Binance co-founder and former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, sets to release his memoir titled Freedom of Money next week as proceeds head to charity. It is pending a final editorial review, Binance reports.
CZ has shared that e-book pre-orders are already live in English and traditional Chinese, with the English print edition expected to follow with the launch. Other language editions, he noted, will roll out in the coming months.
In a post on X announcing the update, CZ said that the project is not a commercial venture for him. All proceeds from the book, he said, will be directed to charity.
“If you are curious about the book name Freedom of Money, it was the Binance mission statement from the beginning to increase the freedom of money,” he wrote.
According to Amazon, the book traces CZ’s journey from his early childhood in rural China growing up in modest condition to immigrating to Canada as a teenager, and building Binance into one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Founded in 2017 with a small team, the platform has since grown to hundreds of millions of users of the global crypto market.
The book dives into his personal history and industry insight, offering a behind-the-scenes account of crypto’s growth and the high-stakes decisions.
CZ writes about leadership and the drive to innovate in a space he says is saturated and misunderstood.
He also states that cryptocurrency will build financial access globally, particularly in regions where traditional banking infrastructure is still limited.
Zhao also addresses his own legal case in the United States, where he pleaded guilty in 2023 to a charge related to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. Binance agreed to a $4.3 billion (Sh 559 billion) settlement, while Zhao was fined $150 million (Sh19.51 billion) and served a four-month prison sentence. He wrote much of the book during that period.
Freedom of Money is published at a time when cryptocurrency continues to face heightened scrutiny and growing global interest. Its early pre-orders have already pushed it up online rankings in the crypto category.