Binance's co-founder and CEO, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, has witnessed a significant drop in his net worth, losing $11.9 billion as a result of declining trading volumes on the exchange. This decline in his wealth was reflected in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which revised Binance's revenue forecast down by 38% due to the trading volume decrease, consequently dropping CZ to 95th place on the list of the world's wealthiest individuals.
CZ's net worth currently stands at $17.3 billion, marking an 82% decline from its peak of $96.9 billion in January 2022 when he ranked as the 11th richest person globally. Bloomberg calculates Binance's revenue based on data from crypto data aggregators CoinGecko and Coinpaprika. In the last seven months, Binance's spot trading market share has dwindled to 34.3%, a significant dip from the over 55% market share it enjoyed in January.
Even Binance's U.S. branch, Binance.US, experienced record-low trading volumes in the past month. This significant drop in CZ's net worth coincided with the filing of dual lawsuits by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The SEC lawsuit was filed against CZ, Binance, and Binance.US in June, alleging that the exchanges operated illegally, sold unregistered securities, and mishandled customer assets, claims that CZ referred to as "unfounded."
In March, the CFTC filed its lawsuit, contending that Binance had failed to adequately register with the regulator. CZ and Binance vehemently rejected these allegations and sought the dismissal of both lawsuits. It is noteworthy that this recent decline in CZ's wealth is relatively small when compared to the substantial loss faced by Sam Bankman-Fried, one of CZ's former rivals. In November 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried's $16 billion fortune nearly evaporated when FTX disclosed a liquidity crisis and eventually filed for bankruptcy.
This crisis was reportedly triggered by a tweet from CZ, in which he announced that Binance was selling its holdings of FTX tokens (FTT), leading to a wave of FTX withdrawals. Initially, CZ had plans to acquire the troubled exchange but withdrew his offer within 48 hours. In a separate development, Sam Bankman-Fried appeared in his own criminal trial on October 26, pleading not guilty to two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy.
