Binance Coin(BNB) Soars, Making CZ Richest US Prisoner ($38B)

Binance Coin (BNB) hit an all-time high of $725 amid founder CZ’s US prison sentence, making him the richest person to serve time in federal prison.

The native token of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance Coin, reached an all-time high of $725 on June 6, the first week of exchange founder Chagpeng Zhao’s (CZ) four-month US prison sentence.

A Bloomberg report claims that CZ is now the wealthiest person to have served time in a US federal prison due to Binance’s price surge. Despite his legal issues, the token’s market valuation exceeded $109 billion in the last week.

Does the binance coin price increase reflect the exchange’s growth?

The study states that the price of Binance Coin has followed the exchange’s success, with the platform’s overall asset worth rising from about $80 billion in early January to $125 billion.

This expansion has reinforced Binance’s leadership in cryptocurrency, even after a challenging year that saw the business resolve a legal dispute with US authorities for a record-breaking $4.3 billion punishment.

On the Binance platform, trading fees are discounted for BNB holders. On the Binance Smart Chain, a blockchain extensively used by cryptocurrency apps, such as exchanges and games, the token is also used for fee payments.

Derivative market trading patterns in late May and higher spot demand in June—buying continuously outpaced selling between June 2 and June 5—were precursors to the recent binance coin value spike, according to Kaiko analyst Dessislava Aubert.

According to Bloomberg, although BNB is traded on several centralized exchanges, Binance continues to be the most popular platform, handling 85% of all BNB trade volume worldwide.

The wealth of Binance founder CZ exceeds $38 billion.

As was previously reported, Binance was accused of violating sanctions and anti-money laundering (AML) laws, as well as of failing to stop terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda, and others from gaining access to the exchange. Zhao consented to pay a $50 million personal fine as part of the agreement.

Meanwhile, this sum pales in comparison to Zhao’s estimated net worth of $38.5 billion, mainly expressed in BNB. Zhao has acknowledged that he owns a sizable portion of Binance.

Known as “CZ,” Zhao’s net worth increased by $4.1 billion in 2024, placing him as the 40th richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Although Zhao’s holdings in BNB are unknown, the founding team received 80 million tokens, or about $56 billion, according to a 2017 whitepaper from BNB’s initial coin offering (ICO).

Overall, the rise in the value of BNB indicates the ongoing interest and confidence in the coin and its related ecosystem, despite the legal and regulatory difficulties that Binance and its co-founder have encountered.

As of this writing, BNB was down 4% over the previous day to $652 in trade. However, the token has increased by a significant 176% so far this year.