Written by: Wu Says Blockchain

This article's editing and quoting have been authorized by relevant parties. Readers are encouraged to purchase the authentic version on Amazon to support charity.

If we rank the 10 individuals most frequently mentioned in the main text of "Binance Life," who most prominently weave together CZ's narrative, they are: Father (62 times), He Yi (54 times), Sister (49 times), Mother (32 times), SBF (23 times), Zhou Wei (23 times), Vitalik (20 times), Ted (14 times), Heina (13 times), and Trump (12 times). The "counts" here are a rough tally based on direct references in the text, cross-compared using different AI tools, and may contain errors.

It should be emphasized that this article is organized and paraphrased based on "Binance Life," and the relationships and event details regarding the individuals reflect CZ's personal perspective. Readers should judge the authenticity and completeness based on more publicly available information.

Father

In the book, the father first appears in CZ's family background description. He comes from a rural area and was the first person in his village to attend university. Later, after the college entrance examination resumed, he got admitted to the University of Science and Technology of China to pursue a master's degree. Due to his lengthy education and work outside, CZ spent little time with his father during his childhood, mostly only seeing him during summer and winter holidays.

After moving to Hefei, his father took him and his sister to visit USTC's computer lab for the first time, opening a small program for a two-player race where a white dot on the screen moved forward with keystrokes. This scene is clearly described in the book as the first time CZ saw a computer. After moving to Canada, the family's financial situation was not affluent, yet his father still took him to a computer store and spent seven thousand Canadian dollars on an x286 computer, equivalent to nearly seven months of his father's income. CZ wrote in the book, "If it weren't for that computer, there wouldn't be today's me."

During their time in Hefei, the father had already begun working at USTC, later going on to become a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto and then a PhD student at the University of British Columbia. Each move from Zhonghu Village to Hefei, and then to Vancouver, was directly linked to his father's educational or work arrangements.

In those years in Canada, the father recorded all expenses in a notebook, cut out coupons from newspapers, and took the family shopping on weekends, carefully comparing prices. He was described in the book as always holding a camera to take pictures; that camera accompanied them for many years, and CZ later traced his passion for photography back to this point. Another detail is that CZ's mother told him his father only "got the hang of" academic studies in high school, so when CZ had average grades as a child, he was always waiting for that moment to arrive; after entering high school, his grades indeed improved noticeably, and this contrast was also documented in the book.

In 2020, the father informed CZ and his sister that he had been diagnosed with leukemia, but he did not specify the stage, only mentioning the need for frequent blood transfusions; by the spring of 2021, he further said his condition worsened, and the doctors estimated he might only have 12 to 18 months left. At that time, the father was in Toronto while CZ was in Singapore, and CZ immediately suggested bringing his father to Singapore, as he had not yet met his two youngest children. During the most severe pandemic lockdowns, Singapore closed its borders to non-citizens, but CZ obtained a humanitarian special permit through friends and contacted top leukemia specialists for remote consultations, arranging for quarantine hospitals and treatments in advance.

After all preparations were completed in July, his father expressed a desire to stay in Toronto for another two weeks; however, just a week later, he passed away after developing a fever. The book states that the night before, his father had been walking with his partner, everything seemed normal, but that night he developed a fever and chose not to go to the emergency room late at night to avoid long waits, deciding instead to go in the morning; ultimately, his immune system was too weak post-chemotherapy, and he could not survive.

He Yi

He Yi holds a special position in this book as both a character within it and the author of the preface. Before the book officially begins, it is He Yi who writes the preface. She recalls meeting CZ for the first time in the spring of 2014, when the entire cryptocurrency sector was in a downturn, and Bitcoin was frequently declared "dead" by public opinion; she had just given up her role as a host to enter this industry while CZ was already on stage discussing blockchain. He Yi wrote that, at the time, she saw someone who was "talking about blockchain technology on stage, with light in his eyes."

However, He Yi's connection with CZ began even before their offline meeting. The book states that months prior to her first encounter with CZ, she joined a cryptocurrency group they both participated in, and at that time, they were already considered "online acquaintances." In March 2014, OKCoin held an industry summit at Hangzhou University, where CZ took a friend's ride to attend, and the organizers invited him on stage to "speak for a moment." He improvised for a few minutes; it was there that he noticed a girl in the front row, He Yi, who seemed very attentive. This marked their first offline encounter.

They met again two months later. In May 2014, CZ attended another cryptocurrency summit in Beijing and encountered He Yi once more. At this meeting, they quickly finalized an advertising collaboration. Once the collaboration was established, He Yi directly extended an olive branch: since CZ had practical experience at an exchange, there was no reason for him to stay at a wallet company; it would be better for him to join the exchange. At that time, CZ was still at Blockchain.info but was preparing to leave. Upon learning of his resignation, He Yi quickly reached out, offering him a 5% equity invite to join OKCoin. Almost simultaneously, Bitcoin China offered him a 10% equity stake, and OKCoin subsequently matched that 10%, with investors stepping in to facilitate the recruitment. Ultimately, CZ chose to move to Beijing and join OKCoin.

After CZ left OKCoin, a public fallout occurred between Roger Ver and Xu Mingxing over bitcoin.com domain usage fees, with Xu targeting CZ with accusations of "forged contracts." Meanwhile, pressure was applied to He Yi, demanding she publicly criticize CZ. He Yi did not do so and chose to resign instead.

By 2017, when CZ decided to establish an exchange and advance an ICO, he quickly realized he needed someone who could handle branding, marketing, community management, media, and external communication all at once. He immediately thought of He Yi. However, at that time, He Yi was already the CMO of a company that had just completed a $500 million Series E financing round and was planning to go public on NASDAQ the following year; the book also notes that if everything went well, her options could be worth tens of millions of dollars.

The origin of the name Binance: During the initial discussions about the exchange's name, CZ originally considered straightforward expressions close to "B exchange;" but after repeated discussions in which He Yi also participated, the name Binance was ultimately settled upon. After deciding to issue an ICO, the team was under extreme time pressure. Three days later, on June 17, the team completed the initial draft of the bilingual white paper. CZ sent the draft to several friends for feedback and invited them to serve as project advisors; the book notes that among all the advisors, only He Yi suggested modifications to the white paper, and she had many suggestions, so much so that CZ felt the time spent pressing "accept changes" took longer than writing the initial draft. It was during this period that He Yi gradually became more deeply involved in Binance's earliest external narrative and communication work.

After Binance launched, the price of BNB initially plummeted, and community sentiment soured, prompting CZ to frequently go live to respond. The book states that this situation continued for three weeks until "the announcement of He Yi's joining."

In September 2017, during an urgent evacuation from Shanghai, He Yi and her mother had just moved to Shanghai less than a month prior, and her mother had recently injured her tailbone and was unable to walk; however, after confirming the rumors of a looming crackdown late at night, He Yi nevertheless woke her mother from sleep, stating she had to fly to Tokyo immediately and didn’t know when she would return. She caught a ride with CZ to the airport at four in the morning, and on the way, it was He Yi who advised removing her phone's SIM card and turning it off to avoid being tracked.

Sister

The sister's presence runs through the book, covering CZ from childhood to university and up to the early stages of his career. The first detail mentioned is that their mother, due to the lack of kindergartens nearby, allowed the five-year-old sister to try entering school early with positive results. Later, when CZ turned five, she similarly allowed him to enroll two years ahead of time. This marked the starting point where both siblings appeared together in the book.

During the Hefei and Canada periods, the sister's presence became more concrete. After the family moved into a townhouse at UBC, the parents had one room, the sister had another room, while CZ slept in a small storage room without windows. The book describes how the sister would offer to swap rooms with him every few weeks to help him "get some fresh air." After their mother went to work at a garment factory, the fourteen-year-old sister was responsible for cooking dinner for the family, while CZ washed the dishes. Later, when the sister turned fifteen and started working at McDonald's, CZ also joined the workforce there when he reached the minimum employment age a year later. Moving forward to university, during the first year, their father provided him with six thousand Canadian dollars; in the second year, the sister contributed three thousand Canadian dollars to help him.

In his junior year, the sister introduced CZ to the Japanese IT company she worked for, and the interview went smoothly, ultimately resulting in a summer internship opportunity in Tokyo for him. He then decided to stay in Tokyo for work and did not return to McGill to complete his final year of in-person studies but later earned his degree through remote courses for credit transfer.

Another significant detail occurred after CZ completed his prison sentence. The book states that after CZ walked out of the U.S. prison, his family and Michael Santos rushed over, and only after getting into the car did he truly relax; within the few hours of freedom before reporting to the halfway house, the first place he visited was his sister's home. There, he enjoyed a decent lunch and took a "real shower," free from worrying about hitting walls and without needing to wear slippers to avoid dirty floors. After arriving at the halfway house, his sister bought him a new phone to ease the process of screenings.

Mother

During the Zhonghu Village stage, the mother taught math and history at the local middle school; with the father frequently away, she managed to raise two children on her own, with her mother often assisting. The book writes that their home lacked running water, and the nearest well was three hundred meters away. The mother daily carried a shoulder pole back and forth many times to fill the water tank at home; later, when a hand pump was installed, the children felt it was like "magic." It was also the mother who prepared desks for both siblings, which was considered rare at that time in rural conditions.

Due to the absence of kindergartens, she discussed with the primary school teacher to allow the sister to start school early and subsequently replicated this for CZ. By 1987, the family started applying for passports to visit Canada; in the summer of 1989, it was their mother who took the sister and CZ to Beijing to apply for Canadian visas, standing in long lines outside the embassy to prepare recommendation letters and guarantees, ultimately flying with the two children from Shanghai to Vancouver in August 1989. The father was already in Canada, but it was the mother who truly completed this migration with the two children.

On the third day after their arrival in Canada, the mother found sewing work in a garment factory. Originally a teacher in China, she had to take the lowest hourly wage job due to her limited English skills, leaving home early and returning late around seven in the evening. The book does not delve into discussions about this but notes that she quickly entered the garment factory in Canada, consistently working long hours.

SBF

The first time CZ met Sam Bankman-Fried was at Binance Blockchain Week in January 2019, while SBF was still the CEO of Alameda, and FTX had not yet been established.

Later, about a month after FTX launched, communication was handled by Binance CFO Zhou Wei; Zhou admired SBF, believing he had drive. SBF even flew in to meet CZ, who first impression of him was that he had "very high emotional intelligence, spoke appropriately to whoever he met, and was very humble in front of me." At that time, CZ did not invest, reasoning that FTX was too new, and Binance was also about to launch its own derivatives platform. Later, under Zhou Wei's impetus, the FTX terms were adjusted and its valuation lowered, with the proposal of trading BNB for FTT, and Binance eventually invested. However, after the investment, fissures began to appear in their relationship.

SBF poached Binance's junior VIP client manager for five times the salary, who had access to all VIP client information; soon after, Binance VIP users began receiving special offers directly from FTX, with inquiries about whether Binance could match FTX's unpublished special rates.

The book provides detailed accounts of the assistance and negotiation process. He Yi mentioned in the preface that right before FTX's collapse, CZ had stated in an internal management meeting, "If we save FTX, we're also saving the industry and helping ourselves." The main text elaborates that when SBF called CZ for help, he did not immediately articulate the problem but talked for a long time before revealing that he needed several billion dollars and was willing to sell the entire FTX to Binance. CZ's approach was to first sign a non-binding LOI and then review the data. What unfolded next is described directly in the book: the market was deteriorating rapidly, the team was unable to obtain a complete balance sheet, SBF's team was also departing, and within 24 hours, they couldn't assemble even a basic overview; regulatory interventions were also preparing to occur. Ultimately, Binance abandoned the transaction.

Zhou Wei

When CZ wrote about Zhou Wei joining Binance, he gave him high praise: he had an educational background in the U.S., experience as a CFO, and understood the American market, allowing him to quickly assume the role of Binance's financial head, overseeing core powers in mergers, investments, legal affairs, and compliance.

Zhou Wei joined Binance in May 2018, and the first legal head, Jared Grossman, along with the earliest compliance head, Samuel Lim, all reported to him.

In 2019, Zhou Wei proposed doing proprietary trading, reasoning that the company possessed comprehensive data, making trading "easy;" CZ outright rejected this, believing it would create fundamental conflicts of interest. Later, Zhou Wei suggested that they could refrain from using user privacy data and only rely on publicly available information, but this was still rejected.

By 2021, there was another incident involving the modification of investment materials: an hour before the investment decision meeting, Zhou Wei deleted key investor information, leading CZ to approve the investment based on incomplete information. The book notes that after this incident, the relationship between the two parties became very difficult to restore. Zhou Wei subsequently "left gracefully," and the company repurchased his employee shares for ten million dollars. After his departure, Zhou Wei formed a "Binance Avengers" chat group, and years later, he testified in a U.S. Department of Justice case.

Vitalik

CZ first met the then 19-year-old Vitalik at the Bitcoin Summit in Las Vegas in December 2013, while Vitalik was still working for Bitcoin Magazine and already discussing the concept of Ethereum. The two would later meet several more times in Beijing and Chicago.

In 2015, Vitalik visited Tokyo and stayed at CZ's home, sleeping in a bunk bed with CZ's eight-year-old son and teaching him about infinite numbers. Another specific point noted is when CZ was preparing the BNB white paper, he sent it to Vitalik for his feedback. CZ admits in the book that he did not invest in ETH back then and later realized it was a significant missed opportunity.

Ted

Ted was CZ's best friend in high school, coming from a wealthy family; his father was a doctor in Taiwan, and his mother took care of the household in Vancouver, living in a large house and driving the children to and from school. CZ writes in the book that he often forgot to prepare even lunch, while Ted's mother always prepared two lunch boxes, one for Ted and one for CZ. It was also Ted's mother who suggested that CZ become a doctor, leading him to apply for a biology major at McGill University. Later, he discovered in college that he did not enjoy biology and switched to computer science.

After the 2017 ICO, CZ wrote about the practical process in a blog, and Ted called him directly to congratulate him, asking, "Can I join?" When CZ asked him what role he wanted, Ted replied, "Anything works," and the next day he resigned to join, later being in charge of business development and early listings at Binance.

Heina

CZ met Heina in Shanghai in 2005, and they continued to collaborate for many years afterward. Although Heina does not appear as frequently in the foreground narrative in "Binance Life," whenever she does appear, it is usually in a critical internal operational position within the company.

The book mentions that before a key upgrade, someone in the team took the opportunity to create disruptions and demanded raises, even threatening during the upgrade window that "we won't work if we don't get paid." CZ immediately removed the leader and the non-cooperative individuals from the group, leaving only a few who continued to complete the system. Later, the remaining individuals became part of the founding team of Binance, with Heina being one of them.

At Bitjie Technology, Heina was primarily responsible for "backend" affairs: HR, finance, legal matters, administration, tax, business, and government liaison, all handled almost entirely by her. Frontline business and market expansion were more often driven by CZ, while how the company truly revolved internally was often chronicled in the book as Heina's responsibility.

The book also mentions that the long hours of intense work led to almost no boundary between her work and personal life, placing stress on her marital relationship. About a month after Binance started operations, Heina once brought a laptop damaged by her husband to the office for help; CZ writes that the machine actually held Binance's hot wallet, and the team later retrieved the funds by taking out the hard drive.

During the 2017 emergency evacuation due to the Chinese ban, after a late-night conference call, those who decided to leave first included He Yi, Heina, and CZ. He Yi went to Tokyo, and Heina did not have a Japanese visa, so she went to Thailand first. The book says she woke her husband at two in the morning, stating that she had to fly to Thailand at six o'clock and needed him to take her to the airport; when her husband asked how long she would be gone, she simply replied, "Not sure."

Trump

Trump's storyline is mainly concentrated at the end. The book first states that Trump promised to "make America the global cryptocurrency center;" it then writes that in early 2025, individuals like Ross Ulbricht and Arthur Hayes from the Silk Road were successively pardoned while the SEC began to withdraw cases or investigations against companies like Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, OpenSea, and Uniswap. By May 2025, the SEC officially withdrew all lawsuits against Binance's global site, Binance US, and CZ himself.

The most complete segment in the book regarding Trump is the pardon process itself. In April 2025, CZ's lawyer submitted a pardon application to the White House; in June, the lawyer communicated with the White House legal advisory team; on October 21, Trump approved a comprehensive, unconditional pardon for him. He Yi also mentioned in the preface that on the day the news broke, everyone was looking for CZ, but he was actually on his way to a meeting with the Kyrgyz government, and did not even learn he was pardoned right away.

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