Changpeng Zhao — the founder of the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, and universally known as CZ — has offered his explanation for why digital assets have had a miserable 2026. In an interview with CoinDesk, he pinned the slump not on one cause but on several: capital flowing into artificial-intelligence stocks, geopolitical tension, and the crypto market's long-observed four-year cycle. It is one influential figure's read, not a verdict — and CZ has reasons to want sentiment to stay positive.

What he said

Zhao played down the downturn as a passing phase. "Over the long run, the industry will develop. There's going to be more and more demand for financial technologies," he told CoinDesk, framing short-term price swings as noise around a long-term rise.

On U.S. crypto policy, he said he keeps his distance: "I try to stay as far away from the U.S. politics as I can. This is a battle for the U.S. players to figure out." He nonetheless predicted political consequences for opponents of the industry — "Anybody who's anti-crypto now will probably lose quite a lot of votes" — and described pending U.S. legislation, the Clarity Act, as "small, tactical things" that would help but were not essential to crypto's long-term growth.

The 2026 backdrop

The numbers behind his comments are stark. Bitcoin hit an all-time high above $126,000 in October 2025, opened 2026 near $89,000 and pushed just above $96,000 before turning down, according to CoinDesk. It now trades around $60,000 — roughly half its peak. Boursel has reported on the sell-off through the year, including bitcoin's first close below $60,000 since 2024.

The weakness has coincided with a strong run for AI-linked technology stocks. Investors rotating money into those names have, in many cases, pulled it out of crypto — the very dynamic CZ pointed to.

The four-year cycle, explained

The "four-year cycle" CZ invoked rests on bitcoin's halving — a rule written into the network that, roughly every four years, cuts in half the new bitcoin paid to the miners who process transactions. Halvings occurred in 2012, 2016, 2020 and, most recently, April 2024. Cycle theorists argue the pattern repeats: the halving slows the supply of new coins; a rally tends to follow a year or so later; then a bear phase sets in until the next halving resets the clock. On that reading, the late-2025 record was the post-2024-halving peak, and 2026's slide is the predictable comedown.

Plenty of analysts are skeptical that the cycle still holds. The market is now far bigger and more institutional than in earlier rounds — with spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and corporate treasuries shaping demand in ways they didn't in 2016 or 2020 — and just three prior cycles make for a thin statistical basis.

Read the source

CZ's view deserves context. He runs Binance, the largest crypto exchange by volume, and has a direct interest in confidence in digital assets; his market commentary is that of a participant, not a neutral analyst. His record also matters: in 2023 he pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to anti-money-laundering failures at Binance and served a prison term — and, as CoinDesk notes, he has since received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. None of that makes his diagnosis wrong, but it is the kind of background readers should weigh when a major exchange's founder tells them a downturn is only temporary.