Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao used an appearance at Blockchain Summit 2026 to push back sharply against what he described as a new wave of misleading mainstream coverage, arguing that recent reporting about his wealth and alleged links to Iran-related illicit finance rests on false premises and recycled hostility toward crypto.
In the interview, Zhao said the issue is not simply tough press, but what he sees as a pattern of narratives built on claims that do not hold up. “Some of the things the media say today about me are just completely off,” he said. “Forbes tries to paint me as richer, getting richer over the last six months, which is not possible. I don’t know how they made that calculation.”
He then turned to the more serious accusation: “The Wall Street Journal says I’m somehow trying to facilitate terrorist financing in Iran. I have zero interest in doing that. I live in a country that’s being attacked by Iran, right? And even before that, I was just not interested in that.”
JUST IN: BILLIONAIRE CZ JUST ABSOLUTELY SLAMMED THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FOR PUSHING FUD AGAINST #BITCOIN, CRYPTO, AND BINANCE
“THEY USE FALSE AND BASELESS INFORMATION”
“THEY SAY WE TRY TO FACILITATE TERRORISM”
“THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT.”
pic.twitter.com/TDGjcAfX7o
— The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) March 18, 2026
Why Binance’s CZ Blasts Media FUD
Those remarks came days after Forbes published its 2026 billionaire ranking estimating Zhao’s fortune at roughly $110 billion, enough to place him above Bill Gates and mark a roughly $47 billion increase from the prior year. Zhao publicly disputed the figure, saying the math made little sense in a year when crypto prices had already fallen sharply from their highs.
In a post on X, he wrote: “Crypto prices dropped by more than 50% in 2026 already. And my net worth went up? Wish they can apply some common sense and basic logic.”
For Zhao, that estimate appears to have become a symbol of a broader complaint: that mainstream outlets still prefer extremes when covering crypto figures, whether that means overstating paper wealth during bull-market extrapolations or attaching the industry’s biggest names to the darkest possible compliance narrative.
In the summit interview, he suggested the incentives behind those attacks are “somewhat understandable,” but said the reporting itself is “completely using false, baseless information. He added: “There’s no benefit. Like, they don’t generate trading fees. There’s no benefit. So all this narrative, they’re just, like, you know, they latch on to something negative. They just want to attack. So there’s a lot of misconceptions out there.”
Notably, the Iran issue is more consequential. Zhao was responding to Wall Street Journal reporting that Binance had been tied to an internal investigation involving a $1 billion transfer allegedly linked to Iran-backed terror groups. Binance answered with a defamation lawsuit filed on March 11, accusing the Journal and Dow Jones of falsely claiming that the exchange ended the probe, failed to act on the findings and punished compliance staff for raising concerns.
The controversy did not stop with the lawsuit. Senator Richard Blumenthal opened a preliminary inquiry after citing reports from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Fortune. In a public letter, he said Binance compliance staff had identified Iranian-linked accounts and alleged transfers totaling $1.7 billion through intermediaries, claims Binance disputes.
That history also explains why the allegations landed with force. Binance and Zhao remain under an unusually intense spotlight after the exchange’s 2023 guilty plea and $4.3 billion US settlement over anti-money-laundering and sanctions failures. Zhao stepped down as CEO as part of that resolution and later served a four-month prison sentence.
At press time, Binance Coin (BNB) traded at $643.49.
