There is very little information about Zhao Changpeng on Baidu's encyclopedia.
There isn't much information on Wikipedia, so I tried to present a complete picture using publicly available data on the internet.
The founder of a top-tier exchange in the cryptocurrency world, a man who went from obscurity to becoming the richest Chinese person in just four years! A gambler with a fortune topping 500 billion who sold his house to bet on top luck! An investor without a fixed residence!
Mr. Zhao Changpeng, known as CZ in English, is rumored to have been friends with Elon Musk years ago.
Zhao Changpeng, a person who needs little introduction in the cryptocurrency world, was listed as 'the richest person in cryptocurrency' by Forbes magazine in February 2018. The article described Zhao Changpeng's speed of wealth accumulation as follows: 'In the craziest gold mine of wealth creation last year, speed is the lifeline. Zhao Changpeng, a Chinese programmer, went from establishing the Binance platform to becoming wealthy in just six months.'
By May 2018, his net worth exceeded $1.39 billion.
In December 2021, Zhao Changpeng surpassed Nongfu Spring chairman Zhong Shanshan to become the richest person in China with a net worth of $90 billion (approximately 573.3 billion yuan) and ranked among the top 10 richest people in the world.
In 2022, Bitcoin prices hit their lowest since December 2020, causing Zhao Changpeng's fortune to evaporate by $85.6 billion overnight.
Just based on these data, you can say whether it's impressive or not.
Zhao Changpeng of Binance
Founded Binance
On July 7, 2017, he founded Binance, and just 11 days after obtaining $15 million in public funding, the exchange opened. It proved to be almost instantly popular with users.
Binance (English: Binance) is a global cryptocurrency exchange platform providing trading services for over 100 cryptocurrencies, including options, spot trading, U-based contracts, and coin-based contracts. Since early 2018, Binance has been considered the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of trading volume.
The name 'Binance' is a portmanteau of the words binary and finance.
Binance's currency trading service began in 2017, capable of processing about 1.4 million orders per second, offering trading in over 150 cryptocurrencies, including popular currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and its own BNB token.
Binance was originally founded in China, but from September 2017, the Chinese government ordered a ban on cryptocurrency trading, prompting Binance to move its servers and headquarters to Japan.
In 2018, Binance established an office in Taiwan.
As of January 2018, Binance was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion for its cryptocurrency BNB.
In March 2018, due to strict regulations on cryptocurrencies in China and Japan, Binance announced plans to establish a new office in Malta.
In April 2018, Binance signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bermuda government. A few months later, Binance also signed a similar memorandum with the Malta Stock Exchange to develop a cryptocurrency trading platform. Moreover, to expand its influence in Europe, Binance plans to relocate to Jersey and obtain a local exchange license, increasing trading pairs to include euros and pounds.
In August 2018, Binance, along with three other major exchanges, raised $32 million for a stablecoin project. The concept of stablecoins is to provide a cryptocurrency that is not significantly affected by the volatility of Bitcoin and other digital assets.
On May 27, 2022, Binance announced the registration of a legal entity in Italy and planned to open an office in the region and expand the local team. CEO Zhao Changpeng also shared information about Binance's registration with the French market regulator. The company is also seeking registration in more European countries, including Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Austria.
As of now, users in China, the United States, and Turkey cannot trade stock tokens.
According to statistics, as of the end of 2022, Binance had over 120 million users, with daily trading volumes reaching hundreds of billions, making it the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
Binance's issued cryptocurrency BNB is the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalization.
In the cryptocurrency field, exchanges like Binance, Huobi, and OKCoin, founded by Chinese and overseas Chinese, have emerged because of their aggressive strategies and diverse approaches. An important reason is their ability to scale. Cryptocurrency players say, 'Global cryptocurrency exchanges face fierce competition, with high demands for manpower, customer service, and security. Only Chinese can take this service industry to the extreme.'
For example, exchanges founded by foreigners cannot provide 24/7 customer service. If an issue arises, we can only email them and may have to wait one or two weeks for a response. Who can tolerate that? However, exchanges run by Chinese can respond online 24/7.
Zhao Changpeng's life history:
Zhao Changpeng, male, Han ethnicity, CEO of Binance and BiJie Technology, has served as the technical director at Bloomberg and later founded Fusion Information Technology Co., Ltd. He is not only the founder but also the president for the Chinese region. Zhao Changpeng also joined OKCoin as a co-founder and CTO, managing OKCoin's technical team and responsible for its international market team, quickly establishing OKCoin's international influence.
Born in 1977 in a rural area near Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province.
Born on October 14, 1987, He Yi's parents were both educators. Her father was a professor in China but was later labeled as a 'bourgeois intellectual' and expelled from the country. Thus, at the age of 10, Zhao Changpeng followed his parents to immigrate to Vancouver, Canada, becoming a Canadian citizen of Chinese descent.
In his teenage years, Zhao Changpeng worked a series of hard and low-paying jobs as an employee at McDonald's and a gas station.
However, this extraordinary boy with exceptional intelligence and vision ultimately stood out. He later attended McGill University in Montreal, Canada, majoring in computer science.
During university in 2001, Zhao Changpeng interned for a year at a financial IT company in Tokyo. After graduation, the company offered him a good salary. He also enjoyed Tokyo, where he worked on exchange systems for four years.
After graduating from university, Zhao Changpeng spent some time in Tokyo and New York, where he built a system that merged commercial orders with the Tokyo Stock Exchange and then with Bloomberg's Tradebook, where he developed futures trading software.
During this time, this 25-year-old programmer was promoted three times in less than two years while managing teams in New Jersey, London, and Tokyo, yet Zhao Changpeng still became impatient.
Therefore, in 2005, he stopped those jobs, moved to Shanghai, and founded his own company, Sistem Fusion, which became known for building high-frequency trading systems.
In 2013, Zhao Changpeng learned about BTC through his good friend Bobby Lee, co-founder and CEO of BTCC and BTC China.
Thus, he began to get involved with blockchain. Bobby Lee once told CZ, 'If you invest 10% of your net worth in BTC, as long as it rises tenfold, your wealth will double, and even if you incur losses, you will only lose 10% of your assets.' Because of this statement, CZ developed a great interest in blockchain.
CZ then began to get involved in blockchain projects and joined http://Blockchain.info as the third founding employee, where he frequently interacted with BTC evangelists Roger Ver and Ben Reeves during his eight-month tenure, gaining confidence under the influence of industry giants.
After accidentally learning about Bitcoin, he began to invest heavily, later entering the blockchain space, having served as the technical director at http://Blockchain.info and joining OKCoin as CTO as a co-founder.
He joined http://Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet team and worked closely with well-known Bitcoin evangelists Roger Ver and Ben Reeves as the development supervisor for eight months.
Until June 2014, when He Yi (known as the 'sister in the cryptocurrency world' and now co-founder and CMO of Binance) invited him to become the CTO of OKCoin, at that time, CZ sold his house in Shanghai and invested all his funds into BTC, having no other assets besides his phone. Thus, he was also considered the first person who held 99% of his assets in crypto by believers in crypto.
As a result, within less than a year, the price of housing in Shanghai doubled, yet BTC saw a significant drop. Faced with enormous financial losses, he did not choose to give up. During his time at OKCoin, CZ grasped the logic of operating a cryptocurrency exchange and the entire industry. However, due to cultural and value differences, conflicts arose, leading Zhao Changpeng to resign.
He had conflicts with OKCoin founder Xu Mingxing and subsequently left OKCoin.
Turning point in life
In 2017, he founded Binance. Although he did not enter the market early, Binance has now become the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange after Coinbase, and CZ embarked on the path to immense wealth.
After leaving OKCoin, Zhao Changpeng recognized the booming market for cultural goods trading and founded BiJie Technology, which specialized in providing trading systems for collectibles such as coins, stamps, and phone cards.
Although the company was doing well, he still wanted to have his own exchange, so in June 2017, he chose to establish Binance and launched his blockchain currency - Binance Coin, thus embarking on the path to immense wealth.
Compared to other cryptocurrencies, Binance mainly aims to aggregate high-quality blockchain assets globally to provide users with more convenient and secure services.
Binance provides a trading platform with very low investment barriers for ordinary people. In less than 10 days, its initial offering brought Binance $15 million in funding. In less than a year, it attracted attention from Black Hole Capital (revealing this mysterious and low-profile capital that invested in Binance and gained over 4360 times returns), Pan City Capital, Sequoia Capital, and IDG Capital, all eager to provide funding.
Due to BTC's price surge from September to December 2017, rising from $3,000 to $20,000, the increase was astonishing, prompting many to rush to enter cryptocurrency exchanges.
During the bull market, the trading volume of cryptocurrencies broke previous records. At its peak, the daily trading volume of all exchanges and cryptocurrencies worldwide reached $60 billion, with Binance occupying one-sixth, reaching $10 billion.
In the cryptocurrency world, wherever Binance is, He Yi is always present. This chief customer service officer has been active at the forefront of work. The current market share and ecosystem of Binance owe much to this 'sister in the cryptocurrency world.'
Born on October 14, 1986, He Yi was born in Sichuan to parents who were both teachers. Now, at just over 36 years old, she is the co-founder and chief user service officer of Binance, and Zhao Changpeng CZ's right-hand person. It is conservatively estimated that her net worth exceeds 10 billion yuan.
The first turn: From a working girl to a university class teacher.
Before turning 20, He Yi was not much different from other girls her age, and her experiences can be described as very ordinary. At 16, she worked as a beverage promoter, earning less than 1,000 yuan a month; at 18, she served as the manager of a bedding store for two months.
In 2006, at the age of 20, He Yi came to Beijing, studying for a master's degree in psychological counseling at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2007, at the age of 21, He Yi entered the stock market, profiting during the bull market, and chose to give up her aspirations of becoming a psychological counselor, dropping out of the Academy and, through a friend's introduction, took a job as a class teacher at a university.
The second turn: Transitioning to hosting.
In 2012, He Yi, at 26 years old, was advised by a friend who worked in directing to try her hand at hosting. With her stunning looks, strong communication skills, and background in psychology, He Yi became an outdoor host for Travel Channel (Beautiful Destinations) and (Wherever You Go, Go Far), traveling across the country with the production team. After leaving Travel Channel, He Yi joined Beijing TV as the host of (Beijing New Discoveries).
The third turn: Diving into the cryptocurrency world and then becoming a vice president in a tech company.
In 2014, OKCoin's investor Mike Gang, along with OKCoin founder Xu Mingxing, organized a gathering where He Yi met Xu Mingxing; this gathering became the biggest turning point in her life.
Two weeks after the drinking party, Xu Mingxing invited He Yi to join, offering a salary of 400,000 and the position of Vice President at OKCoin. This marked the beginning of her journey in the cryptocurrency world.
During her time at OKCoin, He Yi was responsible for brand building and marketing. In addition to helping OKCoin become a top exchange, He Yi also brought technical talent Zhao Changpeng to OKCoin as CTO.
In May 2015, when Zhao Changpeng left OKCoin, He Yi also left with him.
On August 8, 2017, He Yi publicly announced on social media that she and her old friend Zhao Changpeng had once again founded the virtual currency trading platform Binance, taking on the roles of CMO, co-founder, and director.
Half of Binance's success can be attributed to He Yi. She seamlessly integrated her experience from hosting live broadcasts and her time at OKCoin into Binance.
He Yi frequently used live broadcasts to promote projects and often gave away luxury cars. High commissions, luxury cars, and various discounts from forked coins brought substantial profits to Binance: after exceeding $3 billion in daily trading volume on December 18, 2017, it broke $10 billion on January 10, 2018.
Zhao Changpeng incident
On April 25, 2018, it was reported that Zhao Changpeng, the founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, was involved in a legal dispute with a department of Sequoia Capital. According to records from Hong Kong court documents dated March 26 and April 24, Sequoia sued Zhao Changpeng over a failed financing deal. The documents revealed details of Zhao Changpeng's negotiations with the well-known venture capital firm and disclosed their assessment of Binance's valuation.
On December 14, 2017, Zhao Changpeng's team informed Sequoia that Binance's existing shareholders believed that the offer they provided undervalued the exchange.
Around the same time, another venture capital firm, IDG Capital, approached Zhao Changpeng, expressing its willingness to invest in Binance in two rounds, with valuations ranging from $400 million to $1 billion.
The question here is whether Zhao Changpeng's communication with IDG Capital violated his exclusive agreement with Sequoia. While Sequoia and Zhao Changpeng planned to resolve the dispute through arbitration, as Sequoia resorted to the Hong Kong High Court, successfully prohibiting Zhao Changpeng from contacting other investors, the dispute gradually entered the public eye.
The court indicated on April 24, 2018, that whether Zhao Changpeng was at fault needed further hearings to determine.
On March 8, 2020, Zhao Changpeng privately misappropriated user funds to participate in Steem voting. He posted on Twitter about Binance's participation in Steem voting and apologized.
He stated: 'I didn't want to get involved in this incident, but it seems I can't stay out of it.'
In mistakenly believing this was a routine upgrade/fork, I approved Binance's participation in the vote. I deeply regret this.
Where is this billionaire now?
Media reports indicated that competitors of Binance had hired private investigators to track Zhao Changpeng's whereabouts, but the investigative team 'made great efforts to track Zhao Changpeng but failed to succeed. They suspected Binance had hired others to cover up Zhao Changpeng's past and whereabouts, making him almost impossible to detect.'
This narrative is filled with spy thriller elements, leading those in the know to eagerly anticipate a strange answer about Zhao Changpeng's whereabouts. The result was that insiders said, 'He is rotating between France, Dubai, and Singapore.'
Although not married, Zhao Changpeng's partner He Yi is expecting their third child, with the first two being boys, at least one of whom was born in the United States. Although the child is American, Zhao Changpeng can no longer set foot in the United States, and although Zhao Changpeng was born in China, he is also unlikely to return to China.
This seems to be a metaphor for his identity: born in China, raised in Canada, attending a university in French-speaking Montreal, dropping out after a summer internship at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, then transitioning to a job at Bloomberg in New York, and returning to China to start a business in Shanghai. After a chance entry into the cryptocurrency industry, his life gradually became 'crazy.' After the severe crackdown on cryptocurrencies, he fled with He Yi and the team to Tokyo, then to Malta, then to Singapore. After being expelled from Singapore, he went to Vietnam, wandering through countries and regions around the world except for the U.S. and China.
Although Zhao Changpeng and his Binance have been expelled from many countries due to regulatory crackdowns, this vast cryptocurrency exchange empire continues to operate. Insiders have told that Binance has employees in Paris, Dubai, London, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Berlin, Taipei, Hong Kong, and even in the United States, Canada, and some countries in Africa and Asia. Zhao Changpeng stated that Binance operates in a 'decentralized' manner, indeed lacking a physical headquarters.
Zhao Changpeng used Twitter for marketing and communication with 'investors,' managing Binance through frequently changing internal communication apps, where ordinary employees rarely saw him. Yet everyone knew that Binance's management was 'decentralized,' which conveniently concealed tracks, but everything still followed his command. He quietly controlled this digital token exchange with a daily trading volume of hundreds of billions, attempting to negotiate with various parties for a legitimate license.
Only with a license can he temporarily stop wandering.
Binance was founded in 2017, but the company claims to have no headquarters, with employees spread around the world. Traders from almost all locations can access Binance's global website, but as its business has been banned in many countries, this number is declining. In Europe, more countries are closing their doors to the exchange. After the collapse of the FTX exchange, Binance's market share initially grew, but criminal investigations have cast a shadow over the company.
Recently, company executives have been fleeing Binance due to the investigation by U.S. regulatory agencies. Binance has already laid off a large number of employees this year to cut costs and prepare for a downturn in business.
This outcome is similar to the case where prosecutors previously filed lawsuits against executives of BitMEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange headquartered in the Seychelles. The former CEO, Arthur Hayes, admitted to violating anti-money laundering laws and was later sentenced to two years probation, avoiding a potential 6 to 12 months in prison.
After Zhao Changpeng's departure, who will take over? According to media reports, Binance executive Richard Teng is seen as a potential CEO candidate.
For Zhao Changpeng, the past 10 years have been a roller coaster. Has he failed this time?
According to Tencent Technology, Zhao Changpeng was born in Jiangsu and immigrated with his family to Vancouver, Canada when he was 11.
Upon arriving in Canada, Zhao Changpeng began to bear family expenses. He worked as a staff member at McDonald's and also pulled all-nighters at a gas station.
After studying computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Zhao Changpeng went to Tokyo and New York. He initially developed a system for matching trading orders at the Tokyo Stock Exchange and later developed futures trading software at Bloomberg's Tradebook.
At 27, this programming genius had already received three promotions in less than two years, managing a large team in New Jersey, London, and Tokyo. However, he had become impatient.
In 2005, he chose to resign, moved to Shanghai, and founded his own company, Fusion Systems. The company developed the fastest high-frequency trading systems for brokers.
In 2013, Zhao Changpeng learned about Bitcoin from a poker buddy who was also a venture capitalist. He began to invest heavily.
In 2017, he founded his own company, Binance, and served as CEO. On July 7, 2017, it raised $15 million in its initial coin offering. In less than eight months, Binance became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. In February 2018, Forbes magazine listed him as the 'richest person in cryptocurrency,' and by May 2018, his net worth exceeded $1.39 billion.
In December 2021, Zhao Changpeng became the richest person in China with a net worth of $90 billion and ranked among the top 10 richest people in the world.
But soon, Bitcoin prices plummeted, and Zhao Changpeng's fortune evaporated by $85.6 billion overnight.
Subsequently, it faced 13 charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Binance and Zhao Changpeng.
