Who is Changpeng Zhao (CZ)? CEO of Binance

Who is Changpeng Zhao?

Also known as CZ, Changpeng Zhao is a Chinese-Canadian executive and is the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume since April 2018. Before Binance, CZ was a key player in the development of Blockchain.info and served as chief technology officer at OKCoin.

Born in Jiangsu Province, China, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao moved to Vancouver, Canada, in the late 1980s after his father, a professor in China, was labeled a “pro-bourgeois intellect” and exiled. During adolescence, CZ He worked several jobs in the service industry, including at McDonald's, to help support his family.

He graduated in computer science from McGill University in Montreal, and after graduation, he worked at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, focusing on developing software for trading orders. His career also spanned Bloomberg Tradebook as a futures trading software developer.

In 2005, CZ founded Fusion Systems in Shanghai, which excelled in high-frequency trading systems for brokers. From 2013 onwards, his career deepened into the world of cryptocurrencies, with emphasis on his work at OKCoin and Blockchain.info.

The big leap in his career came in 2017, when CZ founded Binance. After raising $15 million in an initial coin offering, in less than a year he solidified Binance as the leader in the cryptocurrency market. His influence and success were recognized in 2018, when Forbes placed him third on the list of “The Richest People in Cryptocurrencies”, with his net worth estimated at US$1,4 billion in September of the same year.