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According to a recent report by Forbes, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao personally owns 94 million BNB tokens (or roughly 64% of the exchange’s total supply).
Based on the forensic analysis of the wallets conducted by Forbes, CZ controls more than half of the 80 million tokens that he and Binance’s founding team received after the exchange’s creation.
During Binance’s initial coin offering (ICO), which took place in 2017, 100 million BNB tokens were allocated for the crowd sale. However, Forbes has now revealed that the ICO was undersubscribed, meaning that demand failed to meet the available supply. According to its analysis, less than 11 million tokens were actually sold during the ICO. The unsold tokens ended up in wallets controlled by Binance.
CZ’s equity stake in the Binance exchange is also believed to be worth roughly $33 billion.
Overall, the fortune of the former Binance boss has now surpassed $61 billion, according to Forbes. This makes him the 24th richest person on the planet. For comparison, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is worth $11 billion.
Notably, CZ’s net worth has grown significantly since the start of his incarceration.
As reported by U.Today, Zhao was sentenced to four months behind bars in April after pleading guilty to allowing money laundering on the leading exchange.
In early June, he reported to Lompoc II, a low-security federal prison in California. The correctional facility used to be known as America’s famous “country club prison” that housed Richard Nixon’s attorneys among other prominent names.
On June 6, BNB reached its current all-time high of $717.48 before paring some gains.
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