Changpeng Zhao is a Chinese-born Canadian.
 |
| [Changpeng Zhao,CEO of Binance] |
Changpeng Zhao is the CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. In only five years, the native of a poor Chinese family and a former McDonald's cook amassed a wealth of about one hundred billion dollars, making him Asia's richest man. Zhao became the world's first crypto businessman to take on world-famous IT titans such as Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page. However, the founder of Binance does not match the stereotypical picture of a millionaire and is regarded as one of the most intriguing figures in the cryptocurrency sector. Zhao does not own real estate, does not own costly automobiles, does not wear luxury watches, and prefers not to appear in public—in both his personal and professional life, Zhao prioritizes seclusion.
Binance had been in operation for only six months when its creator, Changpeng Zhao, was featured on the cover of Forbes magazine. It's no coincidence that the journalists picked a photograph of the founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency ecosystem wearing a black hoodie and hiding under a hood. As a result, Forbes attempted to portray Zhao's key distinguishing quality from the usual picture of a multibillionaire - his dislike to exposure. Throughout his career, Binance's creator has preferred to keep his personal life hidden from prying eyes - even now, in 2022, when he was declared the 11th richest person in the world (with an estimated net worth of $ 96 billion), the public knows practically little about his personality.
In both public and private utterances, the entrepreneur frequently mentions his aim to address the demands of Binance's 8 million customers and build a world-class trading platform. Outside of cryptocurrency, Zhao admits to having little hobbies. "I just can't stop thinking about Binance," he stated one day at dinner with a journalist, before interrupting his meal to conduct another in-person interview. Zhao's lone tattoo is the Binance logo, and he favors t-shirts and hoodies with the Binance logo on them.
Throughout thrones
Changpeng Zhao is a Chinese-born Canadian. The future businessman was born in the Chinese state of Jiangsu in 1977, and he had to adjust to changing living situations from birth because his father was a university philosophy professor who frequently moved professions. "I've always lived on campus, whether in high school or university, for as long as I can remember." I was constantly on the run. "My parents migrated from one city to another in China," Changpeng stated in an interview.
Furthermore, his father was punished during China's "culture revolution" in the 1970s, which was undertaken by Mao Zedong in order to defeat Marxist revisionism and build a communist state. Since the Doctor of Philosophy was destined to bear the stigma of a "pro-bourgeois intellectual" in his homeland, the family emigrated to Vancouver at the first opportunity. The family lived in Canada on a very low income. Changpeng took whatever methods possible to supplement his family's income. He had to make burgers at McDonald's during the day and refuel automobiles at night at one point.
Although the Changpengs could not always afford extravagant purchases, Zhao's father did not want to fall behind technological development and saved enough money to acquire an IBM PC XT 286 personal computer for $7,000 Canadian (at that time about 5.6 thousand US dollars). It was a luxury at the time. "When I was approximately 12 or 13 years old, my father purchased me a computer." […] Then it was a tremendous, massive chunk of our savings. "Dad usually says that this is the most costly computer and, in general, the most expensive item that he has ever purchased," said Binance's creator. The father was well-versed in the exact sciences and already owned numerous programming languages at the time, including Fortran, Pascal, and C, and he exposed his kid to computer code at a young age. Zhao expanded his skills in high school before enrolling in computer science at McGill University in Montreal.
The prospective crypto entrepreneur applied for an internship at a software development business while at university, and subsequently worked for a Japanese trading company that outsourced work to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. There, he created high-frequency trading systems that allowed him to conduct securities trades in a fraction of a second. As a result, the young specialist first became familiar with money. "I was first drawn to the work because it was in Tokyo, but then I realized that, heck, a lot of money runs through these networks, a vast amount." "And I've been in this industry for a long time," Changpeng said.
All in on Bitcoin
Zhao first became acquainted with cryptocurrencies in 2013 at a casual poker game with Bobby Li, CEO of BTC China crypto exchange, and crypto investor Ron Cao. Friends suggested that the programmer take a chance and invest a tenth of his money in bitcoin. "They told me, 'You have to transfer 10% of your fortune into bitcoin.'" The chances of their price dropping to zero and you losing that 10% are quite slim. However, there is a good probability that the price will rise tenfold, doubling your fortune." "And I thought, wow, this is a fairly serious offer," said Binance's creator.
Zhao rapidly sorted out the technical documentation of the first cryptocurrency because to his considerable programming experience. He was conversant with encryption technologies that employed both public and private keys (the latter is used in the blockchain to provide individual access to a crypto wallet). Changpeng, who had grown accustomed to frequent movement, eventually fell in love with them - having obtained freedom and the capacity to pick his own work, he began to routinely change his place of residence. When Zhao relocated, he had to convert money every time, which cost him a lot of money in fees, thus the benefit of bitcoin was evident to him.
Since then, the programmer has become a fervent proponent of Bitcoin, storing nearly all of his savings in bitcoins. Even when the price of coins dropped from $600 to $200 in 2014, he remained optimistic about the promise of decentralized financial technology. At the time of his first encounter with bitcoin, he had an apartment in Shanghai, and the young programmer chose without hesitation to sell the property and invest the earnings in cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, Zhao left his job to become the first employee of blockchain.info's crypto wallet service: "When I arrived, there was only founder Ben Reeves and CEO Nick Carey." So I came in third."
However, after approximately a year of working on this platform, Zhao discovered that his "superpower" is still stock trading. He was promoted to technical director at the OKCoin crypto exchange, but he soon realized how flawed the service's procedures were. Furthermore, Zhao accused the corporation in 2015 of intentionally exaggerating trading volume with bots and automated trading, as well as altering audit results. After attempting to amend the OKCoin policy but failing, the programmer recognized that the only way to acquire the right product was to build it himself.
Destined to succeed
Changpeng chose to launch his own exchange in 2017, at a time when the market was seeing a surge in ICO initiatives. The Canadian business did the same thing to acquire funding from investors, raising $15 million through the sale of BNB (Binance Coin) tokens. Zhao opened the Binance exchange in July, just 11 days after the initial coin offering (ICO), and his haste was warranted. The site quickly gained popularity among customers, and in just six months, it surpassed the German Deutsche Bank as the leading exchange, with a profit of $ 200 million.
It is critical to consider the circumstances behind Zhao's business's development - the cryptocurrency was launched in 2008, and it has already achieved widespread recognition in just nine years. Bitcoin had a market value of more than $40 billion in July 2017, and there were already dozens of crypto exchanges. At the same time, Zhao's startup was able to become a market leader in just 180 days and capture a significant portion of it.
The truth is that the job of exchanges at the time was exceedingly expensive and time-consuming. Changpeng Zhao made the decision to build an advanced platform by integrating the capabilities of a decentralized blockchain network with high-frequency trading systems, both of which he had substantial expertise designing. The founder of Binance defines the market in 2017 as follows: "In 2017, the exchanges were differentiated by the fact that most of the interfaces were highly uncomfortable."
And the systems were really sluggish. All websites were down in 2017 as the price of bitcoin rose. Worst of all, none of them provided customer service. […] They just duplicated each other, despite the fact that hundreds of unique exchanges arose every day. Nobody has made tremendous progress." Changpeng's technical concepts aided in the acceleration of information interchange and the processing of more than a million transactions per second, resulting in lower costs.
Furthermore, the former programmer devoted close attention to the user interface and customer service when developing the service in order to make the platform more accessible and appealing. Binance's ability to convert one cryptocurrency to another was another key advance (crypto-to-crypto mechanism). The company also provided consumers with an unique loyalty program in which holders of the BNB exchange's own coin could earn even less fee on their transactions.