Changpeng Zhao

Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, is a Chinese-born Canadian businessman. Zhao is the co-founder and former CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume He resigned as the CEO in November 2023 after pleading guilty to a money laundering charge in the United States and was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024.

According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao was ranked the 69th-richest person in the world, and richest Canadian overall, with a net worth estimated at $37.3billion

Early life and education
Zhao was born in Lianyungang in China's Jiangsu province. In the late 1980s, when he was 12 years old, he immigrated with his family to Canada, settling down in Vancouver, British Columbia. His parents were both schoolteachers 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. During his teenage years in Canada, Zhao helped to support his family by holding down a number of service jobs, including working as a fast-food clerk at a McDonald's restaurant and a gas station.

Zhao attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where he majored in computer science.

Early career
After graduating from McGill, Zhao was selected for an internship in Tokyo working for a subcontractor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, developing software for matching trade orders. He later went to work full-time for four years at Bloomberg Tradebook where he was a developer of futures trading software.

Business career
In 2005, Zhao moved to Shanghai to launch his business career, where he established his first technology startup company called Fusion Systems, which was known for "some of the fastest automated high-frequency trading platforms and systems for stockbrokers." Zhao first heard of Bitcoin in 2013 when playing poker with Bobby Lee (brother of Charlie Lee) who would later go on to found BTCC. Lee advised Zhao to put 10% of his money into bitcoin. Zhao instead "went all in" and sold his apartment in Shanghai and invested all of his wealth in Bitcoin, much to his family's dismay.

In 2013, Zhao was a member of the team that developed Blockchain.info and he also served as Chief Technology Officer of OKCoin.

In 2022, Zhao invested $500 million through Binance to finance the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.

Binance
After its launch in July 2017, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange was able to raise $15 million in an initial coin offering, and trading began on the exchange 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 Binance Coin in 2017; this is a utility token that gives its owners various benefits, such as discounts on trading fees. In April 2019, Binance launched Binance Smart Chain, which has smart contract functionality and is an Ethereum competitor.

In February 2018, Forbes placed him third on their list of "The Richest People In Cryptocurrency," with an estimated net worth of $1.1-2 billion.

In 2019, Zhao launched Binance's U.S. affiliate, Binance.US. Binance withdrew its application to run a Singapore-based crypto exchange in 2021.

Civil lawsuits
On 27 March 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and Zhao in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claiming willful evasion of US law and allegedly breaching derivatives rules. The agency accused Binance of breaking rules intended to thwart money laundering operations, pointing to internal communications describing transactions by Palestinian militant organization Hamas, and suspected criminals.

In June 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Zhao and Binance on 13 charges for alleged violations of US securities rules.

Criminal conviction
In November 2023, Zhao agreed to resign from Binance and pay a $50 million fine as part of a guilty plea to U.S. federal charges. Binance also agreed to plead guilty, and to pay $4.3 billion in fines. Zhao was replaced as CEO by Richard Teng.

Zhao pled guilty to violating the American Bank Secrecy Act by prioritizing Binance's growth over compliance with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's anti-money laundering requirements. Although Zhao only personally pled guilty to a single criminal charge, as part of plea bargain negotiations, Zhao agreed for Binance to also admit to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

In April 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering. Because Zhao is not a U.S. citizen, he is ineligible to serve his sentence in a minimum security prison. Prosecutors had sought three years of detention.

Zhao's defense attorneys noted that BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes only received probation for a similar crime and argued that Zhao's ineligibility for minimum-security imprisonment put his safety at risk.

Views on cryptocurrency
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.

Personal life
Zhao is a Canadian and UAE citizen. Born in China in 1977, Zhao acquired a Canadian visa in 1989 and left China that same year after the events of Tiananmen Square. In 2022, Zhao said that he had acquired Canadian citizenship some 30 years before, around 1992. In 2005, he moved back to China, eventually owning an apartment in Shanghai. In 2015, he sold his Shanghai apartment and used the funds to purchase Bitcoin. Zhao stayed in China until the Chinese government banned crypto exchanges in late 2017. He is currently based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Zhao met his wife Yang Weiqing in 1999 and they married in 2003. They have two children. Although still married to Yang, Zhao has been in a "life partner" relationship with his business partner and fellow Binance co-founder, He Yi, since they met in 2014. They have three children together.

Political views
With regards to his political beliefs, Zhao stated in 2021 in Singapore: "I am not a complete libertarian, I'm not an anarchist... I don't believe human civilization is advanced enough to live in a world with no rules."

Philanthropy
Zhao has said he plans to donate up to 99% of his wealth, following the philanthropic examples of other global business magnates and investors such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. "I intend to donate most of my wealth, as many other entrepreneurs or founders have done, from Peabody to today. I intend to donate 90%, 95%, or 99% of my wealth."