Changpeng Zhao
Changpeng Zhao (), commonly known as "CZ", is a Chinese-Canadian business executive. Zhao is the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume as of April 2018. CZ was born in Jiangsu, China and moved to Canada at a young age with his family. Zhao was previously a member of the team that developed Blockchain.info and also served as chief technology officer of OKCoin. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao is ranked 13th richest in the world with a net worth estimated at $77.3 billion as of March 1, 2022. Early  life and education. Zhao was born on September 10, 1977 in China’s Jiangsu province. In the late 1980s, he moved with his family to Canada when he was 12 years of age, settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. His parents were both teachers in China. His father worked as a university instructor before he was branded a "pro-bourgeois intellect" and exiled to rural areas shortly after Zhao's birth. In his teenage years, Zhao helped to support his family by working a number of service jobs, including at a McDonald's. Zhao attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where  he majored in computer science. Career. After graduating university, Zhao received an internship in Tokyo working for a subcontractor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, developing software for matching trade orders. He then worked full-time for four years at Bloomberg Tradebook where he was a developer of futures trading software. In 2005, he moved to Shanghai where he founded Fusion Systems, a trading system for brokers known for "some of the fastest high-frequency trading systems for brokers." Beginning in 2013, he worked for various cryptocurrency projects including Blockchain.info and also served briefly as the chief technology officer of OKCoin . In 2014, he sold his Shanghai apartment for about $1 million to use this money on Bitcoin. Staring September 2015, Zhao created an exchange development company, BijieTech, which provided cloud-based trading technology to a number of Asian exchanges. When Zhao established Binance in July 2017, he left BijieTech and populated the senior ranks of Binance with senior developers and engineers from BijieTech. He also briefly served as the CTO of OKCoin before BijieTech, which allowed him to gain experience in senior technical roles. After launching the cryptocurrency exchange in July 2017, Binance were able to raise $15  million in an initial coin offering and the exchange started trading eleven days later. In less than eight months, Zhao grew Binance into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, as of April 2018. Zhao also launched blockchain network Binance Smart Chain that has made significant contribution to the development of the decentralized finance industry. In February 2018, Forbes Magazine placed him third on their list of "The Richest People In Cryptocurrency" at an estimated $1.1-2 billion. Views. In a now-deleted tweet, on August 26, 2021, Zhao came under public scrutiny when he said "poor  people tries to say bad things about Binance". In an interview with "The New York Times", Zhao said people are getting into crypto as they see it grow, "trade it and make money off it as opposed to using it", but that the market will always self-correct. On April 6, 2021, Zhao told Bloomberg Markets that nearly 100% of his liquid net worth was in the form of cryptocurrency. In an interview published on November 16, 2021, Zhao said he plans to donate up to 99% of his wealth, with the intention to follow the feat of other magnates . "I intend to donate most of my wealth, as many other entrepreneurs or founders have done. From Rockefeller to today. I intend to donate 90%, 95%, or 99% of my wealth." During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zhao rejected political pressure to ban Russian users from Binance after speculation that Russian oligarchs may be using cryptocurrency to evade international sanctions. Zhao cited "financial freedom" as the reason for his decision.