CZ Reflects on Pre-Bitcoin Career in Financial Tech: 'I Just Didn't Think About It'

Speaking on The Wolf of All Streets Podcast about his new memoir, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said he did not understand money until he encountered Bitcoin, despite having spent years working in financial technology, including on trading systems at Bloomberg and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Zhao said his conviction in Bitcoin and blockchain stems not from a finance background but from a technology framework: he measures innovations by whether they improve efficiency without meaningful trade-offs, citing incremental improvements in living standards — from bare cement floors to running water to heated taps — as examples of the same principle. "I think blockchain is a huge technology," he said.