Binance CEO Zhao Is Worth $96B Excluding Crypto Holdings: Report
Changpeng Zhao’s wealth has been estimated for the first time by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
By Jamie Crawley
Jan 10, 2022 at 12:31 p.m.
Updated Jan 10, 2022 at 6:21 p.m.
Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao (CoinDesk archives)
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is worth an estimated $96 billion, a figure that rivals tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, according to Bloomberg.
Zhao’s net wealth has been estimated for the first time by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which concludes that it exceeds that of Asia’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries.
The $96 billion figure does not take into account Zhao’s personal crypto holdings, meaning it could be a significant underestimate.
It is likely Zhao’s wealth could rival that of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Bloomberg said.
Among his crypto peers, the 44-year-old’s closest rivals are FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried ($15.4 billion) and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong ($8.9 billion), according to Bloomberg’s index.
Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, with a 24-hour trading volume of $106 billion as of Jan. 6, according to CoinGecko. It generated at least $20 billion of revenue last year, according to Bloomberg.
Bloomberg assumed Zhao owns 90% of Binance, and estimated the exchange’s revenue from spot and derivatives trading volumes and advertised fees. It valued the business based on publicly traded peers. Zhao declined to comment to Bloomberg, and Binance disputed the accuracy of the estimates