Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, spoke in Hong Kong on Aug. 27, 2026 at a reader event for his book Binance: My Story, sharing his views on the book, prison, entrepreneurship, hiring, compliance, young professionals, Hong Kong Web3, decentralized exchanges, and real-world assets.
Why he wrote the book
Zhao said the first reason for writing the book was sincerity, and the second was to reconstruct the full story as accurately as he could from his own perspective. He said he was bored in prison and decided to give himself something to do, writing for about 15 minutes each day.
After he got out, he felt that since he had already written so much, it made sense to finish and organize it rather than waste the time he had already spent. He described his writing ability as limited in both English and Chinese, so he chose plain, simple language that sounded like the way he normally speaks.
Zhao said his life had enough ups and downs that some parts would be hard for anyone to invent as fiction. In his view, the story itself was already interesting, so he tried to present it in the simplest possible way. He added that the book also includes material about mindset, though he did not go deeply into that because he did not think his writing was strong enough to carry it in a more literary way.
He said professionals helped revise the manuscript at one point, but after reading those edits, he felt the text no longer sounded like him. As a result, only a small number of those changes were kept.
On publishing, Zhao said he did not specifically seek out a traditional publisher, and that the book was published with The Commercial Press in Hong Kong. He said an English edition would likely have taken another six months to arrange with a separate publisher, and after already spending a year on the project, he chose to release it rather than wait longer.
He summed up the purpose of the book in two parts: to tell the real story as he saw it, and to offer a case study on how Asian founders and Asian companies can build globally. He said Binance should count as one of the most globalized companies to come out of Asia.
The host noted that Zhao had initially used translators, but felt uncomfortable with the result and wanted the final version to remain close to his speaking style. Zhao agreed and said the people helping him all had much better Chinese than he did, including Binance co-founder Yi He. He said some of the words used in translation were so advanced that he himself could not read them, so difficult wording was later removed from the Chinese version.
Writing during detention and dealing with uncertainty
Asked about the emotional process behind the book, Zhao said there was struggle. Before he actually entered prison, he had already spent more than five months restricted in the United States and unable to leave, with little to do. He had considered writing then, but the legal outcome was still unclear because sentencing had not yet happened.
He said the hardest part at that stage was uncertainty. He worried about what would happen next, whether he might be kept there longer, or whether a new charge or new issue could emerge and extend the situation further.
Once he was inside, he found there was not much to do. He decided to stay occupied. His routine, he said, was basically eating, sleeping, working out, and writing. The heavier part of the writing started after he entered prison.
Because he had no internet access inside and could not check the timeline of events, the early draft was based almost entirely on memory. Zhao said that had one advantage: when people rely only on memory, the first things that come back are often the most important and the most interesting.
After his release, he went back and checked the timeline again. He reviewed his old social media posts and found that some incidents had been left out, but he felt those missing details were not as compelling as the events he had remembered clearly. The book’s main thread therefore remained memory-driven.
How he thinks about memory and major events
The host remarked that the book gave the impression of an unusually strong memory. Zhao pushed back and said his memory is actually bad, joking that he may be only slightly better than a goldfish. Still, he said ordinary repeated events fade quickly, while major events tend to stay because they force people to think, judge, and decide under pressure.
He compared that kind of memory to the way many people remember where they were during 9/11. In his case, many episodes described in the book involved real decisions and real pressure at the time, which made them harder to forget.
Why he sold his home to buy Bitcoin
On the decision to sell his home and buy Bitcoin when most people were skeptical, Zhao said the first issue was understanding: whether someone recognized the logic behind Bitcoin and the broader technological direction. He said society keeps moving forward, and if a new thing truly has value, it will usually be adopted in the end. For that reason, he believes the first task is to identify the underlying technology and the major trend.
Looking back, he said the pattern now feels obvious. In his framing, the internet came first, and now blockchain, AI, and biotech are among the large technology tracks that stand out. The companies that succeed inside those tracks can grow by thousands or even tens of thousands of times. Zhao said blockchain and Web3 belong to that category.
At the same time, he said the application scope of blockchain remains narrow even today and is still mostly tied to money. He mentioned areas like government land registration as examples of use cases that still have not been fully implemented. That did not change his view of the track itself. In his mind, the track was sound; the harder question was what any individual could build inside it.
He also cited a line he values: 80% of success in life comes from showing up. In practice, that means participating. If someone never joins, that person does not even get a chance.
The second part of the decision, he said, was risk. People need to understand what kind of risk they can bear, whether they should take it, and how to judge it. His simple test was to imagine everything going to zero and ask what life would look like after that.
Zhao said that at the time he had already worked as a professional manager and earned what he described as a relatively high salary. Based on his age and experience then, he believed that even if a startup failed or Bitcoin went to zero, he could still return to Wall Street and get a six-figure U.S. dollar salary. That was his downside line, and it gave him the confidence to take the risk.
He added that not everyone has the same cushion. If someone does not, taking less risk may make more sense. Younger people can often take more risk because their risk-reward profile is different and their family burdens are usually lighter. Later in life, family and social responsibilities often get heavier, even though savings and networks may also improve. Zhao noted that many founders start in their forties, and he himself was 39 or 40 when he founded Binance.
Life changed after 40, but the mindset stayed plain
Asked what changed when he went from an ordinary life before 40 to global attention after 40, Zhao said this kind of shift cannot really be designed or predicted. When it happened, he sometimes felt the world was unreal and wondered how something like that could happen to him.
His answer, he said, was to face it with as calm a mindset as possible. He still sees himself as an ordinary person who happened to have good luck and go through unusual events. That, too, is part of what he wanted the book to express: life can swing sharply, and sharing those experiences may help others stay calmer when they face their own shocks.
Pressure tolerance matters more than extra IQ
Zhao said pressure changes with time and differs from person to person. For him, one of the most stressful periods came in the weeks after BNB fell below its issue price. He said around 20,000 to 30,000 people had bought in, and the rapid drop after listing created intense pressure for him over those two or three weeks.
Speaking to students and recent graduates in the audience, he said success is not determined only by intelligence. IQ cannot be too low, he said, but once people are above a certain threshold, additional IQ does not make as much difference as many assume. Emotional intelligence matters as well. Even so, his conclusion was that resilience under pressure is extremely important.
If he could go back, he would choose age 18
When asked what point in life he would return to if he had the chance, Zhao answered without hesitation: 18. He said youth is the most valuable thing. If someone took all of his wealth away in exchange for sending him back to 18, he said he would choose to go back immediately.
What not to do matters more than what to do
Zhao said that at any stage of life, deciding what not to do is more important than deciding what to do. He argued that many people never seriously think about which activities should be excluded. Someone sends a message and they feel they must reply. Someone invites them out and they feel they must go. They think they must socialize, attend events, and like what their friends like.
In his view, many of those things can be cut. The ability to simplify life and reduce unnecessary commitments becomes more important over time. He added that the idea is not his original line, but he agrees with it strongly.
When the host joked that showing up in person that day was itself a deliberate choice, Zhao said yes. He said the audience mattered, and added that this was also something he could have chosen not to do, but he decided to come.
For founders, product and users come first
On what founders should focus on in the earliest phase of a startup, Zhao said the answer is mainly two things: product and users. A company needs a product, and it needs users who are willing to buy it or receive real value from it.
He said those two areas will consume a founder’s time early on. If someone is the CEO or the top decision-maker in the company, other issues will follow, including team building, legal work, compliance, and marketing.
Marketing, in his view, may not matter as much at the very beginning. Legal and compliance depend on the business. In financial businesses, they matter from day one. In some technical businesses, the early legal risk may be lower. Still, once a company develops, founders eventually have to engage with all of these functions.
His core point was blunt: if there is no product and no user base, then there is not yet a real startup company. Those come first. Other problems can be addressed after that.
If Binance were founded again, compliance would be handled differently
Asked how he would deal with compliance if he were starting Binance again, Zhao said the answer now looks straightforward. In today’s environment, he said, people broadly accept that crypto is fundamentally tied to money, and many countries have moved toward a similar regulatory understanding. That makes compliance critical.
He said many jurisdictions regulate crypto platforms, especially exchanges, like financial institutions, and financial institutions normally need licenses. From that perspective, the path would now be clearer.
He added that if the U.S. regulatory environment looked too complicated, one option at the start would have been to fully separate U.S. users from the rest of the business. Looking back, he said, these things appear simple now. He also noted that most startups outside financial services do not face compliance demands this high.
When to delegate and how to build trust
Zhao said a founder can hand over work when that founder finds someone who is truly trusted. If not, many tasks still need to stay with the founder. He said founders first need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, then work out what kind of partner they need.
He used himself as the example. He comes from a technical background and, although he has not coded in a long time, still understands technology relatively well. He described himself as weaker in marketing and business promotion. Yi He, he said, was strong there.
He rejected the idea that there is a fixed stage when founders can fully let go. Even after delegation, founders need to stay involved and dive back into details from time to time. There is no stage, he said, where someone only needs to talk to 10 executives or 10 partners every day and nothing else.
Founders still need to talk to users, inspect product features, and check how systems perform. A company cannot depend on one person alone, whether that person is the CEO or anyone else. Zhao said the whole team needs to care deeply about the company, and people throughout the organization should periodically go deep into specific problems.
He noted that Yi He still interacts with users every day, and that he also continues to speak directly with users. He said he still learns new things from those conversations because the industry changes so quickly.
He also stressed that staying close to users and customers is critical. Referring to a point from another book, he said a founder does not need to talk to huge numbers of users each time. Keeping regular contact with three to five high-quality users who can provide meaningful feedback is often enough. Over time, those users can change, but the deeper point is maintaining direct signal rather than chasing volume.
How he evaluates people and where he draws the line
The host asked about mistakes in hiring and choosing partners. Zhao said it is useful to look back, but not to become trapped in the past. The world is imperfect, life is imperfect, and no one can judge people correctly every single time. He said he cannot claim to be 100% accurate at reading people, though someone who is completely bad at it would struggle to build a large company.
He said there are two common failure cases. One is simply misjudging someone. The second, and more common case, is that a person’s full set of flaws is not obvious at first because everyone has flaws.
Zhao said he usually asks candidates directly what their biggest flaw is. Many people do not like the question, but he thinks most people should be able to recognize and face their own weaknesses. Even if the question is not asked in an interview, he said anyone entering a long-term partnership needs to be understood very clearly, flaws included.
To him, flaws do not automatically rule out cooperation. The real problem is moral failure. If someone has ethical issues or behaves in a way that breaks trust, Zhao said there is no basis for working together and that person should be cut off as early as possible. He added that the fewer such people there are in one’s close circle, the better.
On setbacks, Zhao said people will inevitably fall into holes at times. The key is not to avoid every mistake forever, but to climb out quickly and avoid letting the problem grow. He said his own setbacks were large, took a lot of time and energy to resolve, and came with heavy pressure.
He added that, at least in cases similar to those brought under the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, he is among the small number of people who actually served prison time. In many similar cases, he said, the outcome may be only a fine, home confinement, or something less severe.
Even so, his view is that once an episode has been lived through, it becomes part of the past. Four months felt long at the time, he said, but looking back now, he endured it and moved on.
Advice to young people: build one real edge
Asked what advice he would give young people, Zhao said the first thing is to have one real skill. Young people need to know what they are good at. Competition is global and intense, so in the field where someone has genuine strength, that person needs to become very strong.
He used programming as an example. There are many subfields, and there are millions or tens of millions of programmers worldwide, so becoming twice as good as everyone else is unrealistic. But being a little better can matter a lot. He said that reaching the top 1%, or even the top 0.1%, can produce very different outcomes. The capability gap may look small, yet the rewards for first and second place can end up far apart.
After developing one specialized strength, he said, people can add other capacities such as networks, reputation, and new skills they did not originally have. Founders may need a broader combination sooner, while non-founders can spend more time accumulating gradually. He also said finding a good partner matters a great deal, especially because younger people are often less mature in judging character.
The hiring trait Binance valued most: initiative
On the most important ability for working at Binance, Zhao said he is no longer closely involved in recruiting, but one of the most important standards he had set was initiative.
Because Binance operates remotely, he said, it is easy for someone to slack off without immediate detection. A person who lacks initiative may go through two months without pushing many things forward in any meaningful way.
Zhao described his own management style as one where he often moves rapidly from issue to issue. Sometimes he gives someone a task and then quickly forgets about it. The task may need an update a week later, but he usually does not chase it himself. If the person involved does not come back proactively with progress, he may forget about it entirely. If he remembers two months later and hears that the work stalled after one week, that employee may be fired.
He said he does not generally follow up in the traditional sense. He needs people to push updates to him on their own. More broadly, he argued that in today’s world, people who act proactively and keep moving things forward give themselves a much higher chance of success. Those who wait to be checked on or pushed by a boss are less likely to do well.
Why Hong Kong stands out in Web3
Zhao said Hong Kong has strong advantages in Web3. First, it is already a financial center with a solid pool of fintech talent. Second, travel and later work arrangements for people coming from mainland China are comparatively convenient, including permits and work visas. In the broader Asian context, he said, that gives Hong Kong a real edge.
He drew a contrast with AI. In that sector, he said, Hong Kong may not enjoy the same degree of advantage because electricity, data center costs, and related infrastructure are not especially competitive. In Web3 tied to finance, though, he sees clear strengths.
Zhao also addressed the recent swing of attention toward AI. That does not trouble him. Every industry, he said, has a hot early phase, and AI will continue to develop. What matters is choosing work at the intersection of three things: personal interest, personal capability, and real value. From that perspective, he said, Hong Kong and Web3 fit strongly together.
When asked to name three places besides Hong Kong that are well suited to Web3, Zhao said the United Arab Emirates is a good choice, including both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. He also said the United States now looks better, with policy starting to shift in a more supportive direction for the sector.
From Uniswap to Hyperliquid: DEX may move faster if policy loosens
Asked how the next eight years of DEX development might look, Zhao began cautiously, saying he does not claim to predict the future accurately and does not have a crystal ball. Still, he said decentralized exchanges have already come a long way.
He described Uniswap as a major step forward. After Uniswap came PancakeSwap and other DEXs, and later products such as Hyperliquid. In his telling, the product line has already evolved considerably.
Zhao said Uniswap faced substantial regulatory and political pressure, especially in the United States. Based on what he currently understands, though, U.S. pressure on products of this kind has eased a lot. A decentralized exchange may now be able to separate an international platform from one serving U.S. users. The international side would only need to isolate certain restricted regions and might not have to require KYC from every user. He framed that as his current understanding of the structure.
He said that if policy conditions improve that much, industry growth can accelerate. One issue in his own case, he noted, was the view that Binance’s KYC was inadequate, even though he said Binance did require users to complete KYC at the time. If a DEX can operate inside a compliant framework without collecting KYC from every single user, Zhao said, the room for the sector to expand becomes much larger.
His broader conclusion was that many technical and product advances in crypto have been held back by regulation. If those constraints continue to loosen, development could speed up rather than slow down.
RWA and tokenized securities are moving faster than he expected
On ecosystem trends, Zhao said development is not decided by any one person. His preference has long been to let builders experiment freely, then allocate resources to the trends that are already emerging and follow that trend.
Recently, he said, one of the clearest trends has been the rapid growth of RWA. He admitted this is something he had not fully appreciated earlier. In particular, he said the pace of tokenized securities has been much faster than he previously expected.
Later, after seeing the trend develop, it started to look logical to him. Many people want access to U.S. stocks or A-shares, he said, but in practice they may not be able to open the necessary accounts.
Speaking broadly about most countries rather than specifically about China, Zhao asked why a company that has issued stock would want only domestic investors to buy it instead of allowing investors worldwide to participate. If all 8 billion people in the world could buy a stock, he said, that would obviously be broader than limiting access to a few hundred million people in a single country.
The problem today is that opening a brokerage account in another country is difficult for most people. Even if they manage to do it, users in Asia trading U.S. stocks are dealing with overnight sessions, late hours, and closed weekends. Those are real access barriers. If the asset is on-chain, Zhao said, access becomes much easier for global users.
He said this was a point he had not fully thought through in the past and only recognized more clearly later. To illustrate the liquidity imbalance, he pointed to the Philippines, saying that many countries in Southeast Asia do not have very strong stock exchanges. He said the Philippine stock market may do only about $50 million in daily trading volume, which might equal just one day of trading for a large trader in New York.
Under those conditions, he said, local listed companies will naturally ask whether they should list in Hong Kong or delist locally and seek another market. But even if they list abroad, their investor reach remains limited. Tokenizing the asset and putting it on-chain changes that equation by opening a global market.
Zhao then pointed to Binance’s own scale, saying the platform has more than 300 million users and is still growing quickly. For issuers, that means a very different pool of possible liquidity and users. From his perspective, that is why he strongly encourages people to work on RWA going forward.
He added that RWA includes many sub-sectors, and said stablecoins are themselves a form of RWA because they move fiat currency onto the blockchain. He then raised a national policy question: what country would not want its own currency to circulate more broadly across the world?
Putting a currency on-chain, he said, is the simplest and most direct way to expand its reach. He noted that most stablecoins today are U.S. dollar stablecoins and said the market is already around $200 billion to $300 billion. From the perspective of other countries, he asked, why let such a large market be handed entirely to the dollar? In his view, any country would theoretically want its own currency to move on-chain and widen its use, and more derivative products could emerge from that foundation later.