There’s a tale oft told of a person who was once a retail worker, doing their best to supplement family income, emerging from the ranks to become a billionaire eventually. Following a similar tangent is the story of 45-year-old billionaire Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao.
Burgers to Billionaire
Every other story online chronicles the start of Zhao’s journey from flipping a burger or two at McDonald’s, refereeing volleyball games, to running the graveyard shift at the gas station, so it only seemed right to outline his illustrious career trajectory from here to earn a degree in software development. He is far from flipping burgers for work now, holding the post of Founder and CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. He’s also deemed to be the wealthiest crypto-billionaire there is. When this is brought up in most interviews, Zhao simply shrugs it away, saying, “I don’t care about the money.”
In 2005, Changpeng Zhao founded Fusion Systems based in Shanghai, catering to stockbrokers with high-frequency trading systems. Zhao was not new to the world of cryptocurrency- he was, in fact, a rather seasoned expert in the field.
Not long after, he sold his house, invested a million dollars in Bitcoin and lost a huge chunk of that money. But the conviction remained. Binance was built leveraging Zhao’s experience at Blockchain LLC in 2013, a bitcoin wallet provider, and OKCoin, a cryptocurrency exchange, holding office of the CTO for under a year.
Building Binance
Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange when quantifying the daily volume of cryptocurrency trading. Established in 2017, Binance is registered in the Cayman Islands. It was previously headquartered in China- eventually shifting headquarters, servers and base out of the country into Japan owing to the unappreciated cryptocurrency regulatory involvement of the Chinese government.
Since 2017, Binance has been behind the launch of two cryptocurrencies- Binance Coin and Binance Smart Chain.
Binance Coin, going by the BNB symbol, came first. It started on the Ethereum blockchain but is now on the Binance chain. This primary coin was created as a simple utility token to pay trading and transaction fees on the platform. Fees can be spent on Binance using this coin.
Binance Smart Chain, on the other hand, goes by BSC. It was launched in September 2020. This cryptocurrency combines 21 approved validators for using proof of stake and proof of authority to create Binance’s ‘Proof of Staked Authority’.
This cryptocurrency exchange has been well received by its 90 million+ users worldwide with over 600 listed cryptocurrencies, extremely low transaction fees and the platform’s user-friendliness.
The Binance Ecosystem
CZ has been a trailblazer in the industry, creating a complete ecosystem within the crypto space under the Binance banner.
- Binance Exchange
This is the central offering of the company and is the fastest and the largest crypto exchange on the trade volume front.
- Binance Chain
The Binance Chain is a blockchain software system led by the community. The contributors and the developers for the Binance Chain are based worldwide. It has a decentralised exchange feature called Binance DEX.
- Trust Wallet
Binance’s Trust Wallet is created as a secure and decentralised wallet. Users can send, receive, and store their digital assets through the Trust Wallet.
- Binance Academy
For those interested in learning about blockchain and crypto, Binance Academy is an open-access learning hub with resources to understand better.
- Binance Research
The Binance Research arm of the ecosystem offers reports, insights and analysis from trusted sources within the crypto space.
- Binance Launchpad
Entrepreneurs can explore Binance Launchpad as an exclusive token launch platform. The sky’s the limit to bringing interesting crypto projects to life.
- Binance Labs
Binance Labs is an infrastructure impact fund set up to make a difference by encouraging incubations, investments, and empowering projects in the blockchain space.
- Binance Info
For in-depth objective and unbiased information on cryptocurrency, look up Binance Info. It is an open platform with aggregators from all over the globe.
- Binance Charity
This arm of Binance is a not-for-profit foundation created to advance philanthropy and sustainable development using blockchain.
The Binance Work Culture
Changpeng Zhao elaborates on why Binance culture stands out in diversity and passion. He believes in a system free of office hours and micromanagement, which is possible only thanks to people’s passion for their work. The diverse workplace works towards a singular mission.
Changpeng Zhao’s humble disposition and carefree wardrobe sense may not make him seem like the wealthiest man in crypto in the world- but he is. CZ is rich, humble, the crypto-king- the Binance Billionaire.
Quotes:
- Spend less than you earn. Learn to invest the difference. Wealth follows.
- Don’t play a game where they can change the rules when you are just about to win. Just leave and let them play with themselves.
- The word risk means different things to different people. Some people say risk. Some people say opportunity.
- I never view anyone as competition. If I’ve that mindset, everyone’s the enemy to me, even very different businesses. But I have an abundance mentality. I think most things in this world are not limited resources. Money is not. Business opportunities are not. And the crypto industry is not.
- I firmly believe that our constant and transparent communication sets us apart from the “old way of doing things”, especially in tough times.
- We need to respect the market with a level of caution too. It goes up and down in cycles. And especially the fact that it doesn’t always make sense.
- The best way to kill passion and productivity is micro-management, in an office, during office hours, etc.
That is so… last century.
- Binance has continuously operated within the boundaries of the law.
- When you reach success, there are multiple reasons- you’ve got to do almost 99 things right. To fail, you have to do something wrong.
- For every decision we make, we put our users front and centre.
- Most of my friends thought I was crazy because I was selling my apartment in Shanghai to go all in to Crypto. And I was quitting my job. So I was jobless, homeless. By most people’s definition, that is crazy.