Binance Founder Now Richer Than Bill Gates? CZ Reacts To $110B Net Worth Estimate

Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao has reacted to Forbes’ estimate that ranked his web price among the many 20 richest folks on the planet, surpassing figures similar to Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.

Binance’s CZ Among 20 Richest People On Earth

On Tuesday, Forbes estimated that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, also referred to as CZ, is “now richer than ever,” along with his web price skyrocketing to $110 billion, up $47 billion from final 12 months, on the annual World’s Billionaires record.

By February 10, 2026, Forbes’ real-time tracker listed CZ among the many world’s richest people at $78.78 billion, whereas Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index positioned his web price across the $52.2 billion mark across the identical time.

According to the record’s newest calculations, Zhao is at present the Seventeenth-wealthiest individual on earth, rating above Bill Gates, whose web price is at $108 billion. In addition, he sits among the many 20 folks price twelve figures.

Forbes acknowledged the crypto market’s downturn, noting that a few of his property, together with his estimated 1,400 BTC stash and BNB holdings, have dropped round 25% over the previous 12 months.

However, they affirmed that the core of Zhao’s wealth remains Binance, citing it as the rationale for his web price’s surge regardless of the crypto market correction.

Conversations with trade insiders and comparisons with different crypto exchanges, together with the publicly traded Coinbase, counsel Binance—nonetheless the world’s largest crypto alternate, with roughly 38% market share—is price round $100 billion, and authorized filings from the investigation point out that Zhao owns about 90% of it.

Based on this knowledge, Forbes concluded that “the alternate would possible promote for twelve figures, ought to CZ ever determine to dump it, even after making use of a beneficiant low cost as a result of it operates largely exterior of U.S. rules, in contrast to Nasdaq-listed Coinbase.”

CZ Calls Forbes Estimates A ‘Guess A Number’ List

In a collection of X posts, Zhao affirmed that Forbes’ calculations had been “undoubtedly not correct,” as Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto as an entire have considerably retraced from final 12 months’s highs.

Last month, he shared his path to crypto wealth, which began when a pal advised he take Bitcoin critically at a Shanghai poker recreation, and led him to promote his residence to guess a significant portion of his web price into the flagship cryptocurrency in 2013.

The former CEO of Binance, who was pardoned final 12 months by US President Donald Trump, revealed that he didn’t learn the article, however argued that “ it’s incorrect” by simply their chart, deeming it a “guess a quantity” record.

He underscored that his web price improve didn’t make sense given the present market atmosphere, which has dragged BTC and BNB costs down over 50% from their 2025 peaks and 25% from their 2026 opening values.

“Crypto costs dropped by greater than 50% in 2026 already. And my web price went up? Wish they may apply some widespread sense and primary logic,” he wrote, including that Forbes estimates are “method off.”

He emphasized his level by evaluating his alleged web price with Zhang Yiming, the founding father of ByteDance, the corporate behind TikTook. ByteDance’s estimated yearly income sits at round $150 billion, in response to public sources, whereas Binance’s undisclosed yearly income is estimated at round $5 billion.

Despite this, Forbes has calculated Zhang Yiming’s web price at $69 billion, rating twenty sixth on the annual World’s Billionaires record, whereas CZ’s web price was estimated at $110 billion.

“I believe if I attempted to say I’ve a high web price, they’ll rank me a lot decrease, or perhaps even take away me from the record,” Zhao joked, concluding that “They prefer to estimate the other.”