Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, has pushed back against a Forbes estimate that placed his net worth at $110 billion and ranked him 17th on the annual World's Billionaires list — above Bill Gates — calling the figure a product of flawed logic in a market where Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto prices have fallen more than 50% this year.
What Happened: Forbes Wealth Estimate Disputed
Forbes on Tuesday estimated Zhao's net worth had surged $47 billion from last year to $110 billion, placing him among the 20 wealthiest people on the planet. The bulk of that valuation stems from Binance itself, which Forbes pegged at roughly $100 billion based on conversations with industry insiders and comparisons with publicly traded rival Coinbase.
Legal filings from the investigation into Binance indicate Zhao owns about 90% of the exchange, which holds approximately 38% of global crypto trading market share.
Forbes acknowledged that some of Zhao's assets — including an estimated 1,400 BTC stash and BNB (BNB) holdings — have dropped around 25% over the past year, but concluded the exchange alone would likely command a twelve-figure sale price even after applying a discount for operating largely outside U.S. regulations.
In a series of posts on X, Zhao said the estimates were "definitely not accurate" and dismissed the list as a "guess a number" exercise, noting that BTC and BNB prices are down over 50% from their 2025 peaks and 25% from their 2026 opening values.
"Crypto prices dropped by more than 50% in 2026 already. And my net worth went up?" he wrote.
He compared his situation with ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, whose company generates an estimated $150 billion in annual revenue against Forbes' $69 billion net worth valuation, while Binance's undisclosed revenue is estimated at roughly $5 billion yet yielded a $110 billion figure for Zhao.
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Why It Matters: Crypto Wealth Measurement Flaws
The dispute highlights the persistent difficulty of valuing privately held crypto companies and the fortunes tied to them. Unlike publicly traded firms such as Coinbase, Binance does not disclose financial statements, forcing wealth trackers to rely on market share comparisons and industry estimates.
Earlier this year, Forbes' own real-time tracker listed Zhao at $78.78 billion by Feb. 10, 2026, while Bloomberg's Billionaires Index placed him at $52.2 billion around the same time — a gap of more than $26 billion between the two trackers alone. The wide variance underscores how opaque exchange ownership structures and volatile token holdings can produce wildly different outcomes depending on methodology.
Zhao, who was pardoned last year by U.S. President Donald Trump, joked that if he tried to claim a high net worth, Forbes would likely rank him lower or remove him entirely. "They like to estimate the opposite," he wrote.
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