‘I am a small potato’: CZ denies $28.2bn worth

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, has dismissed a Bloomberg rich list that put him in the top three of the world’s biggest billionaires with a purported worth of $28.2billion.

Shading the list as inaccurate, CZ tweeted to his followers today, 27 April: “Numbers all wrong. I don’t have anywhere near as much. Don’t know why they do this.”

Bloomberg’s Finance Rich List, published on 25 April, gave a rundown of the top 26 money makers according to their supposed wealth.

In first place is Citadel owner Ken Griffith at $35billion, followed by Susquehanna International Group’s Jeff Yass who is purported to be worth $33.1bn. In third place came CZ with an alleged wealth of $28.2bn.

CZ: “I am a small potato in a small (but growing) industry”

In highlighting the number ‘4’, CZ seemingly suggests that his true worth would place him between mortgage tycoon Dan Gilbert’s $19.4bn and bank chief Uday Kotak’s $13bn.

The Binance CEO also stated that he has never viewed the failed FTX exchange as competition.

“Also, never viewed FTX as a rival. We welcome more (well run) exchanges in the space,” CZ added.

Cz replied: “No way. I am a small potato in a small (but growing) industry. Those guys are 100x bigger, or more.”

Founded by CZ in 2017, Binance has now become the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It launched its own blockchain in 2019, Binance Chain, while Binance Coin (BNB) is its utility token.

At the time of writing, BNB is trading at $330.61, down 2.66% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. It has a circulating supply of 155,863,363 and it currently ranks at number four on the total crypto market behind Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tether (USDT).