Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, sat down for an in-depth AMA session tied to the release of his Binance Square book Freedom of Money, engaging directly with community members, early supporters, and longtime builders across a range of topics that spanned his personal journey, investment philosophy, the future of blockchain, and the deeply human experience of putting his life's story into print. Ten signed copies of the book are being given away as part of an ongoing Binance Square promotional campaign.
No New Startups — But the Door Is Not Fully Closed
CZ opened by addressing one of the most frequently asked questions surrounding his post-Binance chapter — whether he plans to build again. He was measured but clear. Binance, he said, now has a strong and capable leadership team in place, and his current focus is on advisory and consultation work rather than launching anything new. He acknowledged that building a company from scratch demands an enormous and sustained level of physical and mental energy — something he said he is increasingly uncertain about committing to again as he gets older.
He stopped short of a definitive answer, however. When pressed on whether that chapter is completely closed, CZ left the question open, noting that nobody can fully predict what the future holds. The remarks suggest that while another major venture is not on the near-term horizon, circumstances could yet change.
Seventeen Years Before Binance
When asked how someone who starts with nothing builds the confidence to keep going, CZ traced his journey back decades. He described getting his earliest exposure to entrepreneurship as a young developer working alongside startup founders, before moving through a series of small companies. A stint at Bloomberg — where he experienced large-scale corporate life for the first time — confirmed that structured, hierarchical environments were not suited to his personality. He said he simply could not picture himself in a conventional career for twenty years.
What followed was a long and often uncertain progression. CZ spoke candidly about multiple failed startups and the self-doubt that accompanied them. Rather than treating those failures as dead ends, he described managing them as a deliberate exercise in risk control — taking small investments rather than loans, so that when things did not work out, the financial damage remained limited. He personally repaid all investors from his failed ventures, he said, making everyone whole.
His entry into crypto came after years of building both technical and business development skills. When the ICO wave arrived in 2017, he and his growing team were positioned to move — and what began as a goal to raise between ten and fifteen million dollars grew into something far larger as Binance scaled by staying focused on protecting its users. By the time he founded Binance, CZ had spent seventeen years working and building. He was deliberate in distancing himself from the narrative of the overnight genius, noting that while those stories make headlines, they represent a very small minority. His journey, he said, was organic — shaped over multiple decades by persistence, adaptability, and a refusal to give up.
Keep Walking — But Know Your Direction
Early Binance angel investor Angel Woomi prompted one of the most personal exchanges of the session, referencing a line from Freedom of Money that has resonated widely with readers: when life hits rock bottom, just keep walking and you will get through it. She pushed further, asking what advice CZ would offer to someone who is working as hard as they can but still cannot seem to break through — and how he himself always managed to choose the right direction at Binance's critical crossroads.
CZ said the principle was something he learned long before Binance existed — during a period early in his career when he was freelancing on a month-to-month consulting contract with no certainty the next renewal would arrive. That financial pressure, just a few years out of college, was where the lesson first took root. In his experience, waiting a few days during a difficult moment usually reveals that things are either not as bad as they initially seemed, or that circumstances shift on their own. He pointed to the stress surrounding the Binance platform launch and his court sentencing in 2024 as more recent examples where the same mindset carried him through.
But CZ was careful to address the harder part of the question. Persistence alone is not enough if the effort is pointed in the wrong direction. In most situations, he argued, people can sense whether what they are doing is working — and when it is not, the answer is to pivot rather than push harder. He identified overspending as one of the most common traps keeping people stuck, drawing on his upbringing and his parents' longstanding emphasis on saving regardless of income level. Beyond finances, he stressed the value of daily self-improvement — arguing that consistent small progress compounds over time and is itself a genuine source of happiness, regardless of where someone starts.
The Hidden Cost of Building Binance
Community member Kevin from Akta asked what behind-the-scenes reality of Binance's early years would most change how people understand the company's rise. CZ said the single most underappreciated aspect was the sheer physical and mental demand placed on the team. Staff regularly slept in the office. Because a crypto exchange operates around the clock, the work never stopped and neither did the pressure. CZ himself said he was constantly reachable on his phone regardless of where he was or what he was doing. He acknowledged that the book touches on hard work but said it is genuinely difficult to convey the full magnitude of what those years demanded — a level of intensity that only began to ease as the team grew larger and more structured in later years.
Writing Freedom of Money: Relief, Honesty, and the Risk of Offending People
Asked how it felt to finally publish the book and what he hopes readers take away from it, CZ said the overriding feeling upon completion was simply relief. The writing and publishing process was far longer and more complex than many might expect — involving dozens of editing passes across a three-hundred-page document, decisions around publishing routes, cover design, and whether to pursue a traditional publisher or go it alone. He ultimately chose to self-publish in order to get the book to market as quickly as possible.
He studied the craft of memoir writing before putting pen to paper, and took away a key lesson — that the first draft is always going to be imperfect, and the real work lies in the editing. He was equally candid about one of the less comfortable realities of honest memoir writing: it almost inevitably causes offense. When a book goes beyond surface-level storytelling and gets into real problems, real decisions, and real feelings, the people connected to those moments do not always come out looking the way they might prefer. CZ said he has made peace with that.
He also addressed the scrutiny that comes with putting one's full story into the world, noting that a book provides something social media never can — the space to tell a story in full, in one's own voice and on one's own terms. That control over narrative was a significant motivation. CZ said that Binance and the broader crypto industry have long been on the receiving end of negatively framed coverage, and that Freedom of Money was an opportunity to present his own perspective on how key decisions were made, how he views the mistakes that occurred, and what the journey actually looked like from the inside. He also revealed that a significant amount of material was left out of this edition — details too recent, too sensitive, or tied to ongoing legal proceedings — suggesting a second edition could eventually include much of what was omitted.
Writing as Reflection: Closure on Loss, Prison, and the Past
The discussion took its most personal turn when CZ was asked whether the writing process changed how he sees his own journey or his identity beyond Binance. He said it did not dramatically reshape his sense of self — but it did prompt a level of deep reflection on decisions and experiences that he had previously acknowledged but never fully examined.
He described his philosophical approach to writing, crediting author Anne Lamott and her framework of writing for yourself rather than for an audience. A memoir written in that spirit, he argued, should be brutally honest and unbothered by external judgment — and he recommended the approach to anyone considering writing, whether they ever intend to publish or not.
Two moments stood out as especially significant in terms of personal impact. The first was revisiting the death of his father — something he believed he had previously found closure on, but which the writing process brought back in considerable detail. Publishing those pages ultimately delivered a deeper and more lasting sense of resolution than anything that had come before. The second was his time in prison, which occupies roughly twenty pages of the book. Having previously spoken about it only in fragments, committing it fully to the page and releasing it as a complete and honest account gave him what he described as genuine mental closure. Both chapters, he said, are now behind him.
He also addressed why he chose to speak out through the book rather than stay quiet in the aftermath of significant controversy. CZ said that the crypto industry has consistently been misrepresented by traditional media, and that the wrong narrative about what crypto is and what it does has taken hold in ways that have real consequences. Staying quiet, he argued, was never a serious option. Transparency — not retreat — is the right response to adversity.
Investing: Mission-Driven Founders and the Case for Bear Markets
On his investment philosophy through Easy Labs, CZ was candid that missing great early-stage projects is an unavoidable reality of venture investing — and was honest enough to admit that had he been on the other side of the table in 2017, he might well have passed on Binance himself. At the early stage, there is often little to evaluate beyond the founder, which makes the decision inherently uncertain.
He said the single most important quality he looks for is a founder who is mission-driven rather than return-driven — and that bear markets are his preferred time to invest. A founder who keeps building when crypto markets are falling is demonstrating exactly the kind of long-term commitment that separates genuine builders from opportunists. Bull markets, by contrast, attract many projects with inflated valuations and high excitement levels but offer little clarity on who will survive when conditions deteriorate. On valuation, CZ was blunt — a project with no product and no users demanding a hundred million dollar valuation is simply not a serious proposition.
GitHub Activity, Not Price: How to Spot Projects Built to Last
Asked how to distinguish crypto projects with genuine long-term staying power from those driven by short-term hype, CZ pointed to developer activity as the most reliable signal available. A project with consistent code commits, active contributions, and continuous evolution has what he described as a heartbeat — visible proof that real work is being done regardless of market conditions. Many projects make a strong initial splash through marketing and a first launch, only for development activity to quietly fade before the price follows. Projects that have survived multiple market cycles and continued building through them are, in his view, significantly more likely to endure the next one.
Blockchain's Future: Less Than One Percent of Its Potential Realised
CZ closed the session with what he described as one of his strongest convictions — that blockchain remains in its absolute infancy and that the opportunity ahead for ordinary builders and investors dwarfs anything that has come before.
He framed the argument around three technologies that have defined his adult life: the internet, blockchain, and AI. All three will have profound and lasting impacts on the world. The current excitement around AI does not diminish what blockchain has yet to accomplish — if anything, it obscures it. Blockchain has spent its entire existence under heavy regulatory pressure, which has significantly delayed its development and means that what the world has seen so far represents only a fraction of its potential.
To illustrate how far the industry still has to go, CZ pointed to the vast range of financial activity that remains entirely untouched by blockchain. Mortgage markets, consumer lending, foreign exchange, oil trading, commodities — virtually none of it operates on chain today. Less than one percent of global net worth currently sits in crypto, and roughly seven to ten percent of the global population has any exposure at all. Even just from existing participants deepening their involvement, he said, the potential upside is in the range of one hundred times the current market.
He also made the case that blockchain and AI are not competing narratives but deeply complementary ones. As AI agents become more capable and autonomous, they will increasingly need to transact across borders instantly — without relying on bank accounts, Swift transfers, or geographically limited payment networks. Blockchain-native assets are, in his view, the natural infrastructure for that world.
He closed by noting that the flow of attention and capital toward AI has drawn some participants away from crypto — but said he views this as a net positive. Those who are still actively building blockchain projects today, despite a more glamorous alternative competing for their attention, are demonstrating exactly the kind of long-term commitment that the space needs. The builders who remain, he said, are the real ones.
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