CZ: Why I Left OKCoin Back Then On February 10, 2026, Binance founder CZ recalled during an exclusive interview with *The All-In Podcast* that he left OKCoin in early 2015 after working there for several months in 2014 due to cultural differences. Later, he and a few former colleagues founded a Bitcoin exchange in Tokyo, Japan, a year after the Mt. Gox incident, to fill the market gap. CZ served as the CEO and was responsible for fundraising. In the early stages, he used his personal savings to pay the team’s salaries while not taking any salary himself. This became a crucial step before Binance was born. Source: All-In Podcast