Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, has published his memoir, Freedom of Money: A Memoir of Protecting Users, Resilience, and the Founding of Binance, offering the first comprehensive first-person account of building the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and navigating one of the most dramatic legal cases in the history of digital finance.
The book went on sale globally on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats in English and Traditional Chinese. All proceeds from CZ’s authorship will be donated to charity.
The 457-page memoir traces CZ’s journey from a childhood in rural China to co-founding Binance in 2017 with a small team and scaling it into a platform serving 300 million users with an estimated valuation of $100 billion. The book covers the exchange’s rapid expansion, the pressures of building in a fast-moving industry operating ahead of regulatory frameworks, and CZ’s personal account of his legal battle with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).
That legal battle ended in November 2023 with CZ pleading guilty to a single anti-money laundering charge and Binance agreeing to a $4.3 billion corporate settlement with US authorities. CZ was sentenced to four months in a federal prison facility in California in April 2024 and was released in September 2024. He wrote much of the memoir during his sentence.
“This memoir is not a sanitized corporate story,” CZ said in a statement accompanying the launch. “It reflects on what it was like to build during a time when the crypto industry was still taking shape, the successes, the mistakes, and the lessons that came from both.”
The book also addresses wider controversies in the industry, including the collapse of rival exchange FTX and the prosecution of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as what CZ describes as the growing politicisation of regulatory scrutiny over the sector.
The memoir is self-published through the Freedom of Money Foundation, a decision CZ said allowed him to avoid the extended timelines associated with conventional publishing and to release simultaneously in English and Chinese.
Richard Teng, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Binance, described the memoir as a founder’s perspective on a defining chapter for digital assets. Yi He, also Co-Chief Executive Officer of Binance, said the book captures the energy and possibility of crypto’s formative years.
CZ retains approximately 90 percent ownership of Binance and remains barred from managing the exchange under the terms of his regulatory settlement. Since his release from prison, he has focused on Giggle Academy, a free digital education platform aimed at expanding access to learning for out-of-school children globally.
Freedom of Money is available on Amazon with additional language translations under consideration.
