Binance founder and former chief executive Changpeng Zhao (창펑 자오) has publicly challenged Forbes’ calculation of his wealth ranking.

According to blockchain media outlet U.Today on Saturday, Forbes estimated CZ’s net worth at $110 billion and ranked him as the world’s 17th-richest person, but CZ said he could not accept that method of calculation.

Under Forbes’ estimate, CZ would rank ahead of Bill Gates. Forbes assessed that CZ’s wealth rose by $47 billion over the past 12 months. It cited a recovery in the enterprise value of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, as the main factor behind the increase. Forbes estimated that CZ holds about 90 percent of Binance and that Binance’s annual revenue is about $16 billion.

CZ directly questioned the calculation on Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter. After quoting a Forbes summary sentence, he asked, "Is this possible?" He then raised doubts about the claim that his net worth rose by $47 billion in a year even as cryptocurrency prices fell more than 50 percent.

His challenge focuses less on the size of the increase than on the logic behind it. He argued that the explanation that personal wealth surged by tens of billions of dollars during a period of sharp correction in the crypto market does not match reality. He publicly mocked it and made clear that the Forbes estimate differs from his own sense of it.

Similar reactions appeared in the crypto community. An X user, TCC, noted that CZ has drawn a line on such rankings several times. The user wrote that billionaire rankings are not facts but estimates, and said he viewed them as "roughly guessed numbers."

CZ also agreed with that assessment. He replied to the post, "TCC is right," reaffirming that the wealth ranking is an estimate.

The core of the dispute lies not in the total size of personal wealth but in the uncertainty of valuing private crypto companies. For companies like Binance, where a controlling shareholder holds a large stake and financial information disclosed externally is limited, the size of assets can vary widely depending on the valuation method. Combined with crypto market volatility, net worth rankings can be driven more by estimation models than by actual holdings.

While CZ flatly denied the figures presented by Forbes, he did not newly address Binance’s ownership structure itself. As a result, market attention is expected to turn again to what standards were used to reflect Binance’s enterprise value and profitability, and how reliable estimates of the wealth of crypto company owners can be.

How is that last sentence possible? "His net worth jumped $47 BILLION in a single year even as crypto prices fell over 50%."