CZ Discusses the 'Four No' Investment Principles: No Stocks, No Real Estate, No Cryptocurrency Trading, No Excess Cash

On September 1, founder CZ attended Bitcoin Asia 2026 in Hong Kong and gave an exclusive interview, reflecting on his personal experiences and investment philosophy. CZ was born in a rural area of Jiangsu, immigrated to Canada at the age of 12, and worked at McDonald's and a gas station in Vancouver before studying computer science at McGill University. By the age of 25, he was leading a team of about 60 people with an annual salary of $390,000.

In 2005, CZ moved to Shanghai to start a fintech company, but after 8 years, he left with his equity reduced to zero. After encountering Bitcoin in 2013, he sold his property in Shanghai and invested the funds into Bitcoin, which subsequently dropped by about two-thirds and remained stagnant for about a year and a half. In 2017, CZ founded Binance, raising $15 million through an ICO; the platform's token dropped 40% on its first day but became the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume about five months after its establishment.

CZ stated that most of his personal assets are still in cryptocurrency, and he follows the "Four No" investment principles: no stocks, no real estate trading, no cryptocurrency trading, and no excess cash. The principle of "no cryptocurrency trading" does not mean he does not hold cryptocurrencies, but rather that he does not engage in short-term trading; his strategy is mainly long-term holding, selling only a small amount of assets when needed for consumption.

Regarding real estate, CZ believes that buying, transferring, and selling requires a significant amount of time, and the associated time costs are not worth it. As for stocks, he mentioned that his asset scale is large, and holding a small amount of stocks is of limited significance. He also stated that holding fiat currency is "the dumbest investment strategy" because cash continues to depreciate, so he only keeps the funds needed for daily expenses and exchanges them when expenditures are necessary. He also shared his decision-making framework: decisions that are significant and irreversible should be slowed down, while those that are less impactful and reversible can be executed quickly and continuously adjusted.

CZ indicated that he is currently mainly investing in early-stage projects through YZiLabs and continues to inject capital during market downturns. In the past six months, YZiLabs has invested in nearly 200 projects, with about 80% focused on Web3 and 20% in the AI sector. He believes these investments may yield good returns in the next one to two years.