When Forbes tells you you’re worth $47 billion more than last year, most people would pop champagne. Changpeng Zhao decided to publicly call the math into question.
The Binance founder, known universally as CZ, pushed back on Forbes’ March 2026 estimate that placed his net worth between $110 billion and $111 billion. That figure represented a $47 billion jump from the prior year, landing him 17th on the World’s Billionaires list, ahead of Bill Gates at roughly $108 billion. The problem, as CZ pointed out on X: major cryptocurrencies had fallen over 50% from their all-time highs during the same period.
The math doesn’t math
CZ dismissed billionaire rankings as “guess a number” lists. The vast majority of CZ’s estimated fortune comes from a single source: his roughly 90% ownership stake in Binance. Forbes apparently valued that stake at nearly $100 billion, which accounted for the lion’s share of the $110 billion headline number.
Binance is a private company. There are no publicly traded shares, no quarterly earnings calls, no SEC filings with audited financials that anyone can pull up. CZ’s skepticism centers on a straightforward logic chain: crypto prices crash, trading volumes presumably follow, a crypto exchange’s revenue depends on trading volumes — so how does the exchange become worth more?
