After the astounding FTX crypto collapse, investors and industry observers want proof that Binance is different.

The leading cryptocurrency exchange and its founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, who played a key role in setting off the death spiral of the FTX enterprise, are now themselves facing increasing scrutiny over the opacity of Binance’s operations and the solvency of its crypto holdings.

Efforts to restore public trust have so far been challenging.

This, as Binance has emerged as the clear industry leader versus smaller rivals, like Kraken and Coinbase, and forced to play defense for the past month.

“Ignore FUD. Keep building,” Zhao tweeted recently to his eight million followers, invoking the crypto shorthand for fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Ignore FUD. Keep building!

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) December 12, 2022

Binance has not replied to a request by PYMNTS for comment.

Too Big to Fail 2.0

When the crypto industry was a booming bull market, companies enjoyed relatively little negative attention from investors and regulators around their corporate structure or operations.

Now, the 48-hour demise last month of the multibillion-dollar FTX exchange and the punctured persona of its now-jailed founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, has rapidly educated the investing public and lawmakers alike around the pitfalls that might be lurking inside the industry’s most prominent black-box operations.

Binance’s outsize importance to the crypto industry — its…