CZ shares how China’s crypto restrictions pushed him overseas
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, aka “CZ,” has opened up to Fortune Magazine, ending his recent media silence.
The founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has broken his media silence to speak with Fortune Magazine. CZ, whose real name is Changpeng Zhao, has been largely silent in public this year. A fact the profile explains as “a decision based on the full regulatory environment and on frustration with what Binance sees as media mischaracterizations of the company and Zhao.”
Over nearly 6,000 words, the profile explores CZ’s past in rural China and his experience as a first-generation immigrant to Canada. Furthermore, the article discusses why CZ left Shanghai, where Binance was founded in 2017.
To put it bluntly, officials in Beijing disliked cryptocurrency. China first barred banks from doing crypto transactions in 2013. In 2017, the regime also banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) and shut down crypto exchanges to stop money leaving China and prevent financial fraud. The article describes CZ’s “frantic but stealthy” week-long effort to move the data housed on more than 200 Alibaba servers.
Zhao moved Binance to servers on Amazon’s web servers, beyond the reach of the Chinese government. Eventually, the company moved to Tokyo, ending his 12-year tenure as a China-based entrepreneur.
Binance has moved several times
Binance reportedly had to relocate its operations repeatedly due to regulatory issues in different countries. After moving to Japan, regulators required Binance to be registered as an exchange, which was not acceptable to the founder. Binance moved to Malta before deciding that the company would operate without a headquarters.
At one point in the interview, CZ suggests that the crypto culture made him more eager to keep finding better places to do business. “It’s not so much that we want to bend the rules or even avoid them, we just want to look for places that are more favorable,” he said.
However, Zhao’s country-hopping ways have drawn the ire of Binance’s critics.
The company is currently in talks with the US Department of Justice and other regulators about a comprehensive settlement offer. However, a recent lawsuit by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission against Binance has raised questions about the viability of such a settlement.
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