Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (창펑 자오), also known as CZ, has drawn attention after revealing why he sold a Shanghai apartment in China in 2014 for $900,000 (about 130 million won) and invested in bitcoin (BTC).

The Crypto Basic, a blockchain media outlet, reported on March 3 that Zhao described what led him to invest in bitcoin and what he did afterward.

Zhao first encountered bitcoin in 2013. He studied its white paper for six months while engaging with the cryptocurrency community. During that period, the bitcoin price surged from $70 to more than $1,000. By the time he began investing in earnest, it had already entered a downtrend. In early 2014, when the price fell to the $400 range, he viewed it as an opportunity and sold his Shanghai apartment to buy bitcoin. His average purchase price was $600. He also bought more when the market fell further, convinced of its long-term value.

At the time, he decided to leave his job and focus on the cryptocurrency industry. He later joined Blockchain.com, then known as Blockchain.info, and built experience in exchange infrastructure and the digital asset market. In 2017, Zhao founded Binance, which grew into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. He compared bitcoin to the early internet and judged that the long-term upside potential was greater than the downside risk.

Zhao's remarks are interpreted not as a simple "profitability story" but as a choice shaped by the process of building understanding of bitcoin, including studying the white paper and engaging with the community, combined with a career shift. It is also possible to analyse his investment decision at the time as aligning with his moves in the industry, given that he later built infrastructure experience at Blockchain.com and went on to found Binance.

In the industry, such recollections are drawing attention as an example of the logic market participants used to view a downturn during bitcoin's formative period, or early cycle. In particular, as founders' early experiences are being revisited after multiple phases of rises and corrections, the timing of his decision is likely to keep being mentioned as a symbolic scene.