Fortune Magazine Special Report: What Forces Shaped Zhao Changpeng?

Authors: JEFF JOHN, ROBERTS, YVONNE LAU

Original Title: 《The making of Binance's CZ: An exclusive look at the forces that shaped crypto's most powerful founder》

Translation by: Guo Qianwen, Lin Qi, Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

Changpeng Zhao is currently sitting in front of a bookshelf in his home in Dubai, which, like Paris, he calls home. In the video, he appears friendly, with a gentle demeanor, and is even quite humble. This is in stark contrast to the image most familiar to his competitors: he is ambitious, having built Binance into the largest and most influential cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

He is accustomed to dealing with others using different personas. "If Americans deal with me, they would think I am Asian—slightly more Asian than most Americans, but slightly less Asian than other Asians they know. If Asians deal with me, they would think I am like an American, but slightly less American than the Americans they usually interact with. I am in a state of being in between."

Recently, Zhao's tough side has subjected him to intense scrutiny. Zhao and Binance have strategically outmaneuvered competitors and exploited loose regulations to achieve great success—whenever a country offers the most favorable regulations, this founder sets up camp there. Governments around the world, including the U.S., have accused Binance of deceptive practices, violating international sanctions, and money laundering rules.

Binance insists it has changed its operational methods, and compliance is now the goal; Zhao always presents a softer, more humble side when representing this reformed company. However, Binance's transformation raises questions about Zhao's true nature and how he built his business—public records regarding Zhao's background and Binance's operations are quite rare, making these questions even sharper.

A close examination of Zhao's background fills in many of these gaps, revealing how the Binance founder navigates dual identities—defeating business rivals with tough tactics over the years while maintaining the image of a friendly, ordinary person. This magazine conducted a detailed investigation into his past, referencing interviews with acquaintances and extensive commentary from Chinese media, uncovering two worlds that shaped Zhao's identity: the Canada where he grew up; and the China he returned to as a "sea turtle," where he rode the wave of Shanghai's rise in the first half of this century to stand at the forefront of global business.

Zhao absorbed experiences from both places, mastering many of the brutal business strategies that were prevalent during the early, frenzied period of China's tech scene while retaining the laid-back, non-threatening demeanor typical of Canadians—this behavior diverted attention from his tactics.

Until recently, Zhao frequently spoke to cryptocurrency and business media, but in the past few months, he has significantly reduced his public appearances—due to a troubling regulatory environment, and because Binance believes the media has distorted coverage of the company and Zhao. This time, he broke his usual silence and accepted an interview with Fortune magazine, sharing many previously unreported details of his life. This interview provides firsthand insights into how Zhao runs his business, suggesting that his success aligns with trends in the Chinese diaspora, and will interpret how his wise yet aloof father influenced Binance's emergence as a cryptocurrency giant.

Scholar Father Leads Family Abroad

The Keremeos Court building is a series of neat family townhouses, and aside from its refreshing environment, it is otherwise unremarkable. These residences are surrounded by a massive rainforest of fragrant cedar and ferns, part of the 2,000-acre campus of the University of British Columbia, located at the western edge of Vancouver, adjacent to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1989, 12-year-old Zhao Changpeng arrived here with his mother and sister to join his father. Zhao says his father loved books throughout his life, persisting in his studies even during rural assignments. His father was academically persistent, eventually finding a PhD program in geophysics in Canada, and a few years later brought his family to UBC to study alongside him.

Zhao Changpeng in front of the Ladner clock tower in Vancouver, photographed by his father around 1989. Photo provided by Zhao Changpeng

The environment here is completely different from the rural area where Zhao spent his childhood. In Jiangsu Province, schools and classrooms were scarce, with simple stone tables in classrooms—this was common in resource-poor rural areas, making studying in winter particularly difficult. Like his father, Zhao understood China's poverty and scarcity, realizing that academia could be a refuge. At the age of 10, the family left the countryside and moved to a small city in China, Hefei, which is also home to the University of Science and Technology of China.

In this oasis of knowledge, Zhao would sit and listen to debates among older students, who sometimes invited him to play chess. "Zhao recalled, "Those people taught me how to play Xiangqi and Go. They discussed various things on campus, even politics. I think being around people seven to ten years older than you does make you think about things differently than kids your age."

When Zhao's family arrived in British Columbia, they moved from one of the world's oldest civilizations to one of the youngest countries. Vancouver was established in the 1870s, and aside from Indigenous communities, few had ventured here. The city quickly became a gateway, connecting the flow of goods and people from China to Canada— for decades, it was a stronghold of anti-Chinese racism. Manifestations of this prejudice included the notorious "head tax," which prevented Chinese men from bringing their wives to Canada, even though they built much of the country's railroads and much of Vancouver. UBC historian and Chinese immigration scholar Henry Yu said, "Although [Vancouver] has always had Chinese people, they lived like Harry Potter under the stairs. They were servants, not homeowners."

However, by the 1980s, the government had completely changed its attitude. Canada began to attract immigrants from across the Pacific that it had previously scorned to revitalize and diversify its resource-based economy. The plan included visas for those who invested CAD 400,000, attracting scholars like Zhao's father. Ottawa intended to signal to ambitious Chinese individuals: "If you want to succeed in the global economy, Canada is opening its doors to business."

Anti-Asian sentiment still existed in Vancouver, and Asians were still unwelcome in certain parts of the community, but Zhao did not frequently encounter racism. The high school he attended was composed of students from various ethnic backgrounds, most of whom had connections to universities. However, Zhao was different from his classmates in some key ways. He recalled that despite there being dozens of other Asian students, he was one of only two from mainland China. Most came from wealthier Hong Kong and Taiwan, and unlike Zhao, they did not live in the shabby housing reserved for graduate students and campus staff.

Zhao recalled a significant wealth gap between his family and other students, as well as distinctions within the wealthy Chinese immigrant community that spoke Mandarin. He said, "Kids from Hong Kong preferred brands, fashion brands, sports cars, etc. Taiwanese people, although very wealthy… had a more humble attitude, and I got along better with them. I learned a lot of humble values from Taiwanese families."

Today, the high valuation enjoyed by Binance and its BNB token means Zhao is worth billions, but he still maintains a "humble value" in public. Compared to some of the more obnoxious individuals in the cryptocurrency community—some of whom buy Lamborghinis they won't drive and tell cryptocurrency skeptics to "enjoy being poor"—Zhao has never displayed a flashy side.

In Vancouver, his mother worked as a seamstress, and his father drove a beat-up Datsun. Zhao often rode in friends' parents' BMWs to and from volleyball matches, where he was the team captain. In his memory, the only significant expense was when his father spent CAD 7,000—an astonishing sum at the time—on an IBM-compatible 286 computer, which his father used for research while also teaching his son how to program. If you want a glimpse into the clues of Zhao's early life that would lead him to become a billionaire, this might be one. He learned from his father, who was called a genius, which would prove crucial in Zhao's later life as the technology he built would help power Binance. Zhao said, "My father was a mentor in technology."

Around 1990 in Vancouver, Zhao Changpeng using his first computer, photo provided by Zhao Changpeng

In high school, some of his wealthier friends began working, mainly for the novelty or because their parents wanted them to understand the harshness of work. Zhao was one of the few students who had to work to make ends meet. This included working overnight at Chevron during the summer and spending two years at McDonald's. In his later life as a cryptocurrency mogul, some have mocked Zhao for his experience working at the fast-food chain. However, unlike some wealthy individuals from poor backgrounds, Zhao never distanced himself from the working-class roots he once had, even sharing pictures of himself in McDonald's attire.

Overall, Zhao portrays his high school years as quite enjoyable, even describing it as a pastoral life. He enjoyed being the captain of the volleyball team and participating in the national math competition in Canada for four years. He earned the nickname "Champion" from a gym teacher. Zhao's high school friend Ted Lin said the name likely arose because many people at school struggled to pronounce "Changpeng." Zhao only adopted his current name, Changpeng Zhao, after entering the cryptocurrency world. He mentioned that he had previously tried using the name "CP," but after online friends told him it was an abbreviation for "child porn" in illegal markets, he abandoned that name.

Despite his fondness for Vancouver (he says he wants to retire there) and Canada, some of his actions overshadow the affection he claims. He admits he hasn't set foot in the city for years and has no active family or charitable connections there. Nevertheless, Zhao insists he is Canadian, not just because of his passport but because of his character. He said, "I think like a Canadian. We are kind people, non-aggressive, not overly competitive, and generally helpful."

He speaks warmly of Canada (the place where he grew up) because he benefited greatly there—but this pales in comparison to the achievements that later made him a billionaire in cryptocurrency.

Bestselling Finance Book Changes Life

As of early April, Zhao ranked 46th on Bloomberg's billionaire list, with a net worth of $29 billion (Zhao calls this number "inaccurate," stating "it's hard to estimate considering all the fluctuations"). His name appears in the news daily. Last fall, many media outlets focused on his bold cryptocurrency trades with FTX that led to the downfall of his competitor Sam Bankman-Fried; recent reports have centered on the ongoing conflicts between Binance and regulators due to Zhao's manipulation of the rules. While many unconventional tech entrepreneurs showcase their bold and provocative traits during their college years—think of Mark Zuckerberg as depicted in "The Social Network"—this does not seem to be Zhao's case.

After graduating high school in 1995, Zhao moved 3,000 miles away to McGill University, leaving the mild climate of Vancouver for the French-speaking Montreal, where winters are extremely cold, and much of the downtown area is connected by underground tunnels. According to Zhao, he had no outstanding academic or social performance at McGill, although he switched his major from biology to computer science because "in high school, biology was about dealing with humans. In university, the focus shifted back to animals, which I had no interest in." In his spare time, he would go ice skating or eat pho with friends, spending late nights in the campus computer lab typing code into a basic Apple desktop computer.

Towards the end of his studies at McGill, Zhao did indeed publicly display the talents he would later show in his career. In 1999, he co-authored an academic paper on artificial intelligence with Professor Jeremy Cooperstock—a topic that would gain widespread attention 20 years later. Sitting in a café in Montreal, Jeremy Cooperstock recalled Zhao vividly, partly because Zhao was the only undergraduate in his graduate seminar. He told me, "This won't pay well, but it will give him great experience." In his memory, Zhao was a person of character, very intelligent, but years later, he was surprised to find his former student had become a billionaire.

Zhao said that during this time, he read something that changed his life—not academic papers or lengthy tomes like "Atlas Shrugged," but a book aimed at the typical middle-class, ordinary person: "Rich Dad Poor Dad." This personal finance bestseller, published in 1997, tells the story of two fathers—one who worked hard all his life but achieved little, and the other who became wealthy as an entrepreneur or investor. This book made Zhao question the advice his father had given him. At that time, he had already completed his PhD and was working in the private sector, where he would gain professional respect over the next 20 years but would not accumulate much material wealth.

"My father always taught me to work hard and find a decent job; both my parents had this mindset. They didn't like doing business. After reading 'Rich Dad Poor Dad,' I started to think maybe I wanted to own a business. It wasn't that I had to be a CEO, but I wanted to create something meaningful."

When Zhao's thoughts turned to creating wealth, he made a choice similar to that of Zuckerberg and other genius billionaires: to drop out of university. In 2000, he secured a full-time position during a summer internship at the Tokyo Stock Exchange and decided not to return to McGill. (Many media reports incorrectly state that Zhao graduated from McGill University.)

His math skills and coding ability quickly landed him a job in the financial capital of New York, where he developed futures trading software for Bloomberg Tradebook. But four years later, even New York could not compare to the then-global hottest business center, Shanghai, so Zhao moved to China—his last visit to the country had been over a decade prior.

"Sea Turtle" Learning Social Rules in Shanghai

Miu Chung Yan, a professor of social work studying Chinese immigration at the University of British Columbia, said that Shanghai, located on China's prosperous southeastern coast, was the "locomotive" driving China's economic engine at the time. In 2005, the year Zhao moved to Shanghai, the city became the world's third-busiest container shipping port, following Hong Kong and Singapore; at the same time, it achieved 11% GDP growth for the 14th consecutive year. China was rising, and Shanghai was at the center of it all.

Crucially, Zhao's early time in Shanghai coincided with the golden age of Chinese technology, as domestic tech companies and industry leaders were rapidly emerging. Robin Li, Jack Ma, and Pony Ma founded their companies at the turn of the millennium and were experiencing explosive growth in investment and development.

Zhao said, "I was taught to go to places that are developing, not places that are already established."

He was not the only young Canadian returning to Shanghai. The severe economic recession in Canada during the 1990s spurred a surge of reverse immigration in the mid-2000s. Returnees like Zhao were referred to as "sea turtles," a Chinese pun referring to immigrants who went abroad but returned to China. According to a study, by 2017, nearly 500,000 sea turtles had arrived in China from Canada and around the world.

For Zhao and others like him, the timing could not have been better. Miu Chung Yan noted that sea turtles who spoke English, were educated in the West, and were proficient in Chinese language and culture were warmly welcomed in China, often earning higher salaries than their local peers.

However, despite arriving in a city eager to embrace him, where he could speak the local language, Zhao admitted that navigating the fast-paced, intense, and freewheeling business environment in China was challenging due to vague rules and regulations. He recalled, "I didn't understand the business culture and had to learn from scratch." In New York, Tokyo, and Vancouver, rule-based businesses and egalitarian ideals prevailed, making the importance of relationships, especially with potential supporters among government officials, feel foreign to Zhao. In cultivating these business relationships, alcohol holds a special place in Chinese culture. Baijiu, a strong Chinese liquor, often appears in business negotiations as a gesture of goodwill and respect.

Zhao said, "I had read about it and heard rumors. But you know, when you actually do business, at a dinner with government officials, they drink baijiu… they talk about relationships and sometimes other things that need to be taken care of, which were all very foreign to me, so I never really liked that practice."

Despite this, Zhao quickly became wealthy in Shanghai. In 2005, he co-founded Fusion Systems, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company providing high-frequency trading systems with four other expatriates, partnering with some of the world's largest banks, including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. During this time, he rapidly learned the rules—Zhao said that in China, rules are "deliberately vague," giving the government significant power in interpretation and selective enforcement. This new entrepreneur leveraged his math and coding skills, but his role in the company also taught him how to "think like a salesperson," as he acted as a broker between East and West due to his sea turtle identity. As a junior partner and the only person who "looked Chinese… in a Chinese environment," Zhao was constantly considering "how to market the company's services? How to secure the next contract?"

Then—just as the legend of Zhao Changpeng goes—a late-night poker game in 2013 changed the trajectory of his life. In this game, top Chinese Bitcoin evangelist Bobby Lee and U.S.-educated Chinese venture capitalist Ron Cao introduced Zhao to cryptocurrency. Zhao went all in. He sold his apartment in Shanghai and invested $1 million in Bitcoin. The future billionaire left Fusion Systems, first joining the cryptocurrency startup Blockchain.info—initially a site for tracking Bitcoin transactions—as its technical lead. A year later, he was hired as the chief technology officer of the Chinese exchange and token startup OKCoin.

OKCoin was the battleground where Zhao honed his skills as a bold public figure in cryptocurrency, unafraid to engage in open battles. Initially, Zhao interacted with the public on platforms like Reddit, which is uncommon for CTOs, where he politely but firmly rebutted criticisms of OKCoin and cryptocurrency. However, in 2015, Zhao left the company after a dispute with OKCoin CEO Xu Mingxing over the company's direction, subsequently retracting previous statements on the same platforms and attacking his former employer.

In a lengthy 1,600-word Reddit post, Zhao detailed how under Xu Mingxing's guidance, the company used bots to inflate trading volumes, fabricated proof of reserves, and maintained opaque finances. In response, Xu accused Zhao of fabricating academic credentials and other fraudulent activities. Although the dispute eventually settled, it indicated Zhao's willingness to strike hard in arguments, while also tightening regulations on China's emerging cryptocurrency industry.

Zhao's next company, Bijie Technology, pushed the boundaries even further. Bijie Technology was another SaaS company providing software for exchanges and trading platforms. Over the next two years, Bijie's technology became the backbone for 30 Chinese exchanges and later powered Binance.

However, trouble soon arose, as most exchanges supported by Zhao's technology were involved in "postage stamp" trading—trading stamps from the imperial and revolutionary periods of China, which sparked a tulip mania-like frenzy. As the postage stamp craze spread, online trading exchanges and dubious sellers sprang up like mushrooms. So-called "stamp teachers" and "wealth advisors" lured unsuspecting investors into investment chat rooms on messaging platforms like QQ and WeChat, where they suggested buying shares of stamps and collectibles through digital exchanges, promising exorbitant returns. But many were scams involving deliberate manipulation and dumping. According to a 2016 investigation by the state-owned newspaper Securities Times, ordinary investors (especially elderly Chinese) lost billions of yuan, with some losing their entire pensions.

Zhao had no direct connection to the stamp scams, but his technology arguably fueled the proliferation of such frauds. More importantly, this rampant frenzy heightened authorities' vigilance: the Chinese government quickly enacted new regulations to curb the unchecked growth of digital platforms that rewarded violations and risky behaviors, increasing skepticism towards digital financial innovation. In January 2017, the state ordered the rectification or closure of stamp and collectible exchanges; by August of that year, operations at these exchanges were halted. Most of Bijie's clients went bankrupt.

Meanwhile, Zhao's ambitions began to seek other avenues. In 2017, the dramatic rise in cryptocurrency prices attracted millions of new investors to the field. Zhao saw the industry leader, San Francisco-based Coinbase, profiting from it. He saw an opportunity and founded his own exchange, Binance, in July of that year in Shanghai.

In just one year, Binance surpassed Coinbase to become the world's largest exchange, thanks to its high-quality trading platform, global customer base, and nearly unregulated policies. Soon after, the company became the first exchange to launch its own blockchain—a technological feat. Customers could earn token rewards through trading, and Binance also expanded its ability to trade hundreds of digital assets, including those of unknown origin. These strategies helped Binance capture customers from Coinbase and other competitors, aided by the company's low trading fees and minimal or no issues in customer scrutiny.

By now, Zhao had clearly adapted to the faster and fiercer business rules of Asia, making competition with North American companies seem relatively trivial. In the book "King of Cryptocurrency," an Asian American entrepreneur mocked the media's astonishment at Binance's sudden rise: "What is happening here is arrogance and favoritism towards companies rising in Western markets. Asia is not in Coinbase's DNA. I see a cultural gap they cannot bridge."

However, despite its tremendous success, Binance's time in China was running out. As early as 2013, China first restricted banks from processing cryptocurrency transactions. To curb capital outflows, combat financial fraud, and tighten control over the national financial system, Chinese authorities banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) in September 2017 and began shutting down cryptocurrency exchanges. In response to this move, Zhao secretly and frantically migrated data hosted on over 200 Alibaba servers to Amazon Web Services and other servers located outside the "Great Firewall" within weeks. This effort was successful, and Zhao and other Binance employees relocated to Tokyo, marking the end of his 12-year entrepreneurial career in China.

Zhao's Power Enhanced by Exile

To some extent, leaving China has benefited Binance and its founder Zhao Changpeng in the long run. For years, Zhao and his company have been influenced by American competitors who portrayed Binance as allied with the Beijing government. Such an alliance would complicate Zhao's relationship with U.S. regulators, especially during tense U.S.-China relations. For years, the company has been accused of deliberately concealing its Chinese roots and activities in China, which Binance has denied.

However, for a company and founder who prefer to operate outside government regulation, no country can accommodate them long-term. Binance's stay in Japan was brief. In 2018, scammers used fake Google ads to trick customers into entering their Binance login information, then emptied their accounts. Binance was not directly responsible for the losses, but the scandal led Japanese regulators to require Binance to register as an exchange, which was an unsuitable choice for Zhao. Thus, Zhao decided to relocate his crypto empire to Malta, where then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was willing to welcome anything related to cryptocurrency without raising other issues.

The time in Malta was also short-lived, as Binance announced it would no longer seek a new headquarters but would operate without one. For a time, Binance was so decentralized that Zhao seemed to have intentionally distanced himself from the network. In 2021, one of Binance's competitors sued the company in the U.S. over the delisting of tokens. The plaintiff hired a private investigator to track down Zhao. In a report on the investigation's findings, the private investigator stated that his team had made "great" efforts to trace Zhao but had been unsuccessful, suspecting that Binance had hired others to cover up Zhao's past and whereabouts, making him "almost impossible to find." Recently, Fortune magazine contacted this private investigator, who confirmed that the statements in the report were accurate. (The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.) It wasn't until 2022 that Zhao made an appearance in Dubai, where there are almost no restrictions on cryptocurrency trading.

Binance's migratory approach has been praised among cryptocurrency believers, who are obsessed with decentralization. Unsurprisingly, this has displeased regulators in other countries, who view Binance as an unregulated offshore casino. There is some justification for this. Over the past three years, Binance has been exposed for engaging in a series of ethically questionable or potentially criminal activities. These include lax KYC policies that allowed Iranian users to trade on Binance's exchange despite international financial sanctions; and a failed plan in 2018 to register a subsidiary in the U.S., which, according to Binance executives who proposed it, aimed to serve as a "regulatory sinkhole" to divert U.S. regulators' attention from other parts of the company.

Binance acknowledges its involvement in questionable strategies but claims to have abandoned them. In February of this year, the company stated it was nearing a comprehensive settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and other regulators to resolve past misconduct and plan a future path. However, the recent lawsuit filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has raised questions about the feasibility of such a settlement.

Meanwhile, the company expressed a desire to turn over a new leaf, but the general distrust of cryptocurrency among regulators complicates this wish, especially following the collapse of the exchange FTX.

Although it was Zhao's tweets that exposed the FTX scandal last November, he stated that he, like others, was surprised by the fraud committed by SBF—he had known SBF and had invested in the company during its early days.

During the cryptocurrency boom from 2020 to early 2022, Zhao and SBF were two of the most influential figures in the field, and their experiences share some obvious similarities. Most notably, they are both the children of scholars, although Zhao's father was only a marginal figure in academia. In contrast, SBF is the son of two law professors at Stanford University, living in a beautiful house on campus and enjoying the highest echelons of academic life.

Today, the two find themselves in starkly different situations. SBF still lives in his parents' house, awaiting trial on a series of fraud charges that could lead to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, Zhao has long since become a father, having two toddlers with Binance co-founder He Yi.

It is easy to imagine Zhao feeling anger towards the privileges and rights of his competitor. SBF has mocked him multiple times on Twitter, including suggesting in the summer of 2022 that Zhao would be arrested the moment he set foot on U.S. soil. (Binance stated that Zhao has visited Canada multiple times in recent years, including for his father's funeral, but has maintained a very low profile there.) However, Zhao claims he holds no personal grudge against his former competitor.

Zhao stated, "He is like those smart, talented but very aggressive young kids to me." He told Fortune magazine that he had met SBF three to five times, primarily viewing him as a client, as SBF's Alameda hedge fund had used Binance as a trading platform.

As of mid-April, Binance seems to have weathered the dual crises of the cryptocurrency market collapse (following FTX's downfall) and regulators increasingly pursuing the company. Although its financial situation remains a black box, blockchain data indicates that Binance has gained market share from competitors in recent months, and its trading volume and revenue may also be increasing, likely due to a rebound in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices.

Meanwhile, Zhao continues to assert that he and his company are decentralized and do not belong to any country. From this perspective, he has transcended the influences of China, Canada, and other nations, becoming a truly stateless individual.

However, the globe-trotting cryptocurrency mogul Zhao Changpeng remains an ordinary person; like the rest of us, he can never fully escape where he comes from and the forces that shaped him. For Zhao, these forces may have less to do with geography and more to do with family.

Father's Legacy

Zhao Changpeng's English is not perfect, as can be seen from his Twitter posts. He has never mastered North American idioms—for example, he referred to "MLB umpires" as "baseball referees" last year. But his humility and thoughtfulness feel very Canadian. In a 30-minute interview, his demeanor suggested—despite his new identity as a billionaire wandering around Dubai with a notepad—that within him still resides the boy who ate fries at McDonald's in Vancouver 30 years ago.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what drives him forward. Cryptocurrency remains a frontier industry, with every major player, including established institutions like Coinbase, trying to gain an edge or simply survive using "clever" strategies. Although Binance recently pledged to "get back on track," it may be further from legality than most competitors.

Nonetheless, when asked if he learned to break the rules while growing up in Vancouver, Zhao denied: "I have always been a fairly close, rule-abiding citizen… My character has always been conservative, even though people might not think so," but he noted that the culture of cryptocurrency has changed his perspective: "Then you realize that this new thing has different rules in different places. So, rather than wanting to change the rules or even avoid the rules, we just want to find more favorable places."

This argument is persuasive in some respects but also feels tailored to serve Binance's own interests. Zhao has clearly been able to find places where the rules are most favorable to him and Binance, and it could be argued that there are no rules at all. This stands in stark contrast to his father, who adhered to the rules of a different era.

Jean Legault, a geophysicist at GeoTech in Ontario, Canada, hired Zhao's father, Shengkai Zhao, based on recommendations from industry leaders, having worked with Shengkai for six years. Legault remembers Shengkai as an outstanding geophysicist with an extraordinary technical mind. Shengkai wrote the original code that allowed GeoTech to create 3D inversions of geophysical data using software, which was a valuable tool for engineers. The company still uses his user manual. Legault added, "We later hired other geophysicists to do the same work, but they couldn't replicate Shengkai; he was a very exceptional person."

Legault believes Shengkai lived for his work; he could have reached the pinnacle in academia or business, but his humility was too great. Shengkai never boasted about his knowledge or achievements. Zhao agrees, telling Fortune magazine that his father began his career during the Cultural Revolution, had poor English skills, and had never engaged in business, "he found it hard to commercialize the problems he solved," so his father never made much money.

Zhao recalled watching his father research complex mathematical equations from morning to night in the lab or on a desktop computer. Yet, historical forces and the changes of being an immigrant meant that Shengkai could only toil on the fringes of academia, never enjoying the recognition he could have earned had he been born in a different time or place.

But his son Zhao Changpeng has been influenced by the immigrant experience, and the success of the Binance empire may be Zhao's way of fulfilling a destiny that his father could never achieve.

Shengkai passed away from leukemia last year. Remembering him, Zhao's tone carries a hint of regret, as if recalling his youth. "My father spent all day in his lab and on his computer; he never attended any of my volleyball matches. I was the captain and played two matches a week, but my parents never watched a single game."

The commonality between "Rich Dad" and "Poor Dad" may be a focus on work. Even for billionaires, this quality comes at a cost. Zhao worries that in his own role as a father, he might "inherit" his parents' "neglect." "I do have that trait," he said.