Founder and former CEO of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao ranked 69th in the list of the world’s richest people, his fortune was estimated at $23 billion as of November 2023.
In 2013, BTC China CEO Bobby Li and his investor told Changpeng at a friendly poker game to convert 10% of his capital into Bitcoin. According to Changpeng, he studied the issue and bought some bitcoins to play with. In 2014, he already sold his house in Shanghai, which he bought in 2006, to buy bitcoin. That same year, Changpeng quit his job to join Blockchain.info, founder Ben Reeves and CEO Nick Carey. About an hour later, Changpeng decided that his strength was in the stock market business.
In 2017, when the price of Bitcoin was growing, all the websites were crashing and none of them had customer support. He thought he could improve exchange speed, user interface and customer service, reduce commissions and make them much lower. Also, Changpeng wanted to offer a clean exchange of cryptocurrency for cryptocurrency, and then serve a global audience, offering mobile support.
Changpeng launched Binance in the summer of 2017, when he was 40 years old. Forbes magazine called him a cryptocurrency veteran with experience at Blockchain LLC and bitcoin wallet provider and cryptocurrency exchange OKCoi. After creating an order-matching system for high-speed traders on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Bloomberg’s Tradebook, he founded Binance using a similar interface. Like other crypto exchanges, the company earns money by charging trading commissions, margin interest, futures commissions, and commissions for depositing and withdrawing funds. However, unlike other cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance makes its own digital currency — the BNB coin.
A few days before the official launch of Binance in July 2017, the exchange raised about $15 million, selling BNB as part of the ICO, which, in turn, could be used to pay commissions. The investors were mainly representatives of China and other parts of Asia. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has become the largest in 180 days. Just an hour after the launch, Changpeng was included in the Forbes list of the richest people in cryptocurrency with a fortune of $1.1 to $2 billion.
Since then, he has launched businesses ranging from a venture capital fund and bitcoin mining operations to a debit card that allows you to spend your cryptocurrency in Europe. We develop and promote Binance Pay, which allows merchants to directly accept cryptocurrencies or stablecoins.
In 2019, the exchange acquired at least nine firms. These include wallet provider Trust Wallet, blockchain data startup DappReview, Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, and Seychelles derivatives platform JEX. Also in 2019, Binance US opened, designed only for American clients. At the time of Changpeng’s interview with Blomberg in April 2021, the company had received a license in only 42 states and is continuing the process in the rest. “Our plan is somewhere between 20 and 30 purchased per hour. Most of them are small acquisitions that we do not announce.”
