Chinese-Canadian Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has a net worth estimated to be approximately $10 billion, but it could be as high as $100+ billion depending on the price of Bitcoin and BNB.
Zhao was born in China, grew up in Canada, and now lives in Singapore.
He sold his apartment in Shanghai in 2014 and poured it into starting crypto exchange Binance in 2017.
Binance has become a massively powerful global crypto exchange and a labyrinth of crypto services and apps with its own blockchain (BSC), stablecoin (BUSD), native coin (BNB), crypto card, venture capital investment division, and much more.
Overview
CZ's net worth stats
| Net worth: | $10-100+ billion (depending on the market) |
|---|---|
| Source of wealth: | Binance, crypto portfolio |
| Date of birth: | 1977 |
| Place of birth: | Jiangsu, China |
How CZ got started
When his parents moved to Canada from China, the young Zhao worked at Mcdonald's and refereed volleyball matches.
CZ initially started in the workforce through an internship at the Tokyo Stock Exchange where he wrote software that helped traders to match their orders during a trade.
Zhao then moved on to develop futures trading software on behalf of Bloomberg Tradebook.
After moving back to Shanghai, China, he founded Fusion Systems, a trading platform used mainly by brokers for high-frequency trading.
The venture was rather successful and put him in the right position to meet critical players in the financial industry.
In 2013, he took his software-building expertise and expanded it to work on various crypto projects.
He spent some time as the CTO of OKCoin, a crypto exchange where he met and worked with the future co-founder of Binance, Yi He.
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How did Changpeng Zhao build his net worth?
Seeing the rise of crypto on the horizon, he sold his property in Shanghai and used the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin.
In 2015, Changpeng Zhao launched BijieTech, an exchange development company that offered Asian exchanges cloud-based trading services.
In 2017, he left BijieTech to focus on what would become Binance.
His rise to affluence gained traction when Binance was able to drum up $15 million worth of support upon the initial coin offering.
A little over a week later, trading commenced.
Amazingly, less than a year later, the Binance exchange was the largest in the world by trading volume.
His net worth now ranges between $10-100+ billion depending on how the crypto market is going.
Zhao has revealed that he keeps 95% percent of his wealth as crypto, the majority of which are BNB coins, with the remaining in Bitcoin. Only 5% of his portfolio is fiat currency or other assets.
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FAQs
How rich is Binance founder Changpeng Zhao?
His net worth is volatile. CZ's net worth varies between $10-100+ billion. He retains a 30% stake in his company Binance.
Is Changpeng Zhao a crypto whale?
Binance's CZ is a crypto whale, holding 95% of his wealth as BNB and Bitcoin.
Disclaimer: Net worth figures published on Finty are estimations only. We do not accept any liability for inaccuracies or errors in our estimations. Our editorial team look for publicly available information about people’s net wealth from a variety of sources. Find out more about how we calculate people’s net worth.
Image: Wikimedia
