'Financially Free' Binance CEO Says He Will Give Away Up To 99% Of His Wealth

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has said he would eventually give away 90-99% of his wealth. Zhao, who helms the largest cryptocurrency exchange, also told Associated Press that the firm is looking to “welcome the next billion users” and work with “regulators and policymakers to support a global framework that protects users without limiting growth and innovation.”

"I’m financially free. I don’t need a lot of money, and I can maintain my lifestyle in this way. I do intend to give away most of my wealth, like many wealthy entrepreneurs or founders did from Rockefeller until today. I do intend to give away 90, 95 or 99% of my wealth," he said during the lengthy interview after his company called for more regulation of crypto markets.

Zhao said Bitcoin would bounce back from an 80% slide, citing Amazon’s fall in 2000-2001. “Crypto has high volatility because it’s a relatively smaller market. It’s much, much smaller than traditional assets. The larger the market value one’s asset is, the smaller the volatility,” he said.

He batted for centralized exchanges which “hold custody of people’s coins” and said that technology would evolve with time and the introduction of easy-to-use tools.

Dogecoin was started as a joke but it was now among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Zhao said. “For something to have liquidity, you need a large number of people to want to buy it or sell it. Once you have liquidity, a thing has value, according to the neutral market. So it’s not up to me to judge it,” he told AP.

AP had itself released an NFT collection on Binance, featuring photos and flashes from the past 100 years, including landing on the moon and the beginning of World War II.