Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, is a survivor.
A childhood of poverty in China. Flipping hamburgers to pay his way through college before the self-described computer nerd entered the cutthroat world of high-frequency trading.
Soon came his nascent bet on something called bitcoin, the first and most popular decentralized digital asset, the creation of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, navigating more than a few crypto winters, plus a stint in jail after being targeted during what many believe was the Biden administration’s over-zealous crackdown on all things crypto.
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His new book, “Freedom of Money,” details his life journey, a survivor’s tale, he tells me in an exclusive interview for FOX Business. The book explains how he is still standing, quite nicely, I should add, following a pardon from President Donald Trump and with his enormous net worth estimated at more than $100 billion.
CZ is no longer with Binance, having left when the feds came calling back in 2023, though he remains its largest shareholder. Now a free man, he is looking to be a thought leader for the crypto business. “Freedom of Money,” will certainly help in that regard.
Those looking for stylistic prose in this 364-page tome will be disappointed. English isn’t CZ’s first language, of course, and he wrote this book in federal prison, he said, which is no easy task.
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“There’s a terminal… You can get on there for 15 minutes. You can type, [but] there’s no cut and paste… if you cut one paragraph and want to move it to a different place… So, I just do a brain dump. Just type as fast as I can, and then I have to get off, and I wait for an hour to get back on the computer.”
That said, this is a book worth reading for the simple fact that CZ explains the rise of crypto (it’s now a $3 trillion business being embraced by the biggest banks and financial firms in the world) as well as his own journey in a clear, relatable narrative. He name-drops a ton, which is where this book shines, particularly his description of his last meeting with another famous crypto player known by his initials.
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That would be SBF, or Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct FTX crypto exchange serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted of multiple fraud charges tied to the collapse of his company, when $8 billion in customer funds went missing. In CZ’s telling, as FTX was imploding, SBF came to him hat in hand for a loan in such a way that made him think something was up, and it wasn’t good.
“He was just like he was just mumbling, like, can you give me a billion or whatever?” CZ tells me. “We’re talking about billions, right? I would expect him to say, look, I needed 4.387 billion, right?… He was like, it’s two, six is four. I was like, what’s going on? I think there was a lot of lying involved.”
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CZ decided against the loan, and not long after FTX went bust, as did SBF’s career.
CZ would face his own issues. In my interview, he explains the charges against him, the Biden administration’s approach to regulation – why he thinks it went so hard against crypto and how former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler went from an industry supporter to what he believes is an adversary – and his controversial pardon by Trump.
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