CZ’s Humble Beginnings: From a $700K Loss to $60B in Net Worth

On May 5, Nuseir Yassin – better known as Nas Daily – posted a video featuring Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). The 5-minute video showed a glimpse of CZ’s life, his journey with cryptocurrency, and the beginnings of Binance. CZ makes an actual appearance in the video as Nuseir interviews and narrates his story.

The featurette highlights the humble beginnings of CZ before being the wealthiest person in crypto. In fact, the video begins in 2013 with CZ losing $700,000 as BTC’s price crashed 70%. Undeterred, he created Binance aiming to become a top 10 exchange in three years — accomplishing it in only six months. This paved the way for him to become the wealthiest man in crypto.

Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, back in 2013-2014 for me was one of those unique opportunities where it was early stage, only a small number of people got it, and it’s going to be a huge future. I told myself ‘I’m not going to miss it’.

When asked about CZ’s net worth and how he felt about having so much money, the Binance CEO had the following to say: “I don’t think money is the most important factor. I don’t focus on that. I focus on building products that people will use — how to make that the most efficient, most impactful thing in the world.”

In a Twitter exchange under Nas Daily’s video, a viewer asked CZ if he ever sold when the market crashed by 70% in 2013. CZ responded with a simple “never sold”.

In recent news, it was revealed to the public that Binance committed to contributing $500 million to help fund Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Binance is only one of 18 other companies that are funding the offer.