Changpeng “CZ” Zhao

CEO, BINANCE, 41 INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDER Crypto net Worth: $1.1 billion–$2 billion Seven months ago Binance didn’t exist. Since then, its 1.4 million transactions-per-second capability have attracted 6 million users, making it the world’s largest crypto-exchange. “No decentralized exchange today can handle our volume, and none are as secure as we are,” says its founder, Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ. The market seems to buy it: Since its July initial coin offering, a Binance token has soared from about 10 cents to $13, giving it a market capitalization of $1.3 billion. Zhao, who wears a black hoodie, like some cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, also owns the biggest stake in the coins.

CZ was born in Jiangsu, China. Both of his parents were educators; his father, a professor, was labeled a “pro-bourgeois intellect” and temporarily exiled shortly after CZ was born. The family eventually emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, in the late 1980s. As a teenager, CZ pitched in to cover the household expenses, flipping burgers at McDonald’s and working overnight shifts at a gas station.

After graduating from Montreal’s McGill University with a degree in computer science, he built trading systems in both Tokyo and New York for companies like Bloomberg. In 2005 he moved to Shanghai to start Fusion Systems, which delivered some of the fastest high-frequening cy trading systems for brokers. In 2013 CZ learned about Bitcoin and began bouncing around prominent crypto projects, including Blockchain.info, where he worked with evangelists like Roger Ver and Ben Reeves. He eventually decided to create a pure-play crypto-exchange that would not transact with fiat currencies and thus avoid connections to financial institutions. When he finally launched Binance this past July, he caught the Bitcoin bubble’s ascent perfectly.