CZ Memoir Revives Feud With OKX Founder Star Xu Over Contract Forgery and Huobi Arrest

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao served as OKCoin's chief technology officer in 2014. After leaving, he became embroiled in a long-running dispute with OKX founder Star Xu over the v7 and v8 versions of a Bitcoin.com operating contract. The case involved questions about document authenticity, wallet control and senior executives' integrity, highlighting the risks of opaque governance at early crypto trading platforms.

Zhao published “Freedom of Money” on April 8, 2026, denying that he forged the contract and saying Huobi founder Li Lin claimed in 2025 that Xu had reported him to police. Xu responded by calling Zhao a “habitual liar” and again cited a notarized video from 2015. The book also says OKEx suspended withdrawals for five weeks when Xu came under investigation in October 2020 because he alone controlled the wallet keys. None of the allegations has received a definitive judicial ruling.