{"id":71987,"date":"2026-02-11T18:01:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=71987"},"modified":"2026-02-11T18:01:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:01:32","slug":"binance-founder-cz-reveals-how-bitcoin-turned-him-into-a-billionaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=71987","title":{"rendered":"Binance Founder CZ Reveals How Bitcoin Turned Him Into A Billionaire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Changpeng \u201cCZ\u201d Zhao says his path to crypto wealth started far from trading floors or VC circuits in a Shanghai poker game where a friend told him to take Bitcoin seriously, and a second friend urged him to bet a meaningful slice of his net worth on it.<\/p>\n

Binance Founder On His Bitcoin Origin Story<\/h2>\n

By Zhao\u2019s account in an interview<\/a> with the All-In podcast, he first encountered Bitcoin in mid-2013, while he was still a junior partner at a Shanghai-based software and services firm. \u201cOne of my friends tells me, \u2018Look, you got to look at this thing called Bitcoin,\u2019\u201d Zhao said. \u201cIt took me about roughly six months to fully understand it\u2026 back then there was the Bitcoin talk forum and then that\u2019s pretty much it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That friend, the Binance founder said, was Ron Tao, then a venture capitalist in China, who brought the topic up during a recurring, small-stakes poker game between entrepreneurs and investors. The pitch gained weight quickly when Zhao met Bobby Lee, who was preparing to leave Walmart<\/a> and join BTC China (BTCC) as CEO.<\/p>\n

Bobby, Zhao recalled, didn\u2019t frame it as a hobbyist curiosity. He framed it like a portfolio decision. Zhao said Lee told him to put 10% of his net worth into Bitcoin: \u201cThere\u2019s a small chance you will go to zero then you lose 10%. There\u2019s a much higher chance you will go 10x and you\u2019ll double your net worth.\u201d Zhao said that was the moment he started digging into the white paper \u201cmore carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Zhao felt he \u201cfully understand[s] it,\u201d he also felt he\u2019d missed it. Bitcoin had run from roughly $70 in mid-2013 to around $1,000 by the end of 2013, he said. \u201cI was like, I\u2019m too late,\u201d Zhao recalled. \u201cBecause everyone you talk to\u2026 has bought before you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

JUST IN: ASIA\u2019S RICHEST MAN TALKS ABOUT HOW HE MADE OVER $80,000,000,000 ON #BITCOIN<\/a> AND CRYPTO<\/p>\n

\u201cYOU WILL ALWAYS FEEL LATE TO BTC.\u201d \"\ud83d\ude80\" pic.twitter.com\/GqilPyC6xI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) February 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Still, he decided he wasn\u2019t going to sit the next major technology wave out. \u201cFor me it was very clear I got to do something in this industry,\u201d Zhao said, describing Bitcoin as the second foundational technology of his working life after the internet. \u201cI was 35, 36 \u2014 I wasn\u2019t going to miss it. The next thing that\u2019s going to come along is going to be 10, 15 years later\u2026 and that\u2019s AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

That conviction translated into an unusually blunt trade: The Binance founder said he sold his Shanghai apartment to buy Bitcoin. \u201cI said look I\u2019m going to sell my apartment in Shanghai and then buy Bitcoin,\u201d he told Chamath Palihapitiya. The sale, he said, came in tranches and he bought each time cash hit, even as the market slid. \u201cI sold the apartment\u2026 for roughly $900,000\u2026 The first trench at $800 and then Bitcoin is dropping $600, $400. Kind of averaged to about $600.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Reading: Binance SAFU Fund Adds 4,225 Bitcoin ($300M) As Price Reclaims $70K Level<\/a><\/p>\n

He also described the social proof that mattered to him in that era: the early builders and miners he met while trying to pressure-test his own understanding, and a small Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in December 2013 that contrasted sharply with the \u201cdrug lords\u201d narrative dominating headlines after the Silk Road arrest<\/a>. \u201cWhen you go to the conference it was like a bunch of kids, a bunch of geeks\u2026 and they\u2019re very nice people,\u201d Zhao said, name-checking attendees like Vitalik Buterin<\/a> and Charlie Lee.<\/p>\n

Zhao\u2019s account of \u201cgetting rich\u201d isn\u2019t a single lightning strike so much as a sequence: buying Bitcoin after liquidating property, then taking operating roles at early crypto companies (including Blockchain.info and OKCoin), and later building exchange infrastructure that became the foundation for Binance and its token-driven growth story.<\/p>\n

Today, the exact size of the Binance founder\u2019s fortune depends on who\u2019s counting and how they value private stakes and token holdings. Forbes\u2019 real-time tracker listed Zhao at $78.8 billion as of Feb. 10, 2026, placing him among the world\u2019s richest individuals. Bloomberg\u2019s Billionaires Index, which uses its own daily methodology, showed a materially lower figure for Zhao about $52.2 billion on its global rich list around the same time.<\/p>\n

At press time, Binance Coin (BNB) traded at $592.44.<\/p>\n

\"Binance<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Changpeng \u201cCZ\u201d Zhao says his path to crypto wealth started far from trading floors or VC circuits in a Shanghai poker game where a friend told him to take Bitcoin seriously, and a second friend urged him to bet a meaningful slice of his net worth on it. Binance Founder On His Bitcoin Origin Story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-71987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}