Binance CEO CZ’s Crypto Empire Dips by Almost $12B While SBF’s Remains at $0

The crypto fortune of Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has recorded a drastic crash. CZ's net worth plummeted by over 80% from its peak of $97 billion in January 2022.

The drop is attributed to the decline in Binance's trading volume amid overwhelming crypto market volatility.

CZ Slips in Bloomberg's Ranking Of Richest Persons

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index data on October 26, Binance's revenue estimates dipped by 38%.The cut followed the exchange volume drop that pushed CZ to the 95th position on the rich list ranking.

Notably, Binance's CEO was ranked as the 11th world's richest person as of January 2022, with a net worth of $96.9 billion.However, CZ's fortune dropped by 82% to just $17.3 billion.

Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index - CZ's net worth trend

According to a Bloomberg report, Binance's CEO emerged as the wealthiest crypto billionaire in January 2022. CZ overtook Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest billionaire, during the period.

The exciting part was that Bloomberg excluded CZ's crypto holdings like Bitcoin and BNB tokens in the wealth analysis.

In its current analysis, Bloomberg based its calculations on Binance's revenues from spot and derivatives trading data. It gathered relevant information from crypto data aggregators such as CoinGecko and Coinpaprika.

As of September 2023, Binance's spot trading market share reflected a decrease of 34.3% for seven consecutive months.

The exchange's spot market share was more than 55% in January this year. Similarly, the United States subsidiary arm of the firm, Binance.US, recorded new lows in trade volumes in September.

Binance is facing two lawsuits from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The cases could have contributed to the recent decline in Binance's trading volumes and CZ's net worth. In March, the CFTC sued Binance, claiming that the exchange had not registered with it.

The SEC's lawsuit against Binance and Binance.US came in June this year.

It alleged the exchange and its subsidiary firm violated securities laws through the sale of unregistered crypto assets, which are securities. On its part, Binance has been pushing motions for the dismissal of the lawsuits rejecting the regulators' allegations.

Sam Bankman-Fried Has Nothing Left for His Crypto Fortune

Compared to CZ's fading crypto empire, FTX's co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has nothing left for him.Before the implosion of the FTX crypto exchange, SBF had about $16 billion net worth, which vanished in November 2022 following the FTX's bankruptcy saga.

Notably, Binance, as the largest global crypto exchange, has been in stiff competition with SBF's FTX, which ranked the third world's largest exchange before its fall.

Some think that CZ initiated the FTX crisis through his post that mentioned Binance's sell-off of its FTX Token (FTT) holdings.

Liquidating our FTT is just post-exit risk management, learning from LUNA. We gave support before, but we won't pretend to make love after divorce. We are not against anyone. But we won't support people who lobby against other industry players behind their backs. Onwards.

- CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 6, 2022

The news triggered many investors to withdraw (bank run) from FTX massively. Though CZ wanted to acquire and take over FTX, he backed down, triggering the crisis that plummeted the exchange.

Even though Binance has faced its share of turbulence from regulatory bodies, the crypto exchange is still operating, implying the possibility of a future rise in CZ's net worth.

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