Changpeng Zhao Net Worth: How Binance’s Founder Built His Wealth

Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, is a Chinese-born Canadian businessman at the forefront of the crypto industry. He is best known for co-founding Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, and leading it as its CEO for many years. As of 2025, CZ’s net worth is estimated at over $65 billion.

Before he founded Binance in 2017, Changpeng Zhao was a programmer who built high-frequency trading systems on Wall Street. Today, he is worth billions thanks to his roughly 90% stake in Binance, as well as a large stash of its native token, BNB.

In 2023, Zhao stepped down as CEO of Binance as part of a settlement with U.S. authorities, pleading guilty and serving four months in prison. In this article, we take a close look at CZ’s journey from his early career to building Binance and detail his massive net worth.

Breaking Down Changpeng Zhao’s net worth in 2025

In November 2024, BusinessInsider shared that CZ and Brian Amstrong (the CEO of Coinbase) were both almost $15 billion richer after Trump’s election victory. The recent surge in crypto prices has increased CZ’s net worth by over 30%, making him one of the thirty richest people on the planet.

Even while he was incarcerated, Zhao’s personal wealth increased substantially, primarily driven by the increase in the value of BNB tokens. Zhao’s crypto portfolio alone is worth over $58 billion, and that figure doesn’t even include his stake in Binance.

It is important to note that estimates of CZ’s wealth vary significantly – and change constantly. These variations can be attributed to factors like market fluctuations and, of course, the volatility in the crypto market.

Determining the exact value of CZ’s Binance stake is challenging because it is a private company that doesn’t disclose valuations publicly. However, based on MGX’s recent $2 billion investment for a minority stake in businesses, we can safely assume that the company is worth billions of dollars. Reportedly, CZ now has an 86% stake in Binance.US, the U.S. arm of Binance, valued at $4.7 billion as of March 2022.

Based on our findings, Zhao’s estimated net worth is over $65 billion. This, of course, can change at any moment as the crypto prices vary.

CZ’s Net Worth: Early Life, Education, and Relationships

Changpeng Zhao was born on September 10, 1977, in Jiangsu, China. Both of his parents were schoolteachers, and his father later worked as a university instructor before he was branded a “pro-bourgeois intellect.”

While his family was well-off in China, they faced political challenges when CZ was young, especially during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The family eventually decided to flee China and migrate to Vancouver, Canada, when Zhao was 12 years old.

Zhao started looking for jobs at a young age and secured a series of service jobs, such as working as a fast-food clerk at McDonald’s and a gas station. After high school, Zhao attended McGill University in Montreal, where he studied computer science. While at McGill, Zhao became passionate about coding and started exploring the world of technology. Not long after, his early interest in computers would lead him to a career in software development.

Changpeng Zhao is known for being quite private about his personal life, including details about his marriage and children.

Changpeng Zhao Net Worth: From Early Career to Binance’s Rise

Zhao’s journey to becoming a crypto kingpin was built on a strong foundation in technology and finance. Let’s see how this led him to create his crypto exchange and earn billions in the process.

CZ’s Early Career

After graduating from McGill in the late 1990s, Zhao was chosen for an internship in Tokyo, where he worked for a subcontractor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. He was helping develop software for matching trade orders.

Afterward, Zhao worked at Bloomberg Tradebook, a leading financial services company that provides advanced trading systems for institutional investors. He was one of the developers for the firm’s futures trading platform.

Founding Fusion Systems

Zhao’s next position was with Fusion Systems, a high-frequency trading company he founded in Shanghai, China. His company soon became known as “some of the fastest automated high-frequency trading platforms and systems for stockbrokers.”

In 2013, Zhao first heard of Bitcoin while playing poker with Bobby Lee (the man who later founded BTCC). Lee advised Zhao to invest 10% of his money into Bitcoin, but Zhao took a different approach – and invested all of his wealth in the digital coin. He sold his apartment in Shanghai to go all in, much to his family’s dismay.

That same year, Zhao served as a member of the team that developed Blockchain.info. He was also the Chief Technology Officer of OKCoin.

The Launch and Success of Binance

Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in July 2017 with the help of Yi He, who previously hired him at OKCoin. Under his leadership, Binance has become the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, achieving several major milestones:

• In January 2018, Binance became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world
• By November 2024, Binance had 250 million registered users
• In September 2024, the company became the first centralized crypto exchange to surpass $100 trillion in cumulative trading volume
• As of November 2024, Binance safeguarded over $160 billion in user assets

Binance was originally established in China, but in anticipation of the Chinese government’s crypto trading ban in September 2017, the company relocated its headquarters, as well as its servers, overseas. Zhao invited Yi He to join his venture, where she played a key role in refining the white paper for Binance’s $15 million initial coin offering (ICO) for BNB.

To this day, Zhao remains the majority stakeholder in the business. Yi He reportedly holds around 10% stake in the company. Yi He serves as the Chief Customer Service Officer, after having spent years leading Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the company.

In 2017, Binance launched Binance Coin, a token on the BNB chain now known as BNB (Build’n’Build). By 2021, BNB had the third-highest market cap among cryptocurrencies. The token was originally launched on the Ethereum network but was later moved to Binance’s own BNB Smart Chain (BSC) after its release in September 2020.

Over the years, Binance continuously expanded its offerings as the crypto industry kept growing. It created Binance Earn, which attracted over 8 million users who seek to grow their digital assets through investments. Their product, Binance Pay, facilitated transactions for millions of users, making everyday transactions in the crypto industry a simple task. Finally, the team launched Binance Academy, an SEO blog that it says has educated over 43 million users on blockchain technology.

In September 2019, Binance launched Binance USD (BUSD), a U.S. Dollar stablecoin issued by Paxos. Within just a few years, BUSD became the third largest stablecoin by market capitalization, following Tether and USDC. In February 2023, the New York Department of Financial Services issued an order to Paxos to stop minting BUSD tokens and they are rarely used nowadays.

In 2018, Binance established the Secure Asset Fund for Users (or SAFU), which safeguards user assets in extreme situations like the FTX debacle of 2022. As of mid-2024, the company has secured licenses and registrations in 18 jurisdictions, reflecting major efforts to align with regulatory standards on a global level.

Even though Zhao is no longer Binance’s CEO, the company continues to attract significant institutional investments. In March 2025, for instance, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, a multibillion-dollar investment vehicle backed by Mubadala, acquired a minority stake in Binance worth $2 billion.

Given Binance’s ownership structure – where CZ holds a controlling stake of just under 90% and Yi He holds the remaining 10%, it is likely that one or both of them sold some of their stakes.

If you want to get an inside look at CZ’s thoughts on the past, present, and future of Binance, check out this interview where he answers some of the crypto community’s most pressing questions about Binance and its security.

CZ’s Controversies and Legal Trouble

Binance has been embroiled in various controversies over the years, including security breaches, regulatory scrutiny, and legal battles.

One of the earliest major incidents for Binance occurred in May 2019, when the company suffered a security breach that led to the theft of 7,000 Bitcoin, valued at about $40 million at the time. Hackers reportedly used phishing and malware to bypass Binance’s security measures. After the incident, Binance suspended withdrawals and deposits but pledged to reimburse all affected users through its Secure Asset Fund for Users.

In 2020, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) declared that Binance wasn’t authorized to operate in Malta, which contradicted the company’s prior claims of being based there. This was followed by scrutiny from U.S. regulators, with reports alleging that Binance intentionally structured its corporate framework to avoid regulatory oversight.

In 2020, Forbes’ staff published a report with leaked documents that suggested Binance had a strategy called “TaiChi” to minimize U.S. regulatory risks while profiting from American investors. Binance denied these claims and sued Forbes, but the lawsuit was later dropped.

In 2021, Binance faced investigations from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice over allegations of money laundering and tax violations. It was later reported that Binance had been used to launder at least $2.35 billion from illicit activities, including transactions linked to the Russian darknet market Hydra and the North Korean cybercrime group Lazarus.

Binance denied these allegations and has since instated stricter Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements to help deter these kinds of criminal activities and avoid regulatory action.

“Dethroning” of Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao

In November 2023, Zhao struck a deal with the United States government to resolve an investigation into Binance that lasted for several years. Binance and CZ were convicted in the U.S. for violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering (AML) measures like KYC requirements for large withdrawals.

Binance agreed to a settlement that required it to pay $4.3 billion to resolve the charges. Zhao also had to pay a $50 million fine out of his own pocket and step down as the CEO of Binance as part of the agreement.

With this agreement, CZ pleaded guilty to one count of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act and was sentenced to four months in minimum security prison (given that he was a first-time offender). Furthermore, Binance agreed to form a board of directors made of independent members and establish audit and compliance committees.

“Because Zhao and the government came to an agreement, the government didn’t get a judgment or restitution order against Zhao and do discovery into his assets,” said Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor. “He’ll have significant wealth when he is released from prison.”

Zhao’s settlement with U.S. authorities seems to have worked out well for him. He did have to spend a few months in prison but he was able to keep most of his assets, unlike the disgraced founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried. However, Binance has started to struggle since Zhao was forced to step down as CEO with it falling 41% in terms of market share.

Continued Problems for Binance

Binance’s and Zhao’s legal troubles may not be over. Both still have a litany of legal problems, including the Department of Justice’s case against the company, several high-profile lawsuits, and the lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which remains ongoing.

In June 2023, the SEC filed a lawsuit accusing Binance of conducting multiple unregistered offers and sales of crypto assets that it classified as securities, alleging thirteen separate violations of U.S. securities regulations.

In 2024, Binance faced further scrutiny when reports surfaced that it had fired members of its internal investigation team who were probing market manipulation schemes involving VIP clients. At about the same time, Binance was named “the most widely used exchange for pig butchering scams,” according to John Griffin, a finance professor at the University of Texas.

Griffin’s study “How Do Crypto Flows Finance Slavery? The Economics of Pig Butchering” made a lot of noise. Pig butchering is a common scam tactic that involves using phishing and social engineering to gain access to victims’ crypto wallets to steal their cryptos. The FBI recently warned that in at least some cases, the individuals carrying out these scams are victims of kidnapping and forced labor who were tricked by false job advertisements in Southeast Asia.

Griffin’s study found that $15 billion in stolen cryptocurrencies had come from five exchanges, including Coinbase and Binance. They also found that 84% of the transaction volume of the addresses touched by the criminals was in Tether.

In response to this, Paolo Ardoino, the chief executive officer of Tether said: “With Tether, every action is online, every action is traceable, every asset can be seized and every criminal can be caught. We work with law enforcement to do exactly that”.

Griffin made it clear that Binance was an essential tool for these scammers, writing: “Binance is the place where they can move large amounts of money out of the system.” In response to the report, Simon Matthews, a spokesman for Binance, said: “Binance continues to work closely with law enforcement and regulators to raise more awareness of scams, including pig butchering cases.”

More recently, Binance has been involved in legal disputes with FTX. In November 2024, FTX sued Binance for nearly $1.8 billion, alleging fraudulent transfers related to Binance’s divestment from FTX in 2021. The lawsuit alleges that in July 2021, FTX management, led by founder Sam Bankman-Fried, fraudulently transferred approximately $1.76 billion in cryptocurrency to Binance to repurchase shares.

FTX also contends that this transaction was funded by FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, which was allegedly insolvent at the time. Binance has dismissed these claims and plans to defend itself.

Meanwhile, Nigerian authorities have also filed an $81.5 billion lawsuit against Binance, accusing it of economic misconduct and tax evasion. Binance has been accused of facilitating the trade of its strictly regulated local currency, the naira, on its platform without authorization.

Zhao’s Stake in Binance and Crypto Holdings

Even though Binance’s market share is down since the settlement in 2023, CZ’s net worth has continued to rise. In March 2025, Binance’s BNB token climbed after a Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump and his family are in talks to secure a stake in Binance’s U.S. arm. Naturally, having the sitting U.S. president, who allegedly has a penchant for quid pro quo deals, as a shareholder could be extraordinarily profitable.

However, in a different post on his X account, Zhao denied any discussions about such a deal, saying:

4. Sorry to disappoint. The WSJ article got the facts wrong.

More than 20 people have told me they were asked by the WSJ (and another media), "Can you confirm that CZ made some deal for a pardon?"

They probably asked hundreds of people to have 20 people reach out to me. In… https://t.co/ELyDPmKD3G

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) March 13, 2025

Zhao holds a significant portion of Binance Coin, but the exact details of the amount of tokens he holds aren’t publicly confirmed. In February 2025, CZ publicly disclosed his crypto allocations, revealing that approximately 98.6% of his portfolio is composed of BNB, with about 1.32% allocated to Bitcoin.

Before this disclosure, in June 2024, reports suggested that CZ owned around 64% of the circulating supply of BNB, which equated to roughly 94 million BNB tokens. This aligns with Binance’s internal allocations, with 80 million BNB tokens designated to the founding team and 46 million tokens to the company itself.

As of March 2025, the value of 94 million BNB tokens is approximately $57 billion. If this is 98.6% of CZ’s crypto portfolio and the remaining 1.32% is in Bitcoin, CZ would have around 14,355 Bitcoin (worth about $1.2 billion).

What is Zhao Doing These Days?

Zhao has demonstrated a strong commitment to philanthropy throughout his career. He has expressed his intentions to donate up to 99% of his wealth, aligning with the philanthropic practices of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and other notably generous billionaires.

In April 2018, Binance launched a charity called the Binance Charity Foundation to support the advancement of blockchain-enabled philanthropy.

After stepping down from his CEO position, Zhao founded Giggle Academy, a nonprofit educational platform that offers free curricula from grades 1 to 12. The platform integrates adaptive learning, gamification, and blockchain technology to improve the learning experience.

In early 2025, Zhao initiated a $1 million community gift, looking for suggestions from the crypto community on how to allocate the funds. Zhao has also expressed his plans to focus on philanthropy in the future.

gm, the food taste so good… And what a luxury to be able to have more than one piece of fruit per day!

I know some of you may have a lot of questions. I won't have all the answers.

Let me chill for a bit. Then figure out the next steps. There are always more opportunities in… https://t.co/9hvgp8Bo97

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) September 29, 2024

Lessons to Learn from Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao

Changpeng Zhao has an inspiring story, but in many ways, it is also a cautionary tale. CZ’s ability to pivot and adapt to the changing landscape of crypto was one of the greatest driving factors behind his success. His initial decision to invest all of his wealth in Bitcoin, for instance, despite the risks, highlights the power of recognizing revolutionary technology early.

CZ’s foundation in technology and finance also helped lay the groundwork for Binance’s rise. He built a platform that catered to the needs of institutional and retail investors alike by focusing on high-frequency trading and crypto.

Under his leadership, Binance became the largest crypto exchange in the world. Despite many setbacks, including legal battles, CZ has managed to maintain his wealth and position in the industry. This kind of resilience shows that with careful management and learning from one’s mistakes, it is possible to bounce back even stronger.

While Zhao’s wealth continued to grow even while serving his prison sentence, his many legal troubles highlight the risks of operating within industries with less stringent oversight. The ongoing investigations and the lawsuits against Binance and CZ point to the potential long-term damage that legal issues can cause to the reputations of businesses and founders.

Finally, CZ’s significant holdings in BNB and Bitcoin are both a strength and a potential vulnerability. On some days, his net worth grows by billions of dollars, but on other days, he could lose tens of billions of dollars if the crypto market crashes.

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