WHEN IT COMES to flamboyant evangelists, it’s hard to top Carl Runefelt. The Swedish social media star boasts 4 million followers across YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. He’s passionate about the “good life,” his 1,001-horsepower Bugatti Veyron, his yacht in Monte Carlo, and his $1 million watch. He even paid to have his face appear on a Formula 2 race car as a high-speed billboard for his brand.
But his true love—even after FTX, even after Bitcoin cratered by two-thirds—is crypto. Over the years, Runefelt, who goes by the Twitter handle TheMoonCarl, has posted a steady stream of QR codes, imploring followers to sign up as his affiliate members and dip their toes into trading on his favorite exchange, Binance. Hey, if this onetime grocery clerk can win a king’s ransom betting on crypto, why can’t you?
Most casual observers think of Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, as a trading-tech titan, a data-driven juggernaut run by the ubiquitous Changpeng Zhao, or CZ for short. But an army of Runefelts—who gain kickbacks with every newbie they sign up—have powered a surprising share of Binance’s explosive growth.
This influencer network is largely invisible to those who aren’t Binance power-users. That’s in contrast to CZ himself, who in recent years has become crypto’s most visible spokesman. Zhao has logged countless appearances on cable business networks, released myriad statements touting the health of his business, and appeared at live events worldwide, professing that users’ crypto is secure in their Binance accounts.
It’s crucial that the cryptoverse believes CZ’s assurances, because Binance is its cornerstone. The company has built an empire on low fees and a laissez-faire, all-traders-welcome culture. Over half of all spot and futures trades in crypto run over Binance, according to digital data outfit Arcane Research; Coinalyze, another data provider, estimated that the exchange now handles over 90% of spot Bitcoin transactions. Binance has expanded its dominance even further since the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. As Arcane wrote the crypto market.”
