Who Is CZ? The Binance Founder Who Went to Prison and Came Back Bigger

Changpeng Zhao, known everywhere as CZ, is the co-founder and former CEO of Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. He built it from an ICO in July 2017 into a company with over 200 million users, pleaded guilty to US money laundering violations in 2023, served four months in a federal prison in 2024, and received a full presidential pardon from Donald Trump in October 2025. On top of that, he is also, by most estimates, the richest person in crypto. He is the last profile in our OG KOL series, and the right one to close on.