Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao has reacted to Forbes’ estimate that ranked his net worth among the 20 richest people on the planet, surpassing figures such as Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.
Binance’s CZ Among 20 Richest People On Earth
On Tuesday, Forbes estimated that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, is “now richer than ever,” with his net worth skyrocketing to $110 billion, up $47 billion from last year, on the annual World’s Billionaires list.
By February 10, 2026, Forbes’ real-time tracker listed CZ among the world’s richest individuals at $78.78 billion, while Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index placed his net worth around the $52.2 billion mark around the same time.
According to the list’s latest calculations, Zhao is currently the 17th-wealthiest person on earth, ranking above Bill Gates, whose net worth is at $108 billion. In addition, he sits among the 20 people worth twelve figures.
Forbes acknowledged the crypto market’s downturn, noting that some of his assets, including his estimated 1,400 BTC stash and BNB holdings, have dropped around 25% over the past year.
However, they affirmed that the core of Zhao’s wealth remains Binance, citing it as the reason for his net worth’s surge despite the crypto market correction.
Conversations with industry insiders and comparisons with other crypto exchanges, including the publicly traded Coinbase, suggest Binance—still the world’s largest crypto exchange, with roughly 38% market share—is worth around $100 billion, and legal filings from the investigation indicate that Zhao owns about 90% of it.
Based on this data, Forbes concluded that “the exchange would likely sell for twelve figures, should CZ ever decide to offload it, even after applying a generous discount because it operates largely outside of U.S. regulations, unlike Nasdaq-listed Coinbase.”
CZ Calls Forbes Estimates A ‘Guess A Number’ List
In a series of X posts, Zhao affirmed that Forbes’ calculations were “definitely not accurate,” as Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto as a whole have significantly retraced from last year’s highs.
Last month, he shared his path to crypto wealth, which started when a friend suggested he take Bitcoin seriously at a Shanghai poker game, and led him to sell his apartment to bet a meaningful portion of his net worth into the flagship cryptocurrency in 2013.
The former CEO of Binance, who was pardoned last year by US President Donald Trump, revealed that he did not read the article, but argued that “you know it’s wrong” by just looking at their chart, deeming it a “guess a number” list.
He underscored that his net worth increase didn’t make sense given the current market environment, which has dragged BTC and BNB prices down over 50% from their 2025 peaks and 25% from their 2026 opening values.
“Crypto prices dropped by more than 50% in 2026 already. And my net worth went up? Wish they could apply some common sense and basic logic,” he wrote, adding that Forbes estimates are “way off.”
He emphasized his point by comparing his alleged net worth with Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, the company behind TikTok. ByteDance’s estimated yearly revenue sits at around $150 billion, according to public sources, while Binance’s undisclosed yearly revenue is estimated at around $5 billion.
Despite this, Forbes has calculated Zhang Yiming’s net worth at $69 billion, ranking 26th on the annual World’s Billionaires list, while CZ’s net worth was estimated at $110 billion.
“I think if I tried to claim I have a high net worth, they will rank me much lower, or maybe even remove me from the list,” Zhao joked, concluding that “They like to estimate the opposite.”
