Changpeng is a brilliant software developer.
His story begins in 2005, when he founded Fusion Systems, specializing in building High Frequency Trading (HFT) systems.
- He worked on several interesting Crypto projects, including "OK Coin", a spot trading platform.
- He was hired by Yi He. They had great respect for each other's skills and in 2017 Founded Binance together, in their home country of China. It was reported that he sold his Apartment and invested into Binance project as seed capital.
China was in the process of banning Cryptocurrency, forcing them to move out of the country to Japan. During this time, they created Binance's $15 million initial coin offering, which helped fund exponential growth for the coming years.
- In March 2018, Japan was cracking down on Crypto Companies with stricter regulations, forcing yet another move to Malta. But that didn’t slow Changpeng and Yi down.
- Over the course of the next few years, they formed various partnerships and projects. And with growth came some unbelievably difficult challenges, including the very controversial and public large scale security breach of May 2019.
- Hackers stole 7000 bitcoin, worth at the time, $40 Million USD. Forcing Binance to set up an US entity of the company to satisfy US regulatory risks.
It seems a year doesn’t pass, without a new controversy erupting at Binance.
- Oct 2020 - Forbes released documents of an elaborate scheme to profit from US Investors, and was under investigation by the IRS and US Department of Justice on allegations of money laundering and tax offenses. Nothing seemed to come of it.
- Feb 2022 - Binance took a $200M financial stake in Forbes. It’s unclear of the details of this deal, to this date. Zhao stated; They continued to write “baseless” articles defaming Binance. I guess $200M wasn’t enough for their silence. (my editorial comment)
- Mar 2022 - Russian Invasion of Russia - Finance refused to ban Russia from the platform. Responded by donating $10M to the Ukraine for Humanitarian needs. But sticking to his values, Zhao, Stated that Binance was all about “Financial Freedom” for everyone, allowing Russian Citizens and Oligarchs to trade (and hide money) on the platform.
- 2023 - Zhao, Fired the company's internal investigation staff who were tasked with investigating pump and dump schemes, who reportedly uncovered irregularities and possible trade manipulations within the company. Binance denied any wrongdoing.
- 2024 - Binance is under the microscope again - John Griffin, a Finance Professor at the UT Austin, openly accused Binance as being the most popular Platform for “Pig Butchering Scams”.* Binance reported, that on occasion, they cooperate with the US law enforcement agencies and return lost monies from these scams.
[*Pig Butchering Scam- “The scammer builds trust with the victim through online communication, subsequently persuading them to invest in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. The "butchering" or "slaughtering" of the victim transpires when their assets or funds are stolen. As of 2023, 12% of Americans using dating apps have been victims of this scheme.” - wiki]
- 2024 - Binance has more than 90 million users and more than 600 cryptocurrencies. As 30% shareholder, Zhao's net worth has grown significantly in recent years, with Forbes estimating it at $33 Billion as of July 2024, while the Bloomberg Billionaires Index puts it at $38 Billion. Some experts suggest it may actually be closer to $56 Billion USD, increasing by an estimated $4 Billion Annually.
While Changpeng Zhao’s earnings are impressive, the company's moral ethics and practices are very questionable. John Griffin, Finance Professor UT, suggests; Trading Crypto on Binance should be avoided like the plague.
