Abstract:
According to the Financial Associated Press, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming became the richest man in Asia for the first time. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 43-year-old Zhang Yiming’s net worth has exceeded US$105 billion, ranking 18th in the world. As soon as the news came out, some people were immediately dissatisfied.
Some people point out that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) also has UAE citizenship. Forbes predicts that his net worth is US$114.6 billion, ranking 18th in the world. CZ is the real richest man in Asia, the richest man in the currency circle, and the richest non-Chinese American in the world, and this number is seriously underestimated.
Subsequently, CZ (Changpeng Zhao) personally responded with a very humble attitude:
1. Yiming’s worth is seriously underestimated;
2. Ranking is not important;
3. It’s important when you don’t have enough money to spend, but just enough to spend;
4. Health, family, and friendship are more important. Then you will be happy doing something meaningful to you.
To be able to say this, CZ’s mentality is indeed good. However, regardless of the title of richest man, the quality of their wealth is very different between the two.
Zhang Yiming’s ByteDance is a real phenomenon-level industry.
Some netizens lamented, "Douyin is indeed an epoch-making product in human history in the 21st century." The longest-used app in China is Douyin. "I pick up my phone and swipe it for hours. It is as addictive as porn."
He even envisioned a future scenario: In the AI era, 1% of people possess top intelligence to run society, and 99% of people rely on national welfare to become addicted to "electronic ***." Although the statement is exaggerated, the penetration of Douyin into ordinary people's lives is evident from this.
Douyin and TikTok cover billions of users around the world. Byte's revenue in the first half of the year directly exceeded Meta's, which is real money revenue. Advertising, e-commerce, live streaming, games, and local life, each has a real business closed loop, and every penny corresponds to real user behavior and consumption.
Byte is a company that has truly changed the lifestyles of hundreds of millions of people. From information acquisition to shopping and entertainment, it has penetrated into the capillaries of society. And as a benchmark for domestic technology companies, Byte enjoys the support of the policy environment as a whole, and is encouraged to go overseas and has high hopes.
CZ’s Binance is essentially a virtual currency industry. Cryptocurrency trading, token issuance, and digital assets, no matter how lively these things are, have no physical support. There are no factories, no goods, and no offline services. They are all based on numbers and consensus. The industry is extremely volatile. With a regulatory policy, tens of billions of market value can be evaporated; during a bear market cycle, token prices can fall by 80%.
CZ himself had previously resigned as CEO because Binance was sued by the US SEC and ultimately paid a settlement of US$4.3 billion. Regulatory risks have always been hanging over his head. A large part of his wealth is the market value of BNB tokens, which are worth 100 billion today and may be worth 50 billion tomorrow.
So these two "richest men" have completely different values. Behind Zhang Yiming's 105 billion is a huge technology empire, a real business that can continue to generate cash flow. CZ’s 114.6 billion is essentially a financial platform built on virtual assets. Although the number is larger, there are also more “virtual” elements.
This is why more people recognize Zhang Yiming’s status as the “richest man in Asia”. ByteDance, a physical technology company that has changed the lives of hundreds of millions of people, is obviously more “powerful” than cryptocurrency trading platforms.
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