A legendary life story that is breathtaking in the cryptocurrency circle.
Original author: LianGuaindaWL
Original source: Twitter@dajingou1
A founder of the top cryptocurrency exchange Binance, a man who went from being an unknown figure to becoming the richest Chinese man in just four years! A gambler with the highest net worth of 500 billion, known for selling houses and relying on luck! A nomadic investor! Today, we will talk about his life story.
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Zhao Changpeng, a person who needs no introduction in the cryptocurrency circle. In February 2018, Forbes listed him as the “cryptocurrency billionaire”, and in May 2018, his net worth exceeded 1.39 billion US dollars.
Experience
In the late 1980s, Zhao Changpeng moved to Vancouver, Canada with his family. His father was a professor in China, but was later labeled as a “pro-capitalist intellectual” and expelled from the country. When Zhao Changpeng was in his teens, he worked as an employee at McDonald’s and gas stations, doing a series of hard and poorly paid jobs.
However, this boy with extraordinary intelligence and foresight eventually stood out. He later studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
This boy’s personality, intelligence, and character are unparalleled. We often see these traits in giants like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
After graduating from university, Zhao Changpeng spent some time in Tokyo and New York. He established a system that merged business orders with the Tokyo Stock Exchange and then merged with Bloomberg’s Tradebook. There, he developed futures trading software.
During this time, the 25-year-old programmer was promoted three times in less than two years. After managing teams in New Jersey, London, and Tokyo, Zhao Changpeng became impatient. Therefore, in 2005, he quit these jobs and moved to Shanghai, where he founded his own company, Sistem Fusion, which is known for building high-frequency trading systems.
In 2013, Zhao Changpeng learned about Bitcoin from a venture capitalist he played poker with. He began shuttling between various important cryptocurrency projects.
As the third member to join the cryptocurrency wallet team, he joined Blockchain.info and worked as the development director for eight months, closely collaborating with renowned Bitcoin advocate Roger Ver and Ben Reeves.
He also served as the Chief Technology Officer at OKCoin for less than a year, which is a spot trading platform for digital assets. From here, Zhao Changpeng constantly achieved victories and honors. His life is filled with teachings, sacrifices, love, and passion!
Founding Binance
In July 2017, he founded Binance, and just 11 days after raising $15 million in public funding, the exchange opened its doors. It quickly gained popularity among users. A few months ago, when Bitcoin trading reached its peak, the platform had a daily trading volume of up to $11 billion. “New opportunities always arise during times of change.”
In the private Bitcoin community, we admire many people like “CZ” because they represent our ideals and the cryptocurrencies we are passionate about. There has been a lot of discussion on social media, and we will continue to discuss the future and development of Binance.
In addition, Zhao Changpeng has the potential to change the lives of millions of people through his work. He also created Binance Labs, which may one day create the next Google or Facebook for the blockchain industry.
He has set three goals:
1) Change people’s lives;
2) Change financial institutions;
3) Change the world.
By reading these three points, we can see what he wants to express. It is an ambitious project led by a talented team. One thing that both the team members and members of our community like is that it is an affiliate project of Binance.
So why did Zhao Changpeng create Binance and its BINANCE LAB? As the founder of Binance, he is a visionary who believes in the cryptocurrency revolution that will eventually happen. Binance Labs is a “social impact” fund. It is an initiative that incubates, invests in, and empowers the best entrepreneurs, projects, and communities in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
Binance Labs is not a profit-driven fund, but a strategic fund focused on the impact, mission, and passion of the entire ecosystem. It is meaningful not only for Binance. The mission of BINANCE LAB is to address the most important issues in the ecosystem and make the world a better place.
On November 30, 2021, it was reported by the media that Zhao Changpeng’s net worth reached $90 billion (approximately 573.3 billion RMB), surpassing the chairman of Nongfu Spring, Zhong Shanshan, and becoming the richest Chinese person. Although his wealth plummeted by 90% due to the sharp decline in cryptocurrency market value, he is still a billionaire, and no one can say for sure how much money he really has.
Where is this billionaire now?
According to reports, a competitor of Binance once hired private investigators to track down Zhao Changpeng’s whereabouts, but the private investigator team “made great efforts to trace Zhao Changpeng but failed. He suspects that Binance has hired other people to cover up Zhao Changpeng’s past and whereabouts, making him almost impossible to be found.”
This narrative is full of spy movie colors, to the extent that when asking informed sources about Zhao Changpeng’s whereabouts, there is an expectation of getting a mysterious answer. The result is that the informed source says, “He is rotating between France, Dubai, and Singapore.”
Although they are not married, Zhao Changpeng’s partner He Yi is pregnant with their third child. The first two are boys, and at least one of them was born in the United States. Although the children are American citizens, Zhao Changpeng can no longer set foot in the United States. Also, although Zhao Changpeng was born in China, he is also highly unlikely to be able to return to China.
This seems to be a metaphor for his identity. Born in China, grew up in Canada, attended university in French-speaking Montreal, dropped out and interned at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, then transferred to Bloomberg Trading Company in New York, and later returned to China to start a business in Shanghai. After accidentally entering the cryptocurrency industry, his life gradually became “crazy”. After cryptocurrencies were severely suppressed, he fled to Tokyo with He Yi and the team, then went to Malta, and then to Singapore. After being expelled from Singapore, he went to Vietnam, traveling through countries and regions around the world except the United States and China.
Although Zhao Changpeng and his Binance have been expelled by many countries, this massive cryptocurrency exchange empire is still operating. Informed sources say that Binance has employees in Paris, Dubai, London, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Berlin, Taipei, Hong Kong, as well as the United States, Canada, and some countries in Africa and Asia. Zhao Changpeng claims that Binance operates in a “decentralized” manner and does not have a physical headquarters in the traditional sense.
Zhao Changpeng uses Twitter for marketing and communication with “investors”. He manages Binance with constantly changing internal communication apps. Ordinary employees basically cannot see him in person, but everyone knows that Binance’s management is “decentralized”, just for the convenience of hiding traces, and all matters are still under his command. He is in an invisible place, controlling this digital token exchange with a daily trading volume of billions of dollars, and in an even more invisible place, trying to make deals with various parties, attempting to obtain a legitimate license.
Only with a license can he temporarily stop wandering.
Troublemaker
For the general public in China, Zhao Changpeng is a stranger, and Binance is a company whose name is hardly known. In 2017, regulations were officially introduced in China to prohibit institutions from providing virtual currency-related trading services, and Zhao Changpeng and Binance almost disappeared from the domestic market, with all business operations shifting overseas.
Although they have left the domestic market, Zhao Changpeng still cannot escape regulation. After all, in the vast majority of countries around the world, virtual currencies are a business that operates in the gray area. Known as “CZ”, Zhao Changpeng is almost surfing on social media platforms on a daily basis. He has 8.5 million followers on Twitter and is one of the top Chinese influencers.
The significant influence in the virtual world does not guarantee CZ a stable office space in the real world. Over the years, Binance has been “working remotely” in countries such as the UK, the US, Singapore, and Cambodia, and the platform’s data needs to be constantly switched between multiple cloud servers. The regulatory crackdown has not deterred some enthusiastic users’ enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies. The crazy price movements of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have attracted more people to enter this industry, which is difficult to define its business model and real value. Binance’s influence in the cryptocurrency community continues to rise.
After being ordered to leave by the Japanese Financial Services Agency, Singapore once “sheltered” Zhao Changpeng. As the financial center of Southeast Asia, Singapore has always presented an “open financial” stance. After the rise of cryptocurrencies, Singapore attempted to embrace this wave to maintain its status as a financial center in Southeast Asia, attracting web3 and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs from Europe, America, and China. It became a trend, and you could encounter various “celebrities” in the cryptocurrency field in Singapore.
Zhao Changpeng resided in Singapore for a period of time and often commuted to work on a scooter. However, with the occurrence of events such as the collapse of cryptocurrency projects, regulatory authorities in Europe and the US have tightened their supervision of cryptocurrencies and exchanges. Singapore’s regulatory authorities found themselves in a dilemma: on the one hand, if they allow the development of cryptocurrencies, it will contradict the attitudes of major countries such as Europe, the US, and China, and may face pressure for global regulatory synchronization in the future; on the other hand, if they join the camp of tightening regulations, they may miss out on “fintech opportunities” after all, the daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies worldwide exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars at its peak.
In January 2020, Singapore passed the Payment Services Act (PSA), which requires all cryptocurrency exchanges operating in Singapore to be registered and licensed, in an attempt to more effectively manage cryptocurrencies and exchanges. On September 2, 2021, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) listed 699 companies, including Binance, on the “Investor Alert List” for possible violations of the PSA.
Four days later, Binance announced the suspension of its services in Singapore. Insider A said that the relationship between Zhao Changpeng, Binance, and Singapore’s regulatory authorities ultimately broke down due to the FTX exchange’s collapse.
FTX Incident
In November 2022, it was revealed that Alameda Research, a hedge fund managed by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the CEO of the digital currency trading platform FTX, had serious financial risks. On November 6 of that month, Zhao Changpeng announced, “We will sell all the FTT (FTX token) on our balance sheet.” Binance’s sale of its $530 million worth of FTT holdings triggered a wave of user redemptions and FTT sell-offs. Within just two days, FTT plummeted by 84%. Zhao Changpeng was one of the earliest investors in FTX. FTX, in its application for a license, had been requesting Binance to provide information on Zhao Changpeng’s source of wealth, banking relationships, and Binance’s ownership structure. Binance ignored these requests, causing the relationship between the two parties to deteriorate.
Later, FTX bought back Zhao Changpeng’s shares at a high price. As the FTX crisis worsened, SBF had to seek help from Zhao Changpeng in hopes that Binance would acquire FTX. Zhao Changpeng agreed the day before, and just one day later on December 10th, he announced the cancellation of the acquisition of FTX.
FTX had no choice but to stop user withdrawals and was quickly squeezed. On the 11th, FTX and Alameda applied for bankruptcy protection, and SBF resigned as CEO of FTX. As the investigation deepened, the Ponzi scheme built by the SBF team gradually came to light, and SBF could potentially be sentenced to 115 years in prison. Zhao Changpeng seemed pleased with the disappearance of his competitors and “revenge”. He tweeted, “Cryptocurrency will not disappear. We are still here, let’s rebuild together.” Binance naturally accepted the users transferred from FTX.
Not only did well-known institutional investors such as Sequoia Capital and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan suffer huge losses due to “stepping on a landmine”, the Singapore government and its regulated Temasek Holdings were also forced to face inquiries.
Data shows that Singaporean users account for 5% of the global traffic on FTX, with an average of 241,600 independent users per month. According to official data released by the Singapore Department of Statistics, as of June this year, Singapore’s total population was 5.637 million. This means that over 4.2% of the national population in Singapore may have been affected by the FTX collapse, making it the second most affected country globally.
According to public reports, Temasek Holdings had to write off its entire $275 million investment in FTX due to the collapse. Insiders revealed that the Singapore regulatory authorities originally required cryptocurrency exchanges operating in Singapore to prohibit serving residents of the country, but they could solicit customers from outside Singapore. They wanted economic benefits without taking on the risks. This understanding was broken after the FTX collapse, as Singapore discovered that many citizens were actually participating in the transactions, causing significant risks.
Zhao Changpeng’s actions accelerated the collapse of FTX, leaving individual investors who participated in the “investment” with no time to escape, and causing the major investors to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and face harsh criticism. After suffering significant losses in Singapore, attitudes towards Zhao Changpeng made a 180-degree turn, and he became an unwelcome figure. Less than two weeks after FTX declared bankruptcy, the Singapore police launched a financial crime investigation into Binance.
Insiders say that as a result, Zhao Changpeng and his team were given an expulsion order. FTX’s bankruptcy resulted in Binance acquiring its customers, but Zhao Changpeng also quickly realized that his long-awaited compliant operation would be further delayed. In a letter to all staff, he said, “The FTX incident is not a good thing for anyone in the industry. Please do not see this as our victory. Users’ confidence has been severely damaged.” Since then, Zhao Changpeng’s whereabouts have become increasingly mysterious.
Conclusion
According to statistics, by the end of 2022, Binance has more than 120 million users, with a daily trading volume of billions of dollars, making it the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Binance’s cryptocurrency BNB, in terms of market value, is the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world.
In the field of cryptocurrencies, exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and OKCoin, founded by Chinese individuals, have emerged rapidly. In addition to their aggressive strategies and diverse gameplay, there is another important reason: they are able to adapt. Cryptocurrency players say, “Competition among global cryptocurrency exchanges is fierce, and there are high demands for manpower, customer service, and security. Only Chinese people can provide this service industry at its best.”
As a simple example, exchanges founded by foreigners cannot provide 24-hour customer service. If there is a problem, we can only send them an email and wait for one or two weeks for them to address the issue. Who can bear that? However, exchanges founded by Chinese people can respond online 24 hours a day.” This statement has been confirmed by informed sources. They say, “It may not necessarily be the boss saying that Chinese people must be hired, but if you are Chinese, you are willing to hire Chinese people. Binance itself is a very Chinese-style managed company.” Although the cryptocurrency field is facing increasingly strict regulation and uncertainty, it has still attracted many people to join in this bleak employment environment. The number of Binance employees has expanded rapidly, reaching around 8,000 at one point. However, the company’s management has not kept up with the growth, and it has encountered “big company syndrome,” with internal processes being chaotic and many new businesses not fully developed, leading to internal conflicts.
Furthermore, Binance’s “decentralized” internal communication has exacerbated the chaos. In order to “ensure security,” Binance often changes its internal communication software. In the view of informed sources, Binance’s internal environment is intense, and if you want to be “seen” by the boss, you must perform well. The boss also intentionally strengthens this competitive atmosphere. “Some people are tired of this endless intensity. There is a rotation every few months. So what if you win in this intensity?” Zhao Changpeng has also attempted to “internationalize.” Binance has recruited foreign employees, including middle-level and senior executives. However, these employees have had some difficulty adapting to the culture, and many of them have been laid off in the end. Informed sources say, “In the past three or four months, there have been people leaving Binance one after another. The people attending meetings often change. This may be the case for large companies, and of course, it may not be so prominent.”
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