Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao launches LIBRA relief fund on BNB Chain for affected traders

Binance’s founder and former CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao opened a new wallet for BNB donations to compensate traders who suffered losses from the LIBRA meme token. He kicked off the fundraising initiative with a personal donation of 150 BNB. 

Shortly after the first donation, another user donated 15 BNB. While it’s still not enough to cover the huge losses LIBRA traders suffered, the donations are at least drawing attention to BNB Chain.

After CZ’s donation to LIBRA victims, someone also created a new Broccoli token, traded it for 150 BNB, and sent additional funds to Zhao’s wallet.

Sent 150 BNB. Good luck and keep up the good work!https://t.co/y5KyV9NGnA

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) February 18, 2025

LIBRA launched with claims of support from Argentina’s President Javier Milei. However, it quickly went through a rug pull where early buyers managed to lock in gains before the token lost 90% of its value.

After a few days, LIBRA is still trading at a price of $0.31. Over 39K holders were affected based on the final wallet count of traders who did not manage to sell before the liquidity extraction. Most of the wealth is in large-scale whale wallets. 50% of LIBRA is still held in the top wallets, for the potential of more selling in the future.

CZ had his own run-in with the meme token machine when he introduced his dog, Broccoli on social media. It led to the creation of dozens of derivative tokens, which typically lead to gains for early snipers and prepared insiders.

LIBRA compensations are still uncertain

Other estimates count up to 100K involved traders, though 2,200 wallets were the most active and they suffered the most losses. The project has not made any formal plan to compensate traders, though there have been attempts to boost liquidity or gather funds to erase the losses.

While previous celebrity tokens also rug pulled traders for millions, LIBRA was considered an especially blatant example. The ripple effects of the has spread throughout the crypto community, starting an investigation on the involvement of Solana insiders and even project founders.

The LIBRA project is still seeing extraction from its main trading pair. Liquidity is down to $72M, from up to $85M on Monday. The token remains extremely risky, as it is still only traded through pools, with the threats of spontaneous deep crashes still hanging over it.

Despite promises, the person behind LIBRA’s promotion and rollout, Hayden Mark Davis, has not mentioned what would become of the SOL and USDC extracted from trading. Not all whales and snipers are accountable. Davis also has no plan for the LIBRA token beyond a vague promise to inject liquidity. He also has not sent out any messages through the account of Kelsier Ventures since Sunday, while talking about reinvesting funds into the project.

LIBRA also affected small-scale traders

Even small-scale traders suffered significant losses in LIBRA trades. Researchers have proposed different scenarios to compensate affected investors.

Traders with positions under $10,000 lost over $39M. That group was the biggest, with 71,269 wallets. Another cluster of 2,409 addresses with investments up to $50,000 lost $52M.

The top 25 whale wallets alone had an estimated $46.4M in losses. In total, another on-chain estimation reveals traders lost up to $286M due to the token’s crash. Other estimates after the latest price counts the losses at over $314M. Fundraising would hardly make a dent in that sum, as some holders may decide to hold to zero and not seek compensation.

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