CZ Joins Centibillionaire Club at $110B, Surpassing Bill Gates

Changpeng Zhao is richer than Bill Gates. The Binance founder’s net worth hit $110 billion on Forbes’ 2026 World’s Billionaires list, ranking him 17th globally — just 17 months after he walked out of a California federal prison.

CZ’s rise reflects a broader transformation: crypto wealth is no longer on the margins of global finance. It is reshaping who holds power — and who gets pardoned.

Binance and Trump Power the Comeback

CZ’s wealth jumped $47 billion in a year. The core driver is Binance itself. The world’s largest crypto exchange holds roughly 38% of global market share. Forbes estimates its valuation at around $100 billion, with CZ owning approximately 90%.

The numbers back it up. Binance generated an estimated $16–17 billion in revenue in 2024 and 2025 — roughly 2.5 times Coinbase’s $6.6 billion. It processes more than $30 trillion in annual spot and derivatives volume.

CZ’s comeback also runs parallel to Donald Trump’s return to the White House. In March 2025, Binance accepted the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial USD1 stablecoin as part of a $2 billion investment by Abu Dhabi firm MGX. Trump later granted CZ a full pardon. Last month, CZ appeared at a Mar-a-Lago forum, signaling his re-entry into US business circles. Trump has denied that the pardon was linked to business ties.

Sanctions Concerns Linger

Not everything is clean. Reports from Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times alleged Binance fired top compliance investigators who flagged approximately $1 billion flowing to sanctioned Iranian entities. The allegations mirror the conduct that led to CZ’s 2023 guilty plea and Binance’s $4.3 billion settlement with US authorities. Binance has disputed the claims and defended its compliance program.

CZ now ranks above Bill Gates ($108 billion, 19th), Michael Bloomberg ($109 billion, 18th), and hedge fund titan Ken Griffin ($49.8 billion). He is one of just 20 people on Earth worth more than $100 billion — a club that gained five new members this year.

AI Reshapes the Global Rich List

CZ is not the only crypto billionaire making waves. Giancarlo Devasini, Tether’s CFO, ranks 22nd at $89.3 billion. Together, they represent a structural shift: crypto wealth is no longer a footnote on the global rich list.

The broader Forbes 2026 list reflects a world where fortunes are being built faster than ever. A record 3,428 billionaires made the cut — 400 more than last year — with combined wealth hitting $20.1 trillion, up $4 trillion. The planet minted more than one new billionaire every day over the past 12 months.

Elon Musk leads the list at $839 billion, having added an estimated $497 billion in a single year. Google co-founders Larry Page ($257 billion) and Sergey Brin ($237 billion) rank second and third. AI is driving much of the new wealth: at least 86 billionaires owe their fortunes in significant part to artificial intelligence, with 45 of them becoming billionaires in the past 12 months alone.

CZ’s ascent, from federal inmate to centibillionaire in under two years, may be the list’s most striking story. But it fits a broader pattern: in 2026, the gap between the world’s richest and everyone else widened.

Musk’s $839 billion fortune exceeds the combined wealth of the 693 least wealthy billionaires on the list — a gap that underscores just how concentrated the top of the rankings has become.

2026 World Billionaire List Top 30

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