The founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is now, on paper at least, richer than the man who built Microsoft. Changpeng Zhao, known universally as CZ, landed at $110 billion on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, a $47 billion jump from the previous year that catapulted him to 17th on the global rich list.

Bill Gates, by comparison, sits at $108 billion and 19th place. The gap between a crypto exchange operator and the co-founder of the company that powers most of the world’s computers is now roughly $2 billion.

The numbers behind the number

CZ’s fortune is overwhelmingly tied to a single asset: his approximately 90% ownership stake in Binance. Forbes values that stake at around $100…