Changpeng Zhao

CZ was born in Jiangsu, China. Both of his parents were educators; his father, a professor, was labeled a "pro-bourgeois intellect" and temporarily exiled shortly after CZ was born. The family eventually emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, in the late 1980s. As a teenager, CZ pitched in to cover the household expenses, flipping burgers at McDonald's and working overnight shifts at a gas station. After studying computer science at Montreal’s McGill University, Zhao spent time in both Tokyo and New York, first building a system for matching trade orders on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and then, at Bloomberg’s Tradebook where he developed software for futures trading. But even after the 27-year old coding whiz was promoted three times in less than two years to manage teams in New Jersey, London and Tokyo, Zhao became impatient. So in 2005 he quit and moved to Shanghai to start his Fusion Systems, a company known for building some of the fastest high-frequency trading systems for brokers. In 2013, Zhao learned about Bitcoin from a venture capitalist with whom he played poker. He joined Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet’s team. As head of development for eight months, he worked closely with well-known Bitcoin evangelists like Roger Ver and Ben Reeves. He also worked at OKCoin as chief technology officer for less than a year, a platform for spot trading between fiat and digital assets. Zhao’s recent relocation to the land of the rising sun, and then to Formosa has meant some changes. Binance’s trading volume is no longer dominated by China. Today, 38% of Binance’s users are in the U.S. Its second-biggest market is Japan.