Binance’s former CEO Changpen ‘CZ’ Zhao has been ranked the twenty-fourth richest person in the world by Forbes. His 90% equity in Binance and joint ownership of 71% of circulating BNB coins with Binance puts his net worth at a highly impressive $61 billion.
He personally owns 64% of the BNB coins in circulation, amounting to 94 million. The total supply of BNB is 200 million, with over 147.5 million coins in circulation. BNB has done extremely well during this year’s bull cycle, with its year-to-date price more than doubling, going from around $230 to over $600. The coin also hit an all-time high (ATH) of $717 earlier this month.
BNB is the native asset of the Binance Smart Chain, a high throughput layer-1 chain housing an immense dApp ecosystem. Transaction fees on the network are paid using BNB. CZ’s net worth vastly comes from possessing a massive chunk of these coins apart from holding 90% equity in the largest crypto exchanges in the world. Binance witnesses daily trading volumes in the tens of billions of dollars.
As CZ makes it to this stature of wealth this year, he also serves a four-month prison sentence that started in May. He was sentenced to federal jail for that period due to his failure to institute and operate robust anti-money laundering protocols with Binance, which prosecutors said facilitated over 1.1 million transactions between the US and Iran.
Iran is an OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) – sanctioned nation. And the 1.1 million transactions transferred over $900 million. Binance facilitated transactions between Americans and individuals from other sanctioned nations as well. It also allowed funds from mixing services to flow through it, thereby letting assets derived from crime get transacted.
Beyond the jail time, CZ was fined $50 million and ordered to step down as Binance’s CEO. Binance was fined $4.3 billion.