On February 5, 1977, in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, Changpeng Zhao was born. His family moved to Vancouver, Canada, in 1989 after his father Shengkai moved there in 1984 to seek a doctorate.
Zhao began working as a contractor for the Tokyo Stock Exchange after earning his degree from McGill. From 2001 to 2005, Zhao served as the head of Tradebook Futures Development at Bloomberg Professional Services.
Later, he relocated to Singapore to build Fusion Systems and formed an IT consultancy business with other pals. Other businesses that Zhao created include Bijie Tech, a company that offers cloud-based services to exchanges.
In March 2017, as the company expanded and China started to crack down on cryptocurrency exchanges, Zhao considered starting his own cryptocurrency exchange, which called as Binance.
The largest digital asset exchange is part of Binance's product portfolio, which makes it the world's leading blockchain ecosystem today. Its goal is to become the infrastructure supplier for cryptocurrencies in the future.
With billions of dollars in volume, Binance has established itself as a cornerstone of the cryptocurrency market throughout time. The headquarters of Binance were initially in China, but as that country passed more and more rules banning cryptocurrencies, the company moved to Japan. Later, when Japan's regulations tightened, it moved to Malta. Currently, the Cayman Islands are where the corporation is registered.
Binance introduced the BNB Chain in February 2022. This is the term they're using for the combined Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain ecosystem. Then, there are two parts of the BNB Chain: the BNB Beacon Chain (formerly known as the Binance Chain), which is used for voting and governance, and the BNB Smart Chain (previously known as the Binance Smart Chain), which is where apps and consensus are conducted.
In terms of daily transaction volume, Binance evolved swiftly to become one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. With more than $10 billion in spot trading activity and $50 billion in derivatives trading, it currently conducts business overseas. Zhao, who holds a majority stake in Binance Holdings, has seen his net worth soar since then, peaking at around $100 billion in 2021 during the height of the cryptocurrency bull run.
Despite variations due to Binance's price, Changpeng Zhao has a net worth of above $15 billion. He might also have substantial interests in cryptocurrencies or other assets, but this information is not made available to the public. When the crypto market bubble peaked in 2021, his net worth was over $65 billion, but the subsequent market crash in 2022 sharply reduced it.