Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is laying out his life and worldview in his new memoir, Freedom of Money, and using a recent Fox Business interview with Charlie Gasparino to underscore a familiar theme: he believes the crypto industry was pushed into a “hostile environment” by the Biden administration.
From rags to crypto titan
CZ’s story reads like a Silicon Valley origin tale turned global finance drama. He grew up poor in China, flipped burgers to pay for college, and parlayed his skills as a self-described computer nerd into a career in high‑frequency trading. An early bet on bitcoin eventually led him to build Binance — now the world’s largest crypto exchange — guiding it through multiple crypto winters and the rapid expansion of a market now valued at roughly $3 trillion.
The book and how it was written
Freedom of Money is a 364‑page, straight‑forward account of those years. CZ wrote much of it while in federal custody, typing on prison terminals that allowed only short sessions and no convenient editing tools — a process he describes as a raw “brain dump.” That unpolished style, he says, is part of the book’s appeal: it delivers first‑hand stories, heavy on name‑dropping and insider detail, that explain how crypto grew from a niche experiment into a mainstream asset class embraced by major banks and institutions.
SBF, FTX and a pivotal meeting
One of the book’s more vivid scenes recounts CZ’s last meeting with Sam Bankman‑Fried as FTX imploded. CZ describes SBF arriving in a flustered state and awkwardly seeking a multibillion‑dollar lifeline. CZ declined — a decision he depicts as prompted by the odd tenor of the request and what he perceived as evasiveness. Bankman‑Fried was later convicted in the FTX collapse, tied to roughly $8 billion in missing customer funds, and sentenced to 25 years.
Politics, prosecution and a pardon
CZ also addresses the legal battles that followed Binance’s rise. He says he was targeted in what he views as an overzealous regulatory push by the Biden administration and that former SEC chair Gary Gensler shifted from a potential industry ally to an adversary. According to CZ, he later received a pardon from President Donald Trump; he is no longer running Binance after federal pressure in 2023, though he remains the company’s largest shareholder and has an estimated net worth reported at over $100 billion.
Where he goes from here
Now a free man, CZ says he wants to be a thought leader for crypto — and his memoir is positioned as part personal survival story, part industry chronicle. For readers who follow crypto policy, markets or the personalities behind them, Freedom of Money offers a direct, if sometimes unvarnished, account of pivotal moments that helped shape the modern crypto landscape.
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