Binance CEO Zhao Is Worth $96B Excluding Crypto Holdings

[bbc.reporter]

Binance’s CZ has a very impressive story as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg. Both of them begun with nothing and presently they are holding more financial power than their competitors. However, this will begin to be a problem for CZ. Tax authorities, financial regulators and politicians who want media attention will make him their next target.

CZ should be hiring more lawyers and begin using Monero hehehe. Remind me of this thread 3 years from now.



Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is worth an estimated $96 billion, a figure that rivals tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, according to Bloomberg.

Zhao’s net wealth has been estimated for the first time by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which concludes that it exceeds that of Asia’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries.

The $96 billion figure does not take into account Zhao’s personal crypto holdings, meaning it could be a significant underestimate.

Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, with a 24-hour trading volume of $106 billion as of Jan. 6, according to CoinGecko. It generated at least $20 billion of revenue last year, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg assumed Zhao owns 90% of Binance, and estimated the exchange’s revenue from spot and derivatives trading volumes and advertised fees. It valued the business based on publicly traded peers. Zhao declined to comment to Bloomberg, and Binance disputed the accuracy of the estimates.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/10/binance-ceo-zhao-is-worth-96b-excluding-crypto-holdings-report/

[gmatej]

That's probably the worth of Binance. And CZ might be the sole owner.

[Williamm07]

A story of a man who believes in himself, CZ is the best CEO I've ever seen so determined and focus he deserves all this, on the left side is Tron CEO who is something entirely different, years back when Tron was new I always thought this man (Justin sun ) will walk in same path as CZ but I was wrong all along, he wish he followed the footstep of CZ

[Jackl87]

Binance’s CZ has a very impressive story as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg. Both of them begun with nothing and presently they are holding more financial power than their competitors. However, this will begin to be a problem for CZ. Tax authorities, financial regulators and politicians who want media attention will make him their next target.

CZ should be hiring more lawyers and begin using Monero hehehe. Remind me of this thread 3 years from now.

To achieve such a story of success a lot of things need to come together you need to be smart, you need to know about the stuff that you are investing in or that you want to build, you need to have the right timing, you must take a lot of risk and i guess the most important factor; you need to have a lot of luck. I read yesterday or so, that CZ sold his house in order to be able to invest more into BTC as soon as he has found out about it, so he definitely took a huge risk there, then he invested a lot of money that he earned with his early Bitcoin buys into his company which was a huge success. Sometimes stuff like this works out, most of the time it is not.

[coco23]

The $96 billion figure does not take into account Zhao’s personal crypto holdings, meaning it could be a significant underestimate.

Wow, this is a lot! This also means he has nicely diversified his portfolio. Even if the whole crypto space goes to Zero he will still be an extremely rich and influential person who can do whatever he wants in the future. As this is pretty unlikely now that crypto goes to zero he for sure will remain an important player here.

It will be interesting to see where he leads Binance. 2021 was a very succesful year, it will be difficult to surpass this in 2022. Binance now needs to sort out regulation issues all over the worls

[Anonylz]

A story of a man who believes in himself, CZ is the best CEO I've ever seen so determined and focus he deserves all this, on the left side is Tron CEO who is something entirely different, years back when Tron was new I always thought this man (Justin sun ) will walk in same path as CZ but I was wrong all along, he wish he followed the footstep of CZ

He is an inspiration even though many will disagree which is fine, to each to their opinion, the most resilient, determined and dedicated ceo you can find, i can still remember the early days of binance and how i miss out on buying bnb at that time, never seen any exchange as innovative as binance, always expanding, introducing new features and going the extra mile to make their customer satisfied, no business is 100% but if you are getting 90% of value i think that's very good.

[sunsilk]

He's such an inspiration and still doesn't see anything have changed from him. I saw how binance started as a project and I just ignored it but him and his team worked hard for it until they've reached success until now.

He saw the falling of other popular exchanges and learned the lesson from here and there so he can provide the best features to his exchange. So that he won't be ending the same as them.

[masterrex]

Wow, that was a huge fortune, I remember when the time that Binance was Launched this humble man is very hands-on on everything like in Telegram, etc I believe I'm one of the first users of the Binance exchange back in july 2017 now look after 4 years CZ was one of the super-rich individuals in Asia and in the world that's how fortune was acquired using cryptocurrency and I believe it will be an inspiration for others to insert effort and hard work to achieve greater results.   

[Bttzed03]

~ CZ should be hiring more lawyers and begin using Monero hehehe. Remind me of this thread 3 years from now.

He's definitely aware that tax authorities are after him and his exchange. I'm pretty sure he has the top lawyers and accountants handling his finances. The good thing about him (I think) is he doesn't seem to run away from any investigation but we'll see once it gets more serious.

[Yaunfitda]

~ CZ should be hiring more lawyers and begin using Monero hehehe. Remind me of this thread 3 years from now.

He's definitely aware that tax authorities are after him and his exchange. I'm pretty sure he has the top lawyers and accountants handling his finances. The good thing about him (I think) is he doesn't seem to run away from any investigation but we'll see once it gets more serious.

And how he build his empire in just matter of 4 years is really amazing.

But I think CZ is not that stupid, he probably has that in mind already when Binance starting to take off in 2018-2020 and could have consulted many tax lawyers from the US or China to help him out.

And remember that he is trying to clean up his name if preparation of an IPO if I'm not mistaken. So he is clearing the way and ironing things out.

[avikz]

Billionaires don't hold this amount of money in cash. As far as I know, Binance is not a market listed company and CZ is the sole owner of it. So this 96 billion is most probably his holding value of Binance and not the cash in his account.

Same goes for many other billionaires in the world. But it definitely feels good because this is the first time some crypto related business owner is featuring in the billionaire's list.

[iv4n]

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is worth an estimated $96 billion, a figure that rivals tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, according to Bloomberg.

We probably all knew that Zao is very rich, but to be honest I didn't think about how rich he really is! The figure of 96 billion looks impressive, it is even more interesting how fast he got there!!!

The $96 billion figure does not take into account Zhao’s personal crypto holdings, meaning it could be a significant underestimate.

As I said, these numbers look impressive... article is very short, so there's nothing about timing, I think we can guess he was a lot faster than others in making his first 100 billion!

CZ should be hiring more lawyers and begin using Monero hehehe. Remind me of this thread 3 years from now.

With these billions, I don't think we need to worry about him! He probably has a full team of top lawyers in every country!

[danherbias07]

One of my biggest regrets was not buying that BNB when it was in front of my face for a cheap price.
CZ made a lot of millionaires too and all they need was to believe in his exchange. I can still remember here in the forum where most of the users are doubting the power of that exchange but now it was the most used of all. The recipe is being updated on everything crypto-related. He didn't stop on just being an exchange but offered more services that could enhance the profits of both ends.
It's a nice story and undoubtedly inspiring.

[Gozie51]

Changpeng Zhao has done well for himself. Quite young at 44. He has more youthful age to lead binance. I don't think his wealth should be a problem because the laws will take care of that. China should have the way to tax there entrepreneurs on there earnings based on the tax laws operational and the binance CEO won't be any different.

[el kaka22]

The weird part is the "excluding crypto holdings" part. Can you imagine him not holding at least a few billion dollars, this dude definitely worths 100+ billion dollars for sure. First of all I would like to point out that Mark zuckerberg didn't started out with nothing, he came from a long line of rich family. Dude went to a public school first so I get it, but then moved to Exeter private school which is a VERY expensive school which his parents paid off, went to John Hopkins center for talented youth, and he was taught plenty of languages ALL from wikipedia alone and I am not even going into detail here. Dude basically had all the things a kid would ever want and never lived in a poor situation his entire life.

All in all facebook wasn't the only kind of its own, there were other stuff like myspace, but facebook did it well and I agree that he is a very smart person. However as far as we know CZ actually came from nothing, unlike Mark who was already "decent enough" before facebook and became super wealthy afterwards.

[Mpamaegbu]

I was quite delighted when I first read the news today about his wealth. In fact, I read one comment that put him as the richest Asian. I don't know how true that is. Well, come to think of it, I believe that the top 10 richest people in the world from four years ago till date should be people who have crypto investments owing to the parabolic ROI crypto has afforded its fans. As for CZ Binance, it's a feat well deserved. I know it wasn't easy starting up an exchange in the midst of well established ones like Bittrex, Poloniex, Coinexchange, just to mention but three. And a lot of us witness that 2017 ban on Bitcoin by China and how it made CZ readjust. We shouldn't see only his success but the difficulty he had to surmount to achieve success. Well done, CZ.

[Vaskiy]

The weird part is the "excluding crypto holdings" part. Can you imagine him not holding at least a few billion dollars, this dude definitely worths 100+ billion dollars for sure. First of all I would like to point out that Mark zuckerberg didn't started out with nothing, he came from a long line of rich family. Dude went to a public school first so I get it, but then moved to Exeter private school which is a VERY expensive school which his parents paid off, went to John Hopkins center for talented youth, and he was taught plenty of languages ALL from wikipedia alone and I am not even going into detail here. Dude basically had all the things a kid would ever want and never lived in a poor situation his entire life.

Yes, if the crypto holdings were added it'll make a big difference in his net worth. In 2018 he was third among the world richest people in cryptocurrency. As said there is difference between the growth of Mark Zuckerberg and Changpeng Zhao. Going through the history of Changpeng Zhao, it looks like he's from a middle class family. He  has been given education by his parents which has made him progress having different roles in career and finally a CEO.

All in all facebook wasn't the only kind of its own, there were other stuff like myspace, but facebook did it well and I agree that he is a very smart person. However as far as we know CZ actually came from nothing, unlike Mark who was already "decent enough" before facebook and became super wealthy afterwards.

With Binance it is the same situation. There were more number of exchanges, but Binance stands on the top providing the best service. Another thing, Binance keeps adding more features that other exchanges doesn't think about. This makes the competing platforms stay back.

[cardholder]

That's a huge sum, he is actually one of Asian richest person and that's what you get when you invest on the solution to one of the world's problem, just like those who saw what .com had to offer in the early 90's and they all smiled to the bank few years after. CZ history is a huge motivation for me

[GreatArkansas]

The weird part is the "excluding crypto holdings" part. Can you imagine him not holding at least a few billion dollars, this dude definitely worths 100+ billion dollars for sure.
(....)

Indeed. How much possibly this guy net worth on cryptocurrency, I saw some articles or interviews before about Changpeng Zhao, like how he really invested in cryptocurrency, especially on the first time before Binance went popular, Changpeng Zhao is already a huge dedicated investor in cryptocurrency, so compare now that he already got huge worth excluded crypto holdings.

[bbc.reporter]

The weird part is the "excluding crypto holdings" part. Can you imagine him not holding at least a few billion dollars, this dude definitely worths 100+ billion dollars for sure.
(....)

Indeed. How much possibly this guy net worth on cryptocurrency, I saw some articles or interviews before about Changpeng Zhao, like how he really invested in cryptocurrency, especially on the first time before Binance went popular, Changpeng Zhao is already a huge dedicated investor in cryptocurrency, so compare now that he already got huge worth excluded crypto holdings.

It appears that he should be very cautious of government tax agencies and anti moneylaundering agencies going after him. His story might have some similarities with Pablo Escobar’s story. It is similar because Escobar’s quick climb stardom was because he was also included in the Forbes billionaires list for 7 years. This made him a person of interest by the authorities.

Also, we should consider Changpeng Zhao’s track record of avoiding talking to regulators and his assertion before that Binance does not have offices in any jursidiction.