It is not every day that we come across an ex-employee of McDonald’s who earned a minimum wage at a certain period of time have his net wealth sky-rocket to rival that of Mukesh Ambani’s.
Changpeng Zhao, a software developer and former employee of McDonald’s, has risen to have a net worth of $96 billion dollars while Mukesh Ambani’s net worth is only $92 billion.
Who Is This Man?
Changpeng Zhao is a Chinese-Canadian business executive. He is also the founder and the CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Zhao used to be a member of the team that developed Blockchain.info and has also served as chief technology officer of OKCoin.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his net worth is estimated to be $96 billion as of 23rd January 2022, which makes him the richest person in Canada and the world’s 14th richest person. Essentially, Zhao surpassed Mukesh Ambani’s net worth overnight by becoming the king of cryptocurrencies.
Changpeng Zhao is also known as CZ in the world of cryptophiles. He is quickly becoming a permanent part of the cryptocurrency business in Dubai. He meets the royal family frequently as they want him to bring his Binance exchange to the country.
He has bought an apartment in the country and has held frequent luncheons and dinners near the Burj Khalifa which makes him one of the nation’s prominent personalities in the booming crypto scene.
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This year is the first time that Bloomberg has estimated Zhao’s net worth which has come to the realization that he is richer than Asia’s richest businessman, Mukesh Ambani, the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg and the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
However, Zhao’s wealth could be significantly larger as the wealth estimate does not take into account his own personal holdings including Bitcoin and his firm’s own token which surged higher than 1,300% last year.
Where Does Zhao Hail From?
The Canadian citizen was born in the Jiangsu District of China where his father was a professor. Their family was banished to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution when Zhao was only 12 years old. They moved to Vancouver a couple of years later.
Zhao was exposed to technology from a young age, hence, he went on to study computer science and later worked in finance companies in Tokyo and New York, including working for 4 years at Bloomberg LP.
He founded Binance in 2017 and soon transformed it into a crypto powerhouse. The firm has stated that it is incorporated in the Cayman Islands which is famous for offshore accounts and tax savings.
The company was banished from China, its place of birth and has come to face various regulatory probes globally. The Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service in the United States have been investigating whether the entity Zhao controls, Binance Holdings Ltd., is a front for money laundering and tax evasion. The spokesmen for both the DOJ and IRS refuse to comment on the matter.
Currently, Binance’s future rests on whether it can reconcile with the world’s regulators and find a proper location to establish its headquarters.
Binance generated at least $20 billion in revenue last year, according to an analysis conducted by Bloomberg. That is triple the amount of what Wall Street analysts expected Coinbase Global Inc., a publicly-traded firm with a market value of $50 billion, would collect for the year 2021.
“Crypto is still in its growth stage. It is susceptible to higher levels of volatility. Any number you hear one day will be different from a number you hear the next day,” Binance announced in a recent statement.
In a recent 24-hour span Binance completed $170 billion worth of transactions. A spokesperson for Binance said the company is “working with regulators around the world and we take our compliance obligations very seriously.”
Despite the various legal challenges faced by the company, investors are still tempted to invest in the world’s most successful crypto exchange. In November of 2021, a journal reported that the company could be worth as much as $300 billion. This would make Zhao richer than Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Image Sources: Google Images
Sources: NDTV, TheNewsCaravan, DnaIndia +more
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This Post Is Tagged Under: ex-employee, McDonald’s, minimum wage, Mukesh Ambani, Changpeng Zhao, software developer, business executive, Binance, Blockchain.info, OKCoin, Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Canada, cryptocurrencies, CZ, cryptophiles, cryptocurrency, Dubai, Burj Khalifa, crypto, Bloomberg, Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Bitcoin, Canadian, Jiangsu District, China, Cultural Revolution, Vancouver, computer science, finance, Tokyo, New York, Bloomberg LP, Cayman Islands, offshore accounts, Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, United States, Binance Holdings Ltd., money laundering, tax evasion, DOJ, IRS, Wall Street, Coinbase Global Inc., crypto exchange, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos
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