The appreciation of Binance explains the growth of CZ's fortune, says Forbes, but the executive disputes the numbers.

Explaining this fortune, Forbes highlights that CZ lost 25% on his 1,400 bitcoins due to the market decline, but his BNBs remained stable. Therefore, the reason for the jump was the appreciation of Binance itself.#CFTCChairCryptoPlan

“Conversations with industry people and comparisons with other cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, which is publicly traded, suggest that Binance — still the largest exchange in the world, with about 38% market share — is worth around $100 billion. Court documents from the investigation indicate that Zhao owns about 90% of the company.”

In March 2025, MGX from the United Arab Emirates invested $2 billion in the brokerage. At the time, CZ suggested that the investment would be equivalent to a single percentage digit, which would leave his company valued between $22 billion to $200 billion (considering 1% to 9%, respectively).#CRİPTO

On social media, Changpeng Zhao stated that Forbes' numbers are wrong.#CriptoGemas

I haven't read the Forbes article, but just by looking at the chart, it's clear that it's wrong. Cryptocurrency prices have already fallen more than 50% in 2026. And did my wealth increase? I wish they would apply a bit of common sense and basic logic.

In another post, the billionaire points out that ByteDance has an annual revenue of $150 billion, while Binance has $5 billion, and even so, Zhang Yiming shows a fortune of $69 billion while he shows $111 billion.

The problem is that Forbes' estimates are far from reality, he commented.