But despite the fact that you've likely never heard of the Binance CEO, who now spends his time meeting with royalty and living in the United Arab Emirates, doesn't mean that he isn't gaining on the list of the world's richest people, on the tails of well known celebrity CEOs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. In fact, he's richer than Asia's richest person, Mukesh Ambani, the report notes. 

Described by Bloomberg as a " former McDonald's burger-flipper and software developer" turned "the most prominent personality" in the UAE's crypto scene. Zhao is a Canadian citizen who was born in China's Jiangsu province.

And his fortune could be getting even larger: he still owns a significant amount of Bitcoin and Binance Coin, which was up 1300% last year. 

Zhao's rise to riches hasn't come without its bumps in the road. Binance has been banned from China and is facing a number of regulatory probes globally, for example. The U.S. Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service are probing one of his entities, Binance Holdings, has been used for money laundering and tax evasion. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also looking into potential market manipulation and insider trading within the company, as well as whether it "illegally allowed U.S. clients to trade derivatives tied to cryptocurrencies," Bloomberg wrote.

The company's future will likely hinge on whether or not it can appease regulators. Usually, in our experience, we've found that there's a number that can stave off such probes. We'll have to see if Binance finds itself as lucky. 

DA Davidson & Co. analyst Chris Brendler says that Binance generated at least $20 billion in revenue last year, about triple what is expected from Coinbase. In a recent 24 hour span, Binanace did a whopping $170 billion in transactions. A "slow day" is about $40 billion, Zhao said recently. "I don't care about wealth, money, rankings," he told Bloomberg in November.