In August 2015, CZ left early due to ideological differences with OKCoin founder Xu Mingxing, and by the time he left, OKCoin had over 5 million users.
From 2015 to 2017, CZ briefly served as a technical advisor for Bijie Tech, during which he quietly prepared to establish Binance, assembled a core team, and raised seed funding of $5 million.
In March 2017, CZ officially announced the founding of Binance, and He Yi immediately invested and joined, responsible for user growth and marketing.
On July 1, 2017, the Binance team was officially formed in Shanghai, with the Chinese team accounting for 70%, and core members coming from OKCoin…
On July 14, 2017, Binance's official website was launched, starting the BNB ICO.
From July 14 to 25, 2017, BNB ICO raised $15 million worth of cryptocurrency in 14 days, issuing 100 million BNB, with a price of $0.15 on the first day.
On September 4, 2017, China issued Document No. 94 banning ICOs, and CZ decided overnight to move servers and the team out of China.
On September 13, 2017, Binance announced the suspension of registrations for users in mainland China.
On September 15, 2017, the first batch of Binance team members moved to Tokyo, Japan.
In October 2017, all Binance servers were moved to Japan.
In December 2017, the number of Binance users surpassed 2 million, with a daily trading volume of $1 billion.
In January 2018, Binance's monthly trading volume first exceeded $100 billion, becoming the world's largest exchange.
In March 2018, Japan’s FSA issued a verbal warning, and Binance relocated again, with servers and part of the team moving to Malta. In May 2018, the stablecoin BUSD was launched (in cooperation with Paxos), circulating $100 million on the first day.
In July 2018, Binance suffered a hack, with 7,000 BTC stolen (approximately $40 million), and CZ announced full compensation using the SAFU fund.
In September 2018, Binance.US was launched, officially entering the compliant market in the United States.
In December 2018, monthly trading volume peaked at $500 billion, and BNB reached a price of $80.
In April 2019, the Binance Chain mainnet was launched, and BNB migrated from ERC-20 to BEP-2.
In July 2019, Binance DEX (decentralized exchange) was launched.
In September 2019, Binance Futures was launched, and leveraged trading went live.
In December 2019, the number of users surpassed 30 million.
In April 2020, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) was launched, with gas fees at $0.01.
In September 2020, Launchpool was launched, allowing users to mine new projects by holding BNB.
In December 2020, the TVL of the BSC chain first broke $1 billion.
In January 2021, the NFT market was launched.
In May 2021, Binance Labs announced a $1 billion Web3 fund.
In September 2021, after China's complete ban on mining/trading, Binance's user base increased by 30%.
In December 2021, the number of users surpassed 70 million, with a peak global trading volume share of 50%.
In January 2022, Binance Pay was launched, with 50 million users making payments.
In November 2022, after the collapse of FTX, Binance saw a 20% increase in users, and its trading volume share rose to 60%.
In December 2022, all exchanges serving Indian users must register with FIU-IND.
In March 2023, the US CFTC sued Binance and CZ, imposing a fine of $400 million.
In June 2023, the US SEC officially sued Binance and CZ, imposing a fine of $4.3 billion. On November 21, 2023, CZ pled guilty in the US, resigned as CEO, and paid a personal fine of $50 million.
In December 2023, Richard Teng took over as CEO.
In January 2024, the Binance Web3 Wallet was launched, with downloads surpassing 100 million.
In June 2024, the TVL of the BSC chain surpassed $10 billion.
On September 30, 2024, CZ completed a 4-month prison sentence and was released.
In March 2025, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund MGX strategically invested $2 billion in Binance.
On October 23, 2025, Trump signed a presidential pardon, and CZ completely regained his freedom.
On October 25, 2025, CZ released a video reiterating that 'Binance has never been a Chinese company. We are not affiliated with any government. Although I was born in China, I am Canadian, and Binance has never operated in China from day one.' (Binance official transcript 2025), with 50 million views and 100,000 shares.
In mid-November 2025, rumors surfaced that Trump’s son Eric Trump would join the Binance board (CNN report, later deleted).
In late November 2025, CZ and Peter Thiel co-invested $200 million in an AI fund.
On December 3, 2025, He Yi and Richard Teng officially took on the role of co-CEOs, with users approaching 300 million.
In December 2025, Binance's global spot trading volume share reached 41.1%, with an average daily trading volume of $50 billion.
To summarize the current development of Binance, several major sectors:
CEX: Daily trading of spot/futures at $50 billion, with a global market share of 41.1%
