Changpeng Zhao
Chinese-Canadian business executive
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| May 3 2025 | Appointed as an advisor to the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Sadyr Japarov, on the development of digital assets. |
| April 7 2025 | Zhao was appointed as a strategic adviser to the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), as announced in a press release by the Finance Division. |
| January 2025 | United States Supreme Court rejected Binance's attempt to avoid a lawsuit filed by investors, who accused the company of illegally selling unregistered tokens and failing to adequately inform users of associated risks. |
| November 2024 | FTX filed a lawsuit against Changpeng Zhao, Binance Holdings Ltd., and other executives, seeking to recover nearly $1.8 billion, related to a July 2021 stock repurchase transaction. |
| September 2024 | Completed his prison sentence. |
| September 27 2024 | Changpeng Zhao was released from Bureau of Prisons custody after serving time related to his guilty plea. |
| April 2024 | Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison for his role in the money laundering charge. |
| 2023 | Speculations arose that Changpeng Zhao could be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. |
| 2023 | Changpeng Zhao agreed to resign from Binance and pay a $50 million fine as part of a guilty plea to U.S. federal charges, with Binance agreeing to plead guilty and pay $4.3 billion in fines. |
| November 2023 | Changpeng Zhao resigned as the CEO of Binance after pleading guilty to a money laundering charge in the United States. |
| June 2023 | The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Changpeng Zhao and Binance on 13 charges for alleged violations of US securities rules. |
| March 27 2023 | The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Changpeng Zhao and Binance, alleging willful evasion of US law and breaching derivatives rules. |
| 2022 | Zhao invested $500 million through Binance to finance Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. |
| 2022 | Zhao mentioned plans to donate up to 99% of his wealth in alignment with philanthropic efforts of other global business magnates. |
| 2022 | Zhao confirms he acquired Canadian citizenship around 30 years prior. |
| May 2022 | Terra ecosystem collapsed, resulting in billions of dollars in investor losses, with Binance accused of promoting LUNA and UST tokens despite warning signs of instability. |
| 2021 | Zhao expressed his political views in Singapore, stating he is not a complete libertarian or anarchist. |
| 2021 | Binance withdrew its application to run a Singapore-based crypto exchange. |
| April 6 2021 | Changpeng Zhao stated in an interview with Bloomberg Markets that nearly 100% of his liquid net worth was in the form of cryptocurrency. |
| 2019 | Zhao launched Binance's U.S. affiliate, Binance.US. |
| April 2019 | Binance launched Binance Smart Chain, which introduced smart contract functionality and positioned itself as a competitor to Ethereum. |
| 2018 | Binance Labs invested $3 million in Terra, a blockchain-based payment platform, with an additional $1 million contribution in BNB tokens. |
| February 2018 | Forbes placed Zhao third on their list of 'The Richest People In Cryptocurrency', estimating his net worth between $1.1-2 billion. |
| 2017 | Zhao launched Binance Coin, a utility token offering various benefits such as discounts on trading fees. |
| 2017 | Zhao stayed in China until the Chinese government banned crypto exchanges. |
| 2017 | Zhao grew Binance into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume within eight months of its launch. |
| 2017 | Zhao leaves China after the government bans crypto exchanges. |
| July 2017 | Zhao launched the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, which raised $15 million in an initial coin offering and started trading eleven days later. |
| 2015 | Zhao sold his Shanghai apartment and used the funds to purchase Bitcoin. |
| 2014 | Zhao meets his business partner and fellow Binance co-founder He Yi, with whom he begins a 'life partner' relationship. |
| 2013 | Zhao was part of the team that developed Blockchain.info and served as Chief Technology Officer of OKCoin. |
| 2013 | Zhao first heard of Bitcoin while playing poker with Bobby Lee, who advised him to invest in Bitcoin. Zhao decided to sell his apartment and invested all his wealth into Bitcoin. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Changpeng Zhao, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.