Every year, the Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi attracts world-renowned princes, movie stars and athletes to celebrate on Yas Island. Last month, the event added a new character: Ceo Changpeng Zhao of Binane. Former McDonald’s employee and software engineer. Now he has become a $ billionaire at the age of 44.
At $96 billion, Changpeng Zhao is about to reach the richest tech moguls, such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Larry Page, Sergey Brin.
The richest person in the cryptocurrency industry
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that Zhao now has about $96 billion – the largest of any crypto entrepreneur. This is the first time Bloomberg has estimated his fortune. This number will likely be much larger, as it does not include the amount of money he currently holds as an individual. This includes Bitcoin and Binance Coin, the digital currency issued by Binance and has grown by 1,300% over the past year.
As for the calculation, Bloomberg said it provides an estimate of the company’s value based on Binance’s revenue in 2021, specifically about $20 billion, from spot and exchange derivative fees based on volume transactions, but does not include Binance’s income streams from margin lending, NFT, and other assets. Subsequently, Changpeng Zhao is said to own 90% of Binance’s shares, leading to its final figure of $95.8 billion. Bloomberg notes that Binance’s CEO could also hold other cryptocurrencies, making his net worth perhaps much higher.
Top Revenue from Spot Fees and Derivatives of Cryptocurrency Exchanges in 2021, Bloomberg Estimates
Notably, Bloomberg’s statistics also include Satoshi Nakamoto, assuming that the anonymous founder of Bitcoin still holds the 1.1 million BTC he mined from the early days of this coin. With bitcoin’s current value, Satoshi is said to own up to $45.8 billion, making it second on the list of crypto billionaires.
Binance CEO is willing to donate all his assets to charity
Before that, in October 2021, Forbes Magazine also published a list of the richest billionaires in the cryptocurrency industry, with the “champion” awarded to Sam Bankman-Fried with a fortune of $22.5 billion. , and by January 2022 it increased to $26.5 billion. However, Forbes’ statistics caused a lot of controversy when it did not mention Changpeng Zhao, but was limited to US crypto entrepreneurs.
In addition, the two statistics of Bloomberg and Forbes also recorded a significant difference, when Bloomberg claimed that the net worth of the CEO of FTX was only 15.4 billion dollars, while the figure provided by Forbes was much higher.
In an interview with the AP news agency in November 2021, binance’s CEO confirmed that he only holds Bitcoin (BTC) and Binance Coin (BNB) and stated that he was willing to use all of his assets to charity.
Changpeng Zhao also recently moved to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and moved to promote the adoption of cryptocurrency with the authorities of this country, sparking many rumors that Binance will be based in Dubai. This is a move by the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to reassure global financial regulators after a year of Binance’s legal troubles in 2021.