Changpeng Zhao: Rise, fall, and rebirth

On September 27, 2024, a familiar figure walked out of a transitional home in California, having completed a four-month prison term for violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws.

The man who once controlled the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, oversaw billions of dollars in daily trading volume, and amassed an estimated $66 billion in wealth, quietly tweeted a “good morning” to his millions of followers.

Changpeng Zhao – known as “CZ” – is back in the free world.

In the short history of the crypto ecosystem, few have had the drama and contrast of CZ’s journey: from McDonald’s clerk to crypto mogul, from regulatory disruptor to convicted felon, from exchange boss to prison inmate.

Six months after his release, CZ has pivoted to education, advisory roles, and strategic investments while maintaining his status as one of the most mysterious figures in the cryptocurrency space—his life story reads like a case study in both the possibilities and pitfalls of the digital asset revolution.

Immigration to Canada from China

CZ’s complex relationship with authority has its roots in his early years.

Born in 1977 in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, China, CZ grew up in a family plagued by political persecution. His father, a university professor, was labeled a “pro-bourgeois intellectual” shortly after CZ was born and temporarily exiled to a rural area.

Early encounters with state power shaped the family’s trajectory. In 1984, CZ's father went to Vancouver, Canada, to pursue a doctorate at the University of British Columbia. Five years later, after a series of events, 12-year-old CZ and his mother followed him and left China. In Canada, the young immigrant took on multiple jobs to support his family - he tried working at McDonald's, refereeing volleyball and working the night shift at a Chevron gas station.

CZ’s academic aptitude led him to McGill University in Montreal, where he earned a degree in computer science—a crucial foundation for his future achievements in the cryptocurrency space.

Accumulating Technical Expertise

CZ’s career began in programming, not crypto.

After graduating from college, he landed an internship at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, developing software for matching trade orders—his first exposure to the mechanics of financial markets. He later spent four years at Bloomberg Tradebook, developing futures trading software, building up the technical expertise that would be crucial in the future exchange.

In 2005, CZ moved to Shanghai and founded Fusion Systems, a company focused on providing high-frequency trading platforms to brokers. While the venture was successful, it was just the beginning of his crypto transformation.

CZ’s crypto origin story is the stuff of legend. In 2013, he learned about Bitcoin from a friend who worked at Sequoia Capital during a casual poker game. Most people would have nodded politely and forgotten about it. But not CZ.

He went ALL IN.

We’re talking about the kind of ALL IN where he sold his Shanghai apartment and put all his money into Bitcoin.

His friends and family thought he was crazy (fact: he wasn’t).

Two months later, Bitcoin plummeted 70%, and he lost more than $700,000 on his investment.

But CZ didn’t give up. He joined the development team at Blockchain.info (now Blockchain.com) and later worked as CTO at OKCoin, one of China’s largest exchanges at the time.

Binance: The 180-Day Miracle

By mid-2017, CZ had spotted a major opportunity in the cryptocurrency exchange market. Existing platforms were plagued by poor user experience, insufficient liquidity, and frequent downtime during peak trading periods.

On July 14, 2017, CZ launched Binance, raising $15 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) for the Binance Coin (BNB). Binance’s name is a fusion of “binary” and “finance,” symbolizing the marriage of traditional financial services with binary computer code.

What followed was one of the most remarkable growth stories in business history.

In just 180 days, Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume.

CZ’s strategy combines technical excellence with bold operational decisions. When China banned cryptocurrency exchanges in September 2017, Binance was just two months old, and CZ quickly moved operations to Japan, then to Malta, and continued to expand.

The company operates globally with a “no headquarters” model—a structure that provided flexibility but also later attracted regulatory scrutiny.

Binance continued to grow during the crypto winter of 2018-2019. As the market recovered, the exchange launched new products at an astonishing pace: Binance Launchpad for token issuance, Binance Smart Chain as an Ethereum alternative, and eventually a comprehensive ecosystem covering trading, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and more.

By the peak of the 2021 bull run, Binance’s daily trading volume exceeded $76 billion. CZ’s personal wealth has ballooned to about $96 billion, Bloomberg estimates, briefly making him one of the world’s richest men.

Fast forward to January 2025, and Binance has more than 250 million registered users worldwide.

Cracks in the Empire

As Binance expanded, regulatory pressure mounted.

The exchange’s decentralized structure and rapid growth have drawn the attention of regulators around the world. By 2021, financial regulators in the U.K., Japan, Germany, Italy and elsewhere had issued warnings or taken action against Binance entities.

The biggest threat came from the U.S., where the Department of Justice had been investigating Binance for potential violations of anti-money laundering laws.

Internal communications later disclosed in court documents showed that CZ was aware of compliance issues.

As regulatory pressure intensified, Binance tried to improve its compliance program, hiring former regulators and law enforcement officials. But these efforts came too late for U.S. authorities.

In March 2023, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and CZ, accusing them of deliberately circumventing U.S. law and violating derivatives regulations.

Three months later, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed a lawsuit, accusing Binance of operating an unregistered securities exchange and misleading investors.

The heaviest blow came in November 2023, when the Department of Justice announced criminal charges against Binance and CZ personally.

Court documents even revealed that Binance processed transactions related to illegal markets and sanctioned entities, including Hydra and Hamas.

Prosecutors cited a message from CZ that read: “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission to operate in the United States.”

An employee summed up the exchange’s compliance attitude with dark humor: “Is it too hard to launder money now? Come to Binance, we have cake for you.”

By November 2023, the house of cards came crashing down:

• Binance pleaded guilty to federal charges

• The company agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine

• CZ personally paid $5,000 $10,000 fine

• He resigned as CEO (replaced by Richard Teng)

• CZ pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act

Binance’s troubles didn’t end there.

In France, prosecutors launched an investigation into alleged money laundering and tax fraud between 2019 and 2024. The UK Financial Conduct Authority banned Binance from conducting regulated activities as early as 2021. Nigeria detained Binance executives on suspicion of currency manipulation. Australia's securities regulator took legal action against Binance's derivatives unit, accusing it of misclassifying retail clients as wholesale investors.

In November 2024, FTX (the failed cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed in 2022 in part due to Binance's decision to liquidate its FTT token holdings) filed a lawsuit seeking to recover $1.8 billion in losses from alleged fraudulent stock buybacks in 2021. On June 1, 2024, CZ surrendered to authorities and began serving his sentence at Lompoc II, a low-security federal prison on California's central coast. As a non-U.S. citizen, he is unable to enter the minimum-security facility.

After serving three months in Lompoc, CZ was transferred to a transitional home in San Pedro, California, in late August 2024 and released on September 27, 2024—two days earlier than his scheduled date due to Bureau of Prisons policy allowing for weekend releases.

Throughout the process, CZ has maintained a majority stake in Binance (estimated at 90%) and has kept the bulk of his wealth. According to Forbes, his wealth is currently around $60.6 billion, making him the 24th richest person in the world and the second richest person in Canada.

Post-Prison Reinvention

Since his release, CZ has methodically rebuilt his public image while avoiding involvement in the operations of a cryptocurrency exchange.

His first public appearance was at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai on October 31, 2024, where he received a standing ovation from a crowd of crypto believers.

There, he announced his focus on Giggle Academy, a project designed to provide digital education to hundreds of millions of illiterate adults and out-of-school children around the world.

Unlike many fallen tech founders, CZ has shown little interest in seeking immediate redemption or returning to his former role. His successor, Binance CEO Richard Teng, maintained the company’s dominance in the market while working to repair relations with regulators.

Instead, CZ has shifted to advisory roles and strategic investments. In January 2025, he invested $16 million in token airdrop service Sign, demonstrating his continued interest in crypto infrastructure.

Most recently, on April 7, 2025, CZ was appointed as a strategic advisor to the Pakistan Crypto Council, a newly formed regulatory body. His role involves providing guidance on cryptocurrency regulation, infrastructure, and adoption. Pakistan’s finance minister said CZ’s appointment played a key role in the country’s push to accelerate digital financial transformation.

“We are sending a clear message to the world: Pakistan is open to innovation,” said Pakistan’s Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb. “With CZ on board, we are accelerating our vision of making Pakistan a regional powerhouse for Web3, digital finance, and blockchain-driven growth.”

Our Take

The Binance case exposes the tension between innovation and regulation. According to court documents and CZ’s own guilty plea, Binance failed to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls as required by the Bank Secrecy Act.

The Justice Department’s settlement statement noted that the exchange processed transactions related to darknet market Hydra and coin mixing service Bestmixer — platforms known for facilitating illicit activity. These failures were not technical oversights, but rather stemmed from a corporate culture that, as internal communications show, sometimes prioritized growth over compliance.

What makes these missteps particularly significant is Binance’s enormous reach. As the world’s largest exchange, its policies affect millions of users around the world. When regulatory action finally came, many regular traders faced trading restrictions and uncertainty through no fault of their own.

CZ’s post-prison pivot to education via Giggle Academy and strategic advisory roles may represent real change, but a healthy dose of skepticism is more beneficial to the industry as a whole. Has he truly learned the lessons of his legal troubles, or has he merely adjusted his strategy?

This is the eternal struggle in crypto: how do we build revolutionary systems without becoming the very thing we’re trying to replace in the first place? The world of traditional finance is filled with rule breakers who put profits over people — shouldn’t crypto be different?

To the builders reading this: you can absolutely innovate without taking shortcuts. The problem is in deliberately choosing to ignore the rules that really matter. The industry needs more technical geniuses, and less regulatory ninjas.

The biggest test for CZ 2.0 will be whether he uses his enormous influence to promote a vision of cryptocurrency that drives innovation and responsibility. Because in a cryptocurrency world where old billionaires are replaced by new billionaires who break the same rules? That’s not a revolution — it’s a rebranding.