Under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the United States has taken bold steps to advance the adoption of cryptocurrencies in 2025, from passing the GENIUS Act to tightening regulation of the digital asset industry. The initiative is in line with President Trump’s pledge to make the country the “crypto capital of the world.”
But is this real progress, or is there something else going on behind the scenes? Ray Youssef, CEO of P2P trading platform NoOnes, thinks it’s the latter. In a recent BeInCrypto podcast episode, he claimed that the US is preparing a “managed disruption of the entire crypto industry” and that Binance could play a key role in that.
Binance’s Journey: Growth, Legal Battles, and a Presidential Pardon
Binance was founded in China in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao (CZ). The company later relocated its operations in response to tightening national regulations on digital assets.
In just six months, Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, and continues to maintain that position. According to CoinGecko data, the exchange offers access to over 400 cryptocurrencies and 1,600 trading pairs.
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Nevertheless, Binance’s growth has also come with regulatory challenges. U.S. authorities accused the founders of violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program and violating economic sanctions.
In 2023, Zhao Changpeng pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $50 million fine. At the same time, Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion, one of the largest corporate fines ever imposed. In addition, CZ also received a four-month prison sentence in 2024.
Chao was released in mid-2024 and remained outside the United States, barred from holding executive positions at Binance. A US compliance monitoring device was installed within the exchange, a move that symbolized the transfer of management to Youssef.
“He served time in America. He served time with Uncle Sam, and he gave Uncle Sam $4 billion. The first thing Uncle Sam said was, ‘Hey, in addition to serving time, give us $4 billion and we need to have an in-house U.S. compliance monitor. People who know compliance know what that means. That’s why they do KYC on Binance every two weeks. It’s not Chinese people. This is Uncle Sam who runs Binance,” Yousef told BeInCrypto.
And last week, President Trump pardoned CZ, expunging his felony record and restoring his right to practice in the country. The White House characterized this decision as the end of “Biden’s crypto war.” Still, questions have been raised about Binance’s deep ties to the US establishment.
“CZ has teamed up with Uncle Sam, and the Trump family and they are in this together. The Chinese aren’t that stupid, they’re not criminals, they’re not gangsters, but Uncle Sam is, and that’s who CZ is working with,” he added.
“Controlled Demolition” Theory
For Yousef, Binance’s relationship with the United States is not a sign of progress, but a warning. He argues that the exchange will become a controlled asset and will eventually be used to cause a market collapse.
Interestingly, the entrepreneur pointed out that this strategy is not new. In his words, FTX should have done its job in the first place: a state-sponsored collapse.
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“Binance is becoming the next FTX, or what FTX should be,” he said.
The chief executive stressed that the FTX implosion occurred earlier than planned, forcing the state to look elsewhere. In his view, a Binance collapse is the next emergency, carefully timed to have maximum impact, and a collapse severe enough to destroy confidence in the entire sector.
“When CZ burst the FTX bubble, the damage was actually 1% of what the state had planned. Now they are trying to use Binance to make the corpse explode in front of our eyes,” Yousef told BeInCrypto.
He also predicted that Binance’s collapse would be 1,000 times worse than FTX’s. According to him,
“Binance will be the state-controlled destruction of an entire industry. Let me say it again: the controlled destruction of an entire industry right before our eyes.”
Why the US wants the virtual currency market to fall
Why would the United States want to destroy the very industry it helped foster? The answer may lie in controlling the financial system.
The power of any government depends on its ability to control the circulation of currency. Borderless, programmable, and outside of traditional banking, cryptocurrencies threaten that control.
“They want to weaken all national currencies. They want to introduce a new world currency of their own. For that, there has to be despair and poverty and, you know, a lot of instability and chaos. And what better way to do that than by collapsing the entire crypto market through the controlled destruction of the largest exchanges,” he pointed out.
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Youssef emphasized that the United States is not simply trying to regulate this new system. I’m trying to own it. By embedding itself in Binance, the world’s largest exchange, Washington can control global liquidity, monitor user flows and influence price discovery.
What was once designed as an independent, user-driven market has become a state-driven infrastructure.
“So they actually want to detonate this bloated powder keg, and then there could be massive chaos. And guess what? They’re going to have a new monetary system and a new financial system. So when that happens, you have two separate systems ready to go,” he predicted.
Can the cryptocurrency market survive another collapse?
Nevertheless, even if Binance collapses, it would not be the first time the sector faces a setback. The crypto market has endured the collapse of Mt. Gox, failed ICOs, and countless other illegal activities. Each time, it has grown stronger, more decentralized, and more aware of its core mission.
Still, Youssef warned that this time could be different. He described the current situation as a long-term battle for leadership rather than a short-term regulatory crackdown. The NoOnes CEO likened this to the massive financial changes after 9/11, when governments used the crisis to justify increased surveillance.
“Before 9/11, you could walk into a Charles Schwab office in New York, put cash on the table and buy stock without having to show any identification. After 9/11, that changed,” he said.
According to Youssef, the same logic applies to cryptocurrencies. From Mt.Gox to FTX, each major scandal has led to new legislation, such as the Travel Regulations, the GENIUS Act, and Operation Chokepoint. He warns that the next big Binance failure could give regulators an excuse to shut down the entire industry.
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He foresees a divided world. This means that centralized exchanges will “follow the humans” and only a few decentralized platforms will be free to operate, and they will also be forced to follow. Youssef pointed out that even DEXs are still subject to sanctions lists and blacklists, so they are not completely independent.
“The whole industry will completely collapse, where there will be only a few places like the Silk Road and the majority of humanity will be under their control. That’s their plan. They move the powers that be and we’re only looking weeks ahead. They… “We’re looking at least 20 years out. They can get to a place where they can have an absolutely dominant control effect, and they’re trying to get there. It’s amazing to me that people don’t realize that.”
Beyond Binance: The Real War
After all, the war Youssef depicts is not just a problem for one company or one country. It is a philosophical conflict between centralized authority and decentralized freedom. He warns that if the industry continues to rely on centralized companies, it will eventually lose the very independence it was built to protect.
“If you continue to be a Binance user, you will be ushering in the destruction of humanity. We need to move away from centralized control, which is what got us into the same mess in the first place,” Yousef revealed to BeInCrypto.
He recommends that users:
Withdraw funds from centralized exchanges. Employ a self-managed and decentralized platform. Avoid leverage trading.
For him, solutions await collective responsibility, not regulators or the judiciary.
“We are the people. We choose where to put our money, where to spend it, where to spend it,” he said.
Whether or not Youssef’s theory is true, his warning captures a tension at the heart of cryptocurrencies. This means that innovations that were born to escape control are now at risk of becoming a means to do so. Perhaps the real question is not why the US wants to destroy cryptocurrencies, but whether it will allow cryptocurrencies themselves to be destroyed.
