By Senad Karaahmetovic
Nouriel Roubini, renowned economics professor and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, has launched a scathing attack on Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
Mr. Roubini said he “cannot believe” that Binance is allowed to operate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and called CZ a “walking time bomb” who “should be kicked out of this country and not be authorized to operate.”
Roubini also said that CZ “is going to get worse than Samuel Bankman-Fried,” the CEO of struggling cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He later accused CZ on Twitter (NYSE:) of having “no more credibility than SBF!”
Roubini was speaking at the ADGM event in Abu Dhabi, as part of Abu Dhabi Financial Week. Changpeng Zhao and Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, were keynote speakers at the same event and took the stage just minutes before Roubini was asked to share his thoughts on “the way forward for the modern era of digital assets.”
“It’s an ecosystem that’s totally corrupted,” he said on stage.
Right after the session ended, Roubini launched a series of crypto market tweets, saying that the crypto: “1. Concealed, 2. Corrupt, 3. Scammers, 4. Criminals, 5. Scammers, 6. Carnival barkers, 7. @cz_binance.”
“Me calling for @cz_binance to be kicked out of the UAE as I was live on stage today at ADGM Crypto Day. This sleazy character was speaking just before me with the lunatic @novogratz, both of them vomiting their shitcoin crash bullshit,” Roubini tweeted.
“So, are @binance and @cz_binance its masters of ceremonies? For 5 years, they allowed all sordid activity to happen on their shady platform, including massive money laundering (8 billions from Iran), pump and dump systems and much more… Their BNB coin is as wispy as TTF,” Roubini added in another tweet.