In FTX Collapse, Binance sees an opportunity to become the new face of crypto

Mr. Zhao founded Binance after a brief career in finance, including a stint at Bloomberg developing trading software. He started the exchange while living in Shanghai.

But soon after, the Chinese government banned cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance from operating in the country, and many of the company’s employees fled. Mr. Zhao maintains an active presence on Twitter but is not always easy to track down as he has moved between Japan, Singapore, Lithuania, Malta and Dubai.

Binance’s lack of a permanent headquarters is in line with the remote work trend, said Jessica Jung, a company spokeswoman. In an emailed statement, Ms Jung said the exchange had established a local presence in nearly a dozen jurisdictions, including Kazakhstan and France.

Ms. Jung said Binance has also announced that it is undergoing a corporate restructuring “aimed at providing regulators with further clarity on our organization.” But promises made a year ago to name a headquarters and assemble a board of directors to diversify oversight of the company remain unfulfilled.

Binance is a giant compared to its competitors. Before the collapse of FTX was the trading volume Cryptocurrencies alone on Binance was larger than the totals of its seven closest competitors, according to an industry data tracker.

In a group chat attended by Mr. Bankman-Fried on Nov. 10, the day before FTX filed for bankruptcy, Mr. Zhao portrayed himself as crypto’s elder statesman. He accused the FTX founder of conducting deals that would harm the broader crypto market undermined, according to screenshots from The Times. “Stop it now, don’t do any more damage,” he said. “The more damage you do now, the more jail time.”

The group chat included several other prominent crypto executives, and Mr. Zhao appeared eager to develop a common strategy. “I think we should coordinate a bit to see how best we can work together to stabilize and restore market confidence,” he said.