A series of token burns involving Changpeng Zhao’s public donation address appeared on-chain around 16:15 on August 16, but one of them was not initiated by Zhao. Arkham data showed three burn transactions of 4,444 tokens each involving the meme token Niu Lai, MarsCoin and Binance Life. A review found the 4,444-token Niu Lai burn was executed by the token’s creator, not Zhao, after the creator minted 1 billion tokens, sent about 800 million to Zhao’s address and then used transferFrom to forcibly move 4,444 tokens from that address to a burn wallet. Zhao’s address gave no authorization to the token or its creator during that period. The episode underscores how on-chain trackers can label a transaction as originating from Changpeng Zhao even when a smart contract with special privileges is moving balances, creating a false impression of endorsement, participation or voluntary burning. BlockBeats said similar tactics have appeared before, including the 2025 CAAB case and the SHORT token incident, and warned that meme coins often lack real use cases and carry high volatility and manipulation risk.