Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, is a Chinese-Canadian business executive and entrepreneur. He was born on November 17, 1976, in Jiangsu, China, and grew up in Vancouver, Canada. CZ studied computer science at Montreal's McGill University.
After graduation, CZ worked for several tech companies, including Bloomberg, where he developed trading systems for futures and options traders. In 2005, he founded Fusion Systems, a company that provided high-frequency trading systems for brokers.
In 2013, CZ became involved in the cryptocurrency industry, initially investing in Bitcoin and later becoming the head of development for blockchain-based exchange platform, Blockchain.info. He then went on to work at OKCoin, one of China's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, before founding Binance in 2017.
Binance quickly became one of the largest and most successful cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, with CZ at the helm as CEO. The company's success is due in part to CZ's leadership, as well as his commitment to innovation and user experience. He has been praised for his ability to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and his dedication to improving the cryptocurrency industry as a whole.
CZ has also been actively involved in philanthropy, using a portion of Binance's profits to support various charitable causes, including COVID-19 relief efforts, blockchain education initiatives, and the development of new technologies.
As of 2021, CZ's net worth was estimated at over $1 billion, making him one of the wealthiest individuals in the cryptocurrency industry.
