He is a Chinese-Canadian business executive. He is the founder and CEO of Binance , the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume as of April 2018.
Changpeng Zhao Biography
He was born in Jiangsu province , China . In the late 1980s, he moved with his family to Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada.
His father was a teacher in China before being branded a “pro – bourgeois intellect ” and exiled from his country. As a teenager, Zhao helped support his family by working a series of service industry jobs that included being employed by McDonald’s .
Zhao attended McGill University in Montreal , Canada, where he majored in computer science.
Changpeng Zhao Net Worth
Changpeng Zhao is a Chinese-Canadian business executive with a net worth of $68 billion.
Changpeng Zhao And Binance Us Miller Information
Changpeng Zhao was facing a myriad of challenges as the CEO of Binance. China’s harsh policies against cryptocurrencies was forcing the company to settle in the Cayman Islands. The United States Department of Justice was placing Binance under investigation for alleged money laundering crimes.
Similarly, many other countries such as Germany and the UK have also brought legal action and they was raising alerts on Binance’s operations. In fact, in 2019, there was a huge theft of bitcoins from Binance and the value of bitcoins was 40 million dollars.
Likewise, in 2022, Zhao was facing the crash of cryptocurrencies such as LUNA and stablecoin UST as well as a general decline in the crypto market.
Zhao has explicitly addressed all of these challenges, including bitcoin theft. He has made sure that the company compensates all losses and has never let his clients down.
Changpeng Zhao CEO of Binance
If you know what the crypto world is, you have surely heard about Binance. It is the largest cryptocurrency which is exchanging in the world and its CEO is Changpeng Zhao.
Changpeng Zhao’s interest in the world of cryptocurrencies started in 2014, when he was playing poker with a friend. That friend was Boby Leem director of BTC China. In the poker parade was also participating the investor Ron Ca.
All of them who were present decided to invest at least 10% of their assets in bitcoin. Just at that time, he learned about bitcoin and started investing in it. Zhao sold his house to buy bitcoins.
His interest in the world of cryptocurrencies was so big that he was willing to make such a risky bet. Zhao was adding his background in computer science to his interest by working at various companies dealing with cryptocurrencies.
Bijie Tech slowly was disappearing only to flourish again as Binance. All the top managers and resources of the previous company were going on to structure Binance.
Changpeng Zhao still has remained CEO of the company since its founding in 2017. This cryptocurrency exchange is the largest exchange in the world in terms of trading.
Binance made him a millionaire in just a matter of 180 trading days. At one point, when bitcoin was reaching prices of over $60,000, Zhao became the 11th richest person in the world with an estimated worth of $96 billion.
Changpeng Zhao Career
Changpeng Zhao was graduating from McGill University in Montreal with a degree in Computer Science. After graduating he started a career as an intern in Tokyo.
Zhao was working as a trader at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Tokyo exchange was asking him to develop software to link buy and sell orders on the exchange.
After his initial experience, he was joining Bloomberg Tradebook LLC in 2001 and he was serving as director of the Futures Development sector for the next four years.
Later, in 2005, he was co-founding a company called Fusion Systems. The company was involved in providing information technology solutions and other services about consulting. Changpeng Zhaeo was remaining a partner of Fusion Systems until the end of 2013 and after that he was entering the world of cryptocurrencies.
In 2013, Changpeng Zhao was joining as development director of the Blockchain team.
Blockchain.com is a company that is providing various services related to cryptocurrencies. He was creating a cryptocurrency wallet that was handling nearly 28% of all bitcoin transactions between 2011 and 2020.
He was working at this company developing software with cryptocurrency wallet functionality.
After working on Blockchain for about a year, he was resigning from the company and joined as the CTO of a company called OKCoin.
OKCoin, like Binance, was a cryptocurrency exchange and it is considered one of the largest exchanges in the world. But he was feeling that the company did not fit his vision of what an exchange should be and he was deciding to resign from him.
Upon giving up OKCoin, Changpeng Zhaowas founding a company called Bijie Tech. This company was providing services for cryptocurrency exchanges in Shanghai.
The company was maintaining its services from 2015 to 2017, until one day all Bijie Tech platforms and websites went down.
There was no clarifying information that was given any kind of signal as to where the company had gone. He and the other managers just didn’t want to say anything. But with the death of Bijie Tech, a powerful company that is known today as Binance emerged.
Much of his success is due to his boldness, computer science skills, and years of methodical work. Experience in various stock market companies has certainly helped him a lot and luck was on his side when he sold his house to buy bitcoin.
More recently this success can be attributed to continued efforts to secure multiple operating licenses for Binance. He was making it his mission to make Binance legal in every country in which it has operations.
Despite all the obstacles, Binance was managing to get the licenses and has successfully carried out acquisitions. This was placing the company as the leader in the crypto world.
Binance was managing to generate $20 billion in revenue in 2021 from both spot and derivatives trading volumes. For every trade made on its platform, Binance is charging a 0.1% commission.
During 2021 Binance was reaching a valuation of 1300%. Today Binance is continuing to grow and aims to see much more growth in the years to come.
As a recognized leader, Changpeng Zhao was coming under public scrutiny for his political positions and economic thinking in recent years. In a now-detected tweet in August 2021, Zhao was receiving strong public criticism for stating that generally “poor people are the ones trying to say bad things about Binance”.
In an interview with The New York Times, he was saying that people are starting out in the crypto world as they see it grow. He was claiming that many people trade and make money from cryptocurrencies despite opposing them in public.
In this sense, he was pointing out that the market always corrects itself despite strong speculation, both upwards and downwards.
On April 6, 2021, Zhao was saying on Bloomberg Markets that close to 100% of his liquid wealth was in the form of cryptocurrencies. For this reason, it is not surprising that while in 2021 he was reaching a fortune of 92,000 million dollars, this was reduced to 17,000 million in 2022.
In an interview that was published on November 16, 2021 , he was saying that he plans to donate 99% of his wealth, following the example of other tycoons.
Great millionaires like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates have signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate most of their fortunes in life. “I’m trying to donate most of my wealth, as many other entrepreneurs or founders have done. From Peabody to today (A wealthy 19th century philanthropist). I try to donate 90%, 95%, or 99% of my wealth to whom need.
How Changeng Zhao sees the future
In 2022, he stated that cryptocurrencies have not yet shown their full potential. “They haven’t replaced traditional money yet, but they make it so much easier to raise funds from anywhere in the world.
” Zhao was indicating that in about 20 years, cryptocurrencies will be everywhere. “People will be able to use them for paying for coffee or in supermarkets. But that is something that will happen in the medium term.”
In the same way, he was pointing out that banks should not worry about new technology, but rather should adopt it. “It’s like bookstores. Should they worry about the internet? In theory no. They should embrace it and launch an e-commerce portal on their own to avoid competing with Amazon.”
Although he was facing the ban on cryptocurrencies in China, he saw a favorable change of heart in meetings with financial supervisors around the world.He now is hopping that cryptocurrencies can be globally regulated instead of banned.
From another point of view, he see cryptocurrencies as an alternative in cases of financial blockade or conflicts. The Russian invasion in Ukraine is the first major conflict in which cryptocurrencies had been participated.
Ukraine was benefiting from the use of cryptocurrencies and it is clear to Changpeng Zhao that this technology can help in cases of dire need and humanitarian causes. “Ukraine was asking for donations in cryptocurrencies and they was benefiting a lot from them,” he says.
“They have obtained about 60 million dollars and they was receiving it in very small payments. That means a lot of people have supported them. This shows that cryptocurrencies are a global force.”
Changpeng Zhao Personal Life
He is single and he doesn’t have any childrens.
