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- Binance founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao has dismissed the Forbes Billionaires List, which put his net worth at $110 billion, pointing to a steep drop in crypto prices.
- Forbes ranked CZ higher than Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao has dismissed a recent report from Forbes that estimated his net worth at $110 billion.
The Forbes Billionaires List ranked CZ as the 17th-richest man in the world, making him the richest man in crypto and in the entire financial technology industry.
CZ was responding to a user on X who had lauded his humility despite amassing such massive wealth. He brushed the estimate aside, claiming that it’s “definitely not accurate” and that the Forbes list was just made up of guessed numbers. He pointed to Bitcoin’s price dip, which is trading nearly 50% below its all-time high.
CZ has also revealed he holds a substantial amount of BNB, which has also taken a big hit in recent months. After hitting an all-time high of $1,370 last October, it has dipped 53% to trade at $642.5 at press time.
CZ founded Binance in 2017 after working at Bloomberg, where he built software for high-frequency trading, at Blockchain.com, and later as the CTO at OKCoin exchange. After a successful ICO, Binance quickly became the largest crypto exchange globally within its first few years. Part of this rapid growth was due to CZ’s aggressive expansion tactics that prioritized new user acquisition over everything else.
At its height in 2023, Binance was estimated to control nearly 70% of global crypto trading as retail fever escalated. This dominance has declined, hitting its lowest level in December last year at 25% according to Bloomberg.
However, spot trading only makes up a small portion of Binance’s revenue, with derivatives being its largest market. At its peak, its derivatives division commanded nearly 75% of the market, but this has since reduced due to competition from decentralized platforms like Hyperliquid.
CZ Maintains Position of Crypto’s Richest Man
At $110 billion, CZ ranked one spot above Michael Bloomberg, the owner of Bloomberg LP, which gave CZ his first job in high-frequency trading and shaped his interest in the financial markets. Most notably, he ranked above Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder who held the title of the world’s richest man for 18 years from the late ’90s to 2017.
At $839 billion, Elon Musk is the world’s richest man and worth more than the next three combined.
While CZ grabbed the headlines, he was not the only crypto leader whose fortunes had surged in recent years. Giancarlo Devasini ranked 22nd with a net worth of $89.3 billion. The 61-year-old Italian is the founder and chief financial officer of Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin, USDT. He is also an executive at Bitfinex, Tether’s sister company and one of the largest exchanges globally. Forbes estimates that he remains the largest shareholder at Tether, which has a $183 billion market cap and made $10 billion in profits last year.
