All about Changpeng Zhao, why did he step down from Binance?

In a historic move in cryptocurrency, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao agreed to resign as the company's CEO and pleaded guilty to violating US anti-money laundering charges filed by the US Department of Justice. The case settlement amounts to an unprecedented $4.3 billion to resolve a long-running investigation into the world's largest cryptocurrency by trading volume. But who is Zhao, who created this enormous empire and led it to its downfall, granting a personal payment of 50 million dollars as a penalty to the United States government? Let's take a closer look.

Who is Changpeng Zhao?

Zhao, popularly known as CZ among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, is a 46-year-old Canadian citizen born in the Chinese province of Jiangsu. At the age of 12, he immigrated with his family to Vancouver, Canada, and eventually majored in computer science at McGill University in Montreal. Zhao began his career in finance, interning at the Tokyo Stock Exchange and landing his first full-time job at Bloomberg Tradebook as a futures trading software developer. Later, he founded his tech startup, Fusion Systems, an automated high-frequency trading platform.

Why did Changpeng Zhao step down from Binance?

It wasn't until 2013 that Zhao got involved with cryptocurrencies through projects like Blockchain.info and OKCoin. He also reportedly invested all of his wealth in Bitcoin. Zhao eventually founded Binance in 2017 as a cryptocurrency exchange during the initial rumours about it. He also launched Binance Coin, the platform's native cryptocurrency.

With an easy-to-use interface, low trading fees, and support for a wide range of cryptocurrencies, Binance quickly gained popularity over competing platforms and became the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. In 2018, he was ranked third on Forbes' list of "The Richest People in Cryptocurrency", with a net worth between $1 and $2 billion.

The following year, he created the U.S. division of the business. In March 2023, Binance came under fire after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Zhao for violating money laundering laws and failing to establish enforcement and legal mechanisms to prevent suspicious transactions.