summary: Changpeng Zhao, popularly known as CZ, is the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. 
content: Changpeng Zhao, popularly known as CZ, is a Chinese-Canadian serial entrepreneur. He is well known as the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. As an expert in blockchain and trading systems, he has developed Binance into the top blockchain ecosystem, including the Binance Exchange, Binance Labs, Binance Launchpad, Binance Academy, Binance Charity, Binance NFT, and more. CZ discovered bitcoin in 2013 while playing poker with his friends. Early Life & Education CZ was born on September 10, 1977, in Jiangsu province, China to his Chinese parents, who were both teachers in China. His father was a professor in China before he was branded "pro-bourgeoisie intellect" and exiled from his country. When he was 12 years old, CZ moved with his family to Vancouver, Canada where they settled. During his teenage years, Zhao helped support his family by working several service industry jobs, including at a Chevron gas station, at McDonald’s, and as a referee at volleyball games. While in Canada, CZ attended McGill University in Montreal, Canada where he earned a computer science degree. Career After college, CZ began working for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, developing software for matching trade orders. He also worked at Bloomberg Tradebook, a developer of futures trading software. In 2005, CZ quit his role as head of the Bloomberg Tradebook Futures Research & Development team and moved to Shanghai to start Fusion Systems, known for building "some of the fastest high-frequency trading systems for brokers." CZ learned about Bitcoin in early 2013 while playing poker with his friends. Bitcoin then was new and CZ had no idea about it but found it to be interesting so he decided to learn more. He read the whole Bitcoin whitepaper to get more understanding of the new technology. He fully got invested into the cryptocurrency industry in December 2013. While attending a conference in Las Vegas, he had the opportunity to meet Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum. During this encounter, CZ also met someone who was quite influential in his journey into the world of crypto. This individual demonstrated Ripple to CZ and even transferred $500 worth of Ripple's token, XRP, to him, encouraging him to use it to teach others about the technology. This encounter had a profound impact on CZ, and he eventually quit his job and sold his house to fully immerse himself in the world of crypto. He faced criticism from his friends and family who said he was foolish for making such a decision. Two months later, Bitcoin crashed by 70% and CZ lost over 700,000 thousand dollars. "In December 2013, I went to a conference in Las Vegas and bumped into Vitalik Buterin, one of the founders of Ethereum. … There was one other guy that was quite influential. I was learning Ripple. He came over with a laptop to show me how it works, and in the process, he transferred [$500 of Ripple's token] XRP to me and said, 'You can use that to teach the next guy.' "So I was like: 'Well, this is a pretty generous group of people. They're really not after the money. They're really just wanting to teach.' Shortly after that, I quit my job, sold my house." Later, Zhao also worked on various cryptocurrency projects including Blockchain.com, and served as chief technology officer of OKCoin, attempting to spread his vision of integrating blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into businesses and everyday life. “If you pick one business, and integrate [it] with crypto, I fully believe cryptocurrencies will give a much stronger financial funding power.” Binance In 2017, CZ left OKCoin to start a cryptocurrency exchange called Binance. Its name was a combination of two words: “binary,” as in the ones and zeros of computer code, and “finance.” He launched the exchange on July 14, 2017, following a $15 million funding raised during an initial coin offering. By 2018, Binance had already become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, with a market cap exceeding $1.3 billion. In August 2018, Binance made their first public acquisition, buying Trust Wallet, a secure Ethereum wallet app, to enhance its services and improve user safety. The acquisition added an on-chain mobile wallet to Binance's offerings while giving the Trust Wallet team the freedom to continue developing their product. Binance aimed to offer better security, services, and support to users with this acquisition, and also expected to pave the way for future integrations with other services. “The value of their brand, along with the exposure Binance can deliver will offer much more beyond the monetary value of the deal” In January 2019, Binance partnered with Simplex to offer crypto purchases with a debit or credit card. In September, the company began offering perpetual futures contracts allowing for 125x leveraging on the contracts. Additionally, Binance.us was launched in nearly all of the United States. In March 2020, Binance acquired the leading cryptocurrency data tracking platform CoinMarketCap for a sum of $400 million. CZ aimed to further develop CoinMarketCap and increase Binance's exposure to CoinMarketCap's large following. “CoinMarketCap has more users than any other product in the crypto space,” "Even though their money generation mechanism is not as strong as Binance, they do have the users," "It's a very valuable platform." In September 2020, Binance launched their Binance Smart Chain (BSC), a blockchain network developed by Binance that allows for the creation and management of decentralized applications (DApps) through smart contracts. It was created to overcome the programmability limitations of the initial Binance Chain and offers high transaction capacity through its integration with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. “Right now it is one of our larger businesses that support our growth. But over the long term, we want to push decentralization.” The Binance ecosystem is composed of the Binance Smart Chain as well as the BNB Chain which is the original blockchain developed by Binance. CZ highlights that they are not the same and that BNB Chain had reached the level of decentralization that they had always hoped, with BNB Chain being the original blockchain designed for trading on Binance, and BSC being a separate blockchain built on top of BNB Chain. “People always think of BSC as part of Binance because it carries the company’s name,” “We’ve done a lot of work to decentralize it and hope to make BNB go beyond Binance,” In June 2021, Binance launched Binance NFT, a top non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace with premier exhibitions, global auctions, and low fees. It offers two categories: "Premium Event" for sought-after collaborations and "Trading Market" for low-cost NFT creation. Changpeng Zhao’s main goal was to open up the NFT space to the massive Binance community. “Binance serves millions of users around the world, many of whom will now be able to access the booming NFT space. In line with our commitment to the freedom of money globally and building an inclusive ecosystem, the Binance NFT marketplace will also support small value creators by providing the highest liquidity and cheapest fees for users,” Awards & Recognition In 2018, Zhao was the nominee for Golden Token Awards and ended up being the 2018 CEO of the Year. His crypto exchange Binance also won the Best in Trading/DEX award. In 2020, CZ was recognized in the Bloomberg 50 as one of the most influential people of the year. He commented: “I am humbled and honored to be part of this group of remarkable people who are shaping our world for the better. Alongside these committed and passionate leaders bringing change across diverse spheres, we will continue to work towards increasing financial inclusion globally with crypto as the fundamental means and putting people and our users first.” On December 2022, CoinDesk announced Changpeng Zhao as CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2022. They highlighted Binance’s support, following the downfall of rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX, committing $1 billion to a recovery fund, making CZ seen as the new "savior" of the crypto world, seen in a Bloomberg article headlined, ““Binance’s Billionaire CEO Casts Himself as Crypto’s New Savior”. Investments According to Bloomberg, Binance has so far invested $325 million in 67 projects this year. The spending for 2022 could exceed $1 billion. He made a $200 million investment in Forbes and a $500 million in equity funding as part of a $7 billion financing pledge to support Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. As the major head of Binance Lab, In June 2022, Binance Labs, the venture capital and incubation arm of Binance, Closed a $500M Investment Fund to Boost Blockchain, Web3, and Value-Building Technologies. In contrast, the corporation spent $140 million on 73 different projects in 2021. Controversies Money laundering accusations against Binance On January 21st 2022, Binance was accused of not implementing adequate measures to prevent money laundering. According to Reuters, a news organization, Binance operates differently from other firms and has not been clear about its main business location. The news organization also reported that CEO Changpeng Zhao disregarded advice from his compliance team to carry out background checks to avoid facilitating money laundering. Binance has denied these allegations and stated that it has a "robust compliance program" that has earned them approvals from France and Ital