Binance founder Changpeng Zhao set off a brief memecoin mania on BNB Chain after burning 4,444 Marscoin tokens from his public address on August 17, 2026. What Zhao later described as routine wallet cleanup was interpreted by onchain traders as a possible signal, sending one unofficial Marscoin clone from a market value of roughly $40,000 to about $30 million before it tumbled back toward $5.26 million. Some reports later indicated the token was trading at $0 with no reported 24-hour volume, underscoring the collapse in liquidity and price.
The episode recalled past cases where traders treated high-profile wallet transfers as signals, including attention around Vitalik Buterin’s 2021 SHIB token burn, although Zhao said his action had a different purpose.
Onchain data shared by Lookonchain showed one fast-moving wallet spent 16 BNB, worth about $9,645, plus $10 in gas to acquire 84.61 million Marscoin tokens seconds after the burn. The trader sold 42.3 million tokens for 16.4 BNB to recover the initial stake, then sold the remaining half for 465 BNB, worth roughly $282,000, locking in a 29x return.
A second trader, identified as 0xacbf, entered after the rally accelerated and paid 133,000 USDT for 6.15 million Marscoin tokens. After Zhao said he would stop using the public address, the token crashed more than 90%. The wallet sold for about 22,400 USDT, leaving a loss near $110,700 within roughly two hours. The legitimate Marscoin version trading on Binance Alpha remained stable while the clone surged.
Zhao stressed that the burns were not trading signals but an effort to clear spam tokens that made it hard to read his BNB balance. He moved his legitimate BNB holdings and related assets to Giggle Academy, his education-focused charity, and said he would no longer use the wallet, effectively turning it into a permanent burn address.
