Forbes recently disclosed that Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, owns 94 million BNB tokens, constituting about 64% of the exchange's total token supply. An investigation into the wallets by Forbes showed that CZ has influence over more than half of the 80 million tokens allocated to him and Binance's founding members since the exchange's inception.
During Binance's ICO in 2017, 100 million BNB tokens were designated for the public sale. However, the ICO did not meet expectations, with less than 11 million tokens sold, resulting in the excess tokens being retained by Binance.
CZ's stake in Binance is estimated to be valued at around $33 billion, contributing to his total wealth of over $61 billion, placing him as the 24th richest person globally. In contrast, the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, has a net worth of $11 billion.
Despite his imprisonment for enabling money laundering on the exchange, CZ's fortune has continued to grow. Following his incarceration, Zhao reported to Lompoc II federal prison in California, where BNB reached an all-time high of $717.48 on June 6 before a slight decrease.
