How Did CZ Make His Money? Changpeng Zhao, Binance, Four Months in Prison, and the Trump Pardon
Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in 2017 with $30 million from a token sale. Within 180 days it was the world's largest crypto exchange. He pleaded guilty to AML violations in 2023, paid a $50 million personal fine, served four months in prison, and stepped down as CEO. Trump pardoned him in October 2025 citing the Biden administration's war on crypto. His net worth is $54.5 billion. He published a memoir in April 2026. Here is the complete story.
TL;DR: Changpeng Zhao, known universally as CZ, is a Chinese-born Canadian entrepreneur who founded Binance in 2017 and built it into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume in approximately 180 days. He made his money primarily through retaining a controlling equity stake in Binance while the exchange grew to dominate global crypto trading, and through early holdings in BNB, Binance's native token, which became the world's third-largest cryptocurrency. His estimated net worth is $54.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In November 2023, Binance agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice, one of the largest corporate fines in US history. CZ personally pleaded guilty to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program, paid a $50 million personal fine, stepped down as Binance CEO, and served approximately four months in a federal prison. In October 2025, President Donald Trump granted CZ a full pardon, citing the Biden administration's war on cryptocurrency. The pardon was described as a full and unconditional pardon and lifted the three-year ban on CZ's involvement in Binance's operations. BNB jumped 7 percent on the pardon news. CZ published a memoir titled Freedom of Money in April 2026, available on Amazon Kindle for $9.99. Analysts expect him to gradually resume operational involvement at Binance. MediaCrypto note: CZ's story is the most dramatic arc in crypto's institutional history: the fastest rise to becoming the world's most powerful exchange, a guilty plea and prison sentence, and a presidential pardon that reversed most of the legal consequences within approximately two years. How he deploys his restored freedom in 2026 and beyond is one of the most consequential questions in the industry.
Changpeng Zhao was born in Jiangsu, China, and moved to Canada with his family at age 12, settling in Vancouver. His parents were educators. He studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal, graduating in 2001.
His early career was in conventional finance and software: he worked for the Tokyo Stock Exchange developing trading software, then for Bloomberg building financial systems in New York. He was comfortable in institutional finance long before he encountered crypto.
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The Crypto Entry: Poker Games and Bitcoin in 2013
CZ first learned about Bitcoin at a poker game in 2013. A friend explained it to him. He sold his apartment in Shanghai and put the proceeds into Bitcoin. This early and significant personal allocation, made at a time when Bitcoin was still in the hundreds rather than thousands of dollars, became one of the foundational elements of his eventual net worth.
After his Bitcoin purchase he joined Blockchain.info (now Blockchain.com) as head of development, then moved to OKCoin as CTO. Both experiences gave him direct operational insight into how crypto exchanges worked and what their weaknesses were.
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Building Binance: July 2017 to the Largest Exchange in 180 Days
Binance launched in July 2017 through an initial coin offering that raised approximately $15 million worth of Ethereum at the time, later valued at approximately $30 million. CZ founded Binance after leaving OKCoin, taking several colleagues with him, and building the exchange's matching engine in approximately 45 days.
The timing was exceptional. The 2017 bull market was accelerating. New retail investors globally wanted access to altcoins that existing exchanges did not support. Binance listed a wider variety of tokens than competitors at lower fees, targeting the retail international trader who wanted to trade beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The exchange grew faster than anything comparable in financial history. Within approximately 180 days of launch, Binance was the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. At peak, it was processing billions of dollars in daily trades across hundreds of trading pairs.
CZ's wealth mechanism was simple and powerful: he retained a controlling stake in Binance while the exchange grew, and he held BNB, the exchange's native token issued in the 2017 ICO, which appreciated dramatically alongside Binance's growth. BNB became the world's third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a market value exceeding $150 billion at the time of his pardon.
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The Compliance Failures and the $4.3 Billion Settlement
Binance's growth happened faster than its compliance infrastructure. Between 2018 and 2022, Binance processed at least 1.1 million transactions that violated US sanctions, worth approximately $898 million according to the government's case. The platform's compliance failures allowed transactions linked to drug traffickers, child exploitation networks, terrorist groups, and sanctioned entities including individuals in Iran and operatives tied to Hamas.
The DOJ investigation culminated in November 2023 when Binance agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement, one of the largest corporate fines in US history. CZ personally pleaded guilty to one count of failing to maintain an AML program, paid a $50 million personal fine, and agreed to step down as CEO under the settlement terms. Crucially, he was permitted to retain his controlling equity stake in Binance.
The specific guilty plea was for one count. He was not charged with fraud, money laundering itself, or theft. The charge was the failure to implement adequate compliance systems, a distinction that would become relevant in the pardon discussion.
In March 2024, CZ was sentenced to approximately four months in prison, less than the thirteen months prosecutors sought but more than the community service his lawyers had requested. He served his sentence at a federal facility and was released in September 2024.
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The Trump Pardon: October 2025
On October 23, 2025, President Donald Trump granted CZ a full and unconditional pardon. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Trump acted to correct what the administration described as the Biden-era war on cryptocurrency, arguing CZ had been unfairly targeted despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.
The pardon drew immediate scrutiny over the relationship between the Trump family's crypto ventures and Binance. A $2 billion investment into Binance using USD1, the stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial (a crypto company associated with Trump's family), had been previously reported. CZ told CNBC in January 2026 at Davos that there are no business relationships whatsoever between him and the Trump family, calling reports of a relationship misconstrued.
The pardon lifted the three-year ban on CZ's involvement in Binance's operations that had been part of the 2023 settlement. Analysts immediately began discussing the possibility of CZ returning to operational management at Binance. BNB jumped 7 percent on the pardon announcement.
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The Memoir and the 2026 Comeback
In April 2026, CZ published Freedom of Money: A Memoir of Protecting Users, Resilience, and the Founding of Binance, a 364-page self-published book available on Amazon Kindle for $9.99 that quickly reached the top four of all Kindle books. Forbes described it as a whitewashed account but acknowledged it represented CZ's deliberate effort to frame his own narrative before others did it for him.
The memoir's timing, arrival, and pricing are each deliberate signals: written by himself rather than with a ghostwriter, self-published rather than through a traditional publisher, priced at $9.99 to maximize distribution rather than to maximize revenue, and arriving precisely as the pardon restores his legal ability to participate in Binance's operations.
With a net worth of $54.5 billion, a full pardon, and the world's largest crypto exchange still under his controlling stake, CZ enters the second half of 2026 as one of the most consequential figures the crypto industry has produced.
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About the Author
This article was researched and written by the MediaCrypto editorial team. MediaCrypto is a cryptocurrency news and market analysis publication covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, altcoins, regulatory developments, and market trends. Follow us on X at @MediaCrypto_AI and on Instagram.
FAQ — How Did CZ Make His Money
How did CZ make his money? CZ made his money primarily through retaining a controlling equity stake in Binance while it grew to become the world's largest crypto exchange, and through early BNB holdings from the 2017 ICO. His estimated net worth is $54.5 billion per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Why did CZ go to prison? CZ pleaded guilty in November 2023 to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program at Binance. He was not charged with fraud or theft. As part of a $4.3 billion DOJ settlement, he paid a $50 million personal fine, stepped down as CEO, and served approximately four months in federal prison.
Did Trump pardon CZ? Yes. President Donald Trump granted CZ a full and unconditional pardon in October 2025, citing the Biden administration's war on cryptocurrency. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said CZ was unfairly targeted despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.
What is CZ's net worth in 2026? CZ's net worth is estimated at $54.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the richest person in crypto. His wealth is primarily tied to his controlling Binance equity stake and BNB holdings, whose value fluctuates with BNB's market price.
What is CZ doing in 2026? CZ published a memoir called Freedom of Money in April 2026. The Trump pardon lifted the three-year ban on his involvement in Binance's operations from the 2023 settlement. Analysts expect him to gradually resume operational involvement at Binance following the pardon.
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