ZhaoZhao’s 2022: CZ arguably made the biggest waves in 2022 with his Nov. 6 announcement that Binance would sell nearly $600 million worth of FTX Token after catching wind of the financial situation behind FTX and Alameda Research. The move is believed to have kicked off the bank run on FTX, leading to a liquidity crisis that eventually led to the exchange’s collapse. CZ has denied that he intended to cause FTX’s collapse, saying “no one won” with the bankruptcy of Binance’s peer exchange. The FTX fiasco saw CZ and Binance later leading the charge for exchanges to issue proofs of reserves, a way of verifying its crypto holdings. 2022 also saw CZ unveil Binance’s many expansion plans, such as diversifying its revenue streams by buying up companies “in every economic sector and try[ing] to bring them into crypto.” Making Bloomberg’s list as the world’s richest crypto billionaire in 2022, CZ used his reported $96 billion net worth to pitch in $200 million to media outlet Forbes to boost crypto education. He also wired Elon Musk $500 million for his takeover of Twitter, saying the platform is important for free speech. It wasn’t all roses for the Binance boss. Reuters outlined serious allegations against the exchange in two investigations, claiming that CZ denied regulators’ requests for financial and corporate structure information on Binance, avoided proper user background checks, and processed around $2.3 billion in transactions originating from hacks, investment frauds and narcotics sales between 2017 and 2021. Binance labeled the allegations as misinformation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also opened a probe in June 2022 into whether Binance broke securities laws over the launch of its token in July 2017.’s 2022: CZ arguably made the biggest waves in 2022 with his Nov. 6 announcement that Binance would sell nearly $600 million worth of FTX Token after catching wind of the financial situation behind FTX and Alameda Research. The move is believed to have kicked off the bank run on FTX, leading to a liquidity crisis that eventually led to the exchange’s collapse. CZ has denied that he intended to cause FTX’s collapse, saying “no one won” with the bankruptcy of Binance’s peer exchange. The FTX fiasco saw CZ and Binance later leading the charge for exchanges to issue proofs of reserves, a way of verifying its crypto holdings. 2022 also saw CZ unveil Binance’s many expansion plans, such as diversifying its revenue streams by buying up companies “in every economic sector and try[ing] to bring them into crypto.” Making Bloomberg’s list as the world’s richest crypto billionaire in 2022, CZ used his reported $96 billion net worth to pitch in $200 million to media outlet Forbes to boost crypto education. He also wired Elon Musk $500 million for his takeover of Twitter, saying the platform is important for free speech. It wasn’t all roses for the Binance boss. Reuters outlined serious allegations against the exchange in two investigations, claiming that CZ denied regulators’ requests for financial and corporate structure information on Binance, avoided proper user background checks, and processed around $2.3 billion in transactions originating from hacks, investment frauds and narcotics sales between 2017 and 2021. Binance labeled the allegations as misinformation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also opened a probe in June 2022 into whether Binance broke securities laws over the launch of its token in July 2017.