went online, the office watched the BNB go down; the team left overnight before the Chinese guards landed; and after the United States case, he withdrew from the CEO's position, stayed in the United States and finally entered Lompoc. Every change of place was accompanied by a part of the old life: room, language, house, office, company position, freedom of movement. Many of the choices that followed, which appeared to be active mobility, were backed by such early experience that places could change at any time, rules could change at any time, and people could not take much, at best judgement, codes, passports, computers, and the ability to start over。
