Binance's CEO on the New Binance Vision | Richard Teng

Transcript

so we begin the year with 170 million users we ended the year with 250 million users so 70 million new users on board so if you think about it essentially more than 40% of our users are new to the platform that just came on board last year the number of Institutions on boarding have more than double this cycle unlike previous cycle we have seen institutionalization right we have not seen that in previous cycle right with the ETF that was approved earlier on in 2020 4 and then throughout the year you know you have different institutions coming on board becoming Believers instead of skeptic from likes of FL Ro the child swap the Fidelity today's episode is sponsored by geod net they're

a leading dpin protocol that's providing critical location and spatial intelligence Services needed for AI driven robots and drones discover how the Network's native token geod is powering the next wave of the robotics Revolution by hitting the link in the description of today's episode all right everyone back with another episode of Empire we got Santiago here we are also joined by Richard Tang the uh I guess not new anymore but the uh CEO of binance so Richard welcome to the show thanks for having me on the show yeah um Richard I actually wanted to start with a uh with a story I'm sure we'll ask you a lot about binance and product lines and uh geographies and stuff like that but I

wanted to ask about a story about CZ um I think a lot of people know CZ as this kind of like ruthless operator and expanded really quickly but I've actually heard that his uh from people at binance that his superpower is recruiting um and convincing people to join binance uh and I'd love to hear the story of how CZ convinced you uh I think you were in some some high-powered roles before binance and I'd love to hear how he convinced you to actually come to binance well I think there's a public perception of CZ and then you know on the private basis that we do is CZ he's he's quite different right he is extremely extremely humble person right down to earth very relatable very convincing right he's very very

persuasive and convincing so I think you're talking about that side of him very very convincing and very persuasive so I met Cy through a mutual friend of ours right about June of 2021 right uh at that point in time you know Singapore was doing a covid period so there's a lot of restrictions in terms of public meeting so I met him on his yacht and you know there's only two of us we discuss and uh initial one hour meeting turned out to be at least a two and a half if not 2 hour 45 meeting right where you discuss where he discussed you know the his vision his the future of binance and by the end of that conversation he asked me to join

him uh with within a company in some capacity initially as a director and then subsequently say what why don't you just come and join the the team right I thought about it discussed further in my my family and went to him say why not you know this is I have been very very I'm a believer of crypto since 2017 so I said you know having a chance to work with the largest crypto exchange and working with this Legend before me uh having the chance to work from him you know you you can't miss such an opportunity yeah what was that Vision that he laid out well he he was very simple and and clear right so his vision is to build the largest crypto ecosystem

which binance really is but continue to serve users to the best of our ability always putting users interest front and foremost and everything we do it and that covers many things right in terms of product features in terms of putting users interest first safeguarding user assets ET so he was very very passionate about that he's very passionate about this industry at that point in time when I met him again is a much smaller industry compared to what you see today I mean today crypto adoption is what between close to 7% uh at a point in time is much lower and he he wants to continue to support the deployment of crypto globally he wants to continue to support deployment adoption globally on

that front and he believes strongly strongly that this that it has a long long way to go right and and we want to be significant players on that front yeah yeah okay so you you joined binance um a year later you know CZ tweets out about dumping ftt a year later you have these like kyc AML sanctions a year later there's this like4 billion doll fine I think 4.3 which I'm I'm I'm pretty sure is one of the largest uh in history CZ Goes to Jail just on a um I'm sure on an executive level it was like you know just you had to do what you had to do and you had to get through but maybe on a more personal human level like I just very curious what the last couple years have have felt

like well it has been phenomenal in terms of maybe on what you have just said yeah maybe if I bring you back to 2017 so I think it's easy to look at developments in the last few years and say you know a lot have developed but if you look at what when bining started the journey in 2017 July right and it's it's still a relatively young company we're going to celebrate our eighty year anniversary this year so it's a seven and a half old company so in 2017 10 no institutional adoption no corporates believe in this space crypto adoption was less than 1% C started this company with the vision of supporting crypto

adoption globally Regulators are not devoting time energy on this right so they essentially you know is blue skies Regulators not regulating this space so in those very early days in those very nent days uh where regul where regulation was unclear clear like we have made certain mistakes we have underinvested in things like compliance in those early days right as a fast growing company I think CZ didn't expect the company to be to grow within you know the first 90 days first 180 days essentially to become the largest crypto exchange globally right so the size of the pace of growth was phenomenal for you right so you know as we've all fast growth there are certain things they'll be lagging so there are certain things

that were lagging we underinvested so what you happened what you mentioned some of those things was because of the under Investments of those critical areas in those R early days and especially where rules were unclear the last two years I think rules were starting to develop there's much more clarity around the world on how crypto will be regulated there's much more to I mean this you are seeing a lot more mainstreaming now so the narrative the discussion is totally different but if you bring you back then you know nobody give much regard to this right people don't think that crypto is going to survive for the long term etc etc so you I have to put things into context on that front first right so so it's important but we have again make very

heavy investment into the compliance area in the last few years you mentioned about kyc KYB we are one the first Global exchange to make you know kyc KY mandatory for our clients right for and still some exchanges don't don't do that yeah yeah so we have come a long way and we continue to invest greatly into this space we are very confident that you know of our compliance area now is headed by Noah Burman you know very very experienc in this space he has a team of professionals with him now and we I mean last year alone the number of licenses that we have Grew From 14 at the beginning of the the year to

21 by the end of the year so you continue to see that we continue to get licenses globally continue to develop deploy globally and work very closely with both Regulators globally as well as law enforcement globally on their friend so we continue to mature as a as a yeah so so it's I mean the having you in the seat makes a lot of sense because I you know I was looking at your background and you're a regulator um you seem like one of the nice Regulators I will say but uh you guys it's interesting because my I thought you guys would have to stop doing a lot of the things I mean binance got to the place it got to by you know ear listing Things Early getting out to New Markets early um and I thought a lot of that would would slow down but you

know you guys are still you're listing a lot of mem coins you're still very early to listings you have new launch pool project uh projects and in the last couple months I mean you guys have given users a lot more trading opportunities I would say just in the last couple months and it kind of goes against what I thought would happen when you put a regulator as the CEO and I'm just can you talk about this maybe uh dynamic between like having to slow down growth because or slow down these things that kind of got you to where you are because The Regulators are kind of looking down your back I mean I saw you invested 200 million into compliance that's a good question again this opportunity to correct your perception which is okay okay so if you look at the number of coins that we list we are the most

stringent exchange globally we list far fewer coins compared to many of our competitors globally and and you know a listing on binance many in the crypto industry where you got that as the holy Grill because of because of a deep liquidity right so we we have the deepest Market liquidity um the most number of users most number of Traders and our platform and any Trader will know that having the narrowest spread result in substantial savings for the clients over time right so that's part of protecting our users as well in terms of protecting user interest so if you look at the number of coins that we list is I think is less than 600 so you

compared to many other exchanges we list much less coin we are very very stringent with the coin selection process on that front we have published you know the listing criteria and we ring fence the listing team so much so that we give them the time and space to do their independent due diligence right we don't allow them to you know the many instances connect with external parties because you know how how how this space operate you know there could be temptations that we don't want to subject them to so we ring fans them we have very clear criteria that we publish to the marketplace people that wish to contact us you know send they want to list their coins they sending a form with all the information that's needed

the team can can contact them to get further clarification and there are a lot of criterias that we go through before we release a coin but listing itself is not the end of the journey we always tell our projects right that we list is the beginning of the journey right it is where you start continue to develop your project and to repay the faith the confidence that user plac in you and that is the very important thing and we continue to drill that message to all the tokens to all the project that we list and we hold them very clearly to high standards so if they we we don't need list tokens we also theist tokens that don't pay attention to all these

reviews right that don't continue to build don't continue to develop and Hance the offering repay user interest Etc we delas projects as you know and you'll see all those announcement that we have deled the projects they have not performed so well over time so we we continue to take those R seriously and I want to correct perception on that front uh Richard uh maybe I'll take this opportunity to ask you a little bit more about that list process I mean I've seen portfolio companies in mine I I think you guys probably have the most stringent almost like going to register with the SEC if you go to do an IPO like the amount of information disclosures that you guys require is extremely stringent in a good way and I think that could in fact become the the facto

standard uh like twofold of a question the first one is can you walk us more into how you think about the you know in traditional Finance allocators like lead Underwriters get a certain allocation of the of the stock and they charge fees how do you how do you what what's the structure for binance like I've seen all over the map kind of how much percentage of the token Supply that you get how do you come up with that fee what is a rationale how does it vary by project by project like how do you come up with that well so let me just highlight some of the things that we do that's you know very very stringent compared to what industry does in fact there are many areas just to use this point to expound

on other areas so if you think about it there are many areas that we go Way Beyond what industry standards are or what Regulators require from the very early days right so we came out with safu fund right uh and that is in the instance of possible security bridge on our platform we use that to convin it users touch we do have we have invested very heavily in in security measures and we have very confident of our security measures on that front uh but that is just an instance uh where you really go beyond Regulatory and Industry standards and and the list goes on right we help our

users recover funds that they transfer wrongly we have anti- scams initiative where we detect malicious wallet we have blacklisted 47,000 wallets in the last year alone help to prevent our users from getting scams we send out 15,000 uh messages 30 we call users you know uh to alert them of such so so I just want to use as to expound the point uh in terms of those details I think I do not we do not discuss them publicly I mean those those already depend on Dynamics because you have to understand we do have different products uh that you're talking about right you have things like Mega drop you have you know launch

launch pool on that front and you have binance Alpha that we're looking right so there are various things what I will discuss a bit more is in terms of the criteria that our team use for their research and evaluation right these are non-exhaustive but they look at you know the project team the quality of the team who's behind what are the Innovation they're looking at what's the road map they're trying to build the community engagement that they have currently right have they managed to build that up what's the market demand um you know for most of the coins that have use case what's the utility what's the Practical applications as well as security and compliance I think those are very

important things like how they do their tokenomics how they have done their distribution initially etc those those are different factors that we look at right so other than that a lot of things really we also want to support small and medium projects so there's no one siiz fit all I will say on that front because what we treat for some projects are not what we apply to some of the smaller and mediumsized projects that we really wish to continue to support as part of supporting the growth of the industry got it how do you um I'm maybe just as a followup to that um do you always like when you when you go and

engage with a project like um I'm just sort of curious the Launchpad there's a lot of successful track records there projects like your distribution is unparalleled um how to like I mean when you think about the overall fees like is it like a dollar amount or notional amount is it a token Supply amount and when it's a token Supply like I'm curious like how that has evolved over time I'm not I'm not going to discuss that I think we can move to another subject matter because these are very specific these are not gen what you know maybe interesting to General AUD but we were happy to discuss with any

projects maybe we can um evolve into the product lines in general Richard so Santiago's talking about this Launchpad and like the distribution of the exchange how do you think about so I mean you guys are massive business right now right 5,000 employees I think the last I saw was roughly 230 million users hiring thousands of people um you have yeah Launchpad institutional business retail uh Venture Labs you have a big research arm how do you think about the Revenue breakdown and like how to spend your time and how to like spend obviously you can't share I'm sure the revenue breakdown of each of the lines but like how do you think about uh waiting the priorities uh of of these different of all these different things that you guys do so if you if you think

about it we do less launch we do a lot more launch pool nowadays right U and at day if you drill down fundamentally look at us look at binance.com as a crypto exchange is a crypto exchange to allow people that interested to buy sell trade hatch the exposure in crypto to trade so that's what that's essentially what we do among that you have different products you have you know different features that we try to develop time to time you have things like you know we experiment on things like you know Mega draw B Finance Alpha Etc on those front but you know you have sport you have

Futures you have earned your super earned products uh etc etc and and those represent all the product Suites that we have across the board right what we want to do really is to continue to understand where the sector is going in terms of demand going forward we want to and we get a lot of feedback from our users areas that we have done well where they plot us areas that we have not done so well areas they want us to go into and we evaluate those clearly very very close as and when is possible we'll try to you know develop and roll those product features out as far possible last year we introduced web Tre wallet we got

feedback on that we enhanced the wallet uh on on that front and we're going to see for that enhancement right uh so we will continue to push out new products features if not necessary new product as well as product enhancement throughout the year uh we have things like Finance gr that came in last year as well Mega drop came in last year bance Alpha came in last year Etc so we'll continue to sometimes experiment and sometimes you know pushing out new product features that we see that our users are interested in yeah from where you said you probably have some of the best if not the best uh data around user engagement and that might lead you to understand where we are in the cycle in

terms of just by by analogy of like prior Cycles what um what's your estimation around like uh activity in the platform have you noticed a like a meaningful uptick how does that compare to you know prior years or prior Cycles any noticeable differences in user Behavior or interest in particular sectors well every cycle is different so but 2024 has been a good year I think for everybody involved in the crypto sector so we begin the year with 170 million users we ended the year with 250 million users so 70 million new users on board so if you think about it essentially more than 40% of our users are new to the platform that just came on board last year the number of

Institutions on boarding have more than double last year so you can see so this cycle which is why I say every cycle is slightly different is this cycle unlike previous cycle we have seen institutionalization right we have not seen that in previous cycle right with the ETF that was approved earlier on in 2024 and then throughout the year you know you have different institutions coming on board becoming Believers in sad of skeptic from likes of flag Rock to child swap to Fidelity and and that list goes on right and then everybody has a crypto agenda if you look at the top 200 financial institutions you have a crypto blockchain agenda uh or have trading Des that trade aggressively or

they allow their wealth managers to advise on crypto right today I saw news that Morgan Stanley is contemplating on that front and then you see corporates in in the US and around the world World starting to think whether should they allocate part of their treasury in the crypto us is thinking of a strategic Bitcoin reserve on that front and that makes a lot of difference right um it's not only the US that's thinking about it many countries around the world are starting to think you know uh of the same issue and I understand that Brazil uh is really pushing on the agenda on some of this front as well so is 2024 has been very different compared to

previous cycle so you have seen huge institutionalization you have seen mainstreaming as well uh so this cycle feels a bit different especially the first nine months of last year you know you see a lot of institution interest retail activity wasn't as robust initially but they has since come back so I when I was interviewed beginning of 2024 right I said two things I think the first thing I was asked about the price prediction before the end of 2024 I said Bitcoin will should reach more than 880,000 by then there are many skeptic when I say that Bitcoin was you know uh was a lower price uh again I think the market has has been proven right and

Bitcoin is one of the best performing asset class if not the best performing asset class last year if you look at the whole crypto industry has grown hugely in terms of market capitalization so I think those are big positive the micro strategy was included in ndaq 100 again those those are Big Game Changer I think for everybody involving crypto we have a pro crypto president in the states which I I believe all of you will be very very happy right again setting the agenda uh regulatory agenda giving more clarity so we we are seeing a lot of that we are seeing Innovation uh stable coins has

gone mainstream with adoption you have seen a lot of uh payment institutions supporting crypto uh you have seen defi getting more traction other than you know your traditional centralized exchange centralized products defi getting more traction uh dpin discussion you have seen rwa so I think Innovation is pushing ahead which is important for the sector to continue grow yeah double clicking on that um a lot of exchanges have launched their own Layer Two you guys have had the binance like chain for a long time how do you think about the relationship with the user when they are

in the exchange then they might you know you also mentioned a web 3 wallet how do you think about that dynamic between centralized world and transitioning to web 3 and like curating that experience for the user and the relationship with the user and the ability to you know build a sustainable continue to build a sustainable business model well I I think there there's an important question my view is both the centralized world as well as decentralized world will continue to grow uh I think that's that's pretty that's pretty clear to me at least in the next couple of years will a time period come by where the decentralized war be much bigger than the centralized war that may come but it it will take a long time reason being the user

experience is much better in the in a central X exchange where you do kyc KYB uh you have somebody to go to law enforcement agencies Regulators have somebody uh to really layers with for all their requests right the same may not be the same in the D5 World your fat on nor friend is much easier in the centralized space right the payment space the payments are much easier again I mean all a lot of those advantages and in the decentralized world as you know if you and the centralized exchange there's customer service if there's something going wrong with your accounts you can you can speak to somebody again

is not the same experience but my view is both will continue to grow people they are very native repb tree they can do a lot in defi will which they are very familiar with but you have to remember the majority of the population are not crypto native as of now and to bring that about you there be some timeline but as the you know as the generation today that people in their 20s and 30s start to start to get mature right with time passes and the more sa will continue to come true that that might come a time who knows stable coins have been a killer product you guys initially had b b USD now you prioritized other stable coins how do you think about that and that sector of

the business um and and maybe initiatives that you have to continue to support that for your users well firstly we are a platform that's very supportive of all Innovation all crypto Innovation we want to support Innovation and as you mentioned uh stable coin is one of the very important use cases of crypto Innovation and adoption the pace of it crypto stable coin has contined increase in terms of adoption uh we have partner uh different stable coins right uh that you mentioned B USD very early on there was a partnership on that front again it was unfortunate what happened to be ussd um but recently we also announced other

partnership including the one that we have with circle on usdc we're excited with that partnership and we look forward to continue to support adoption in the stable coin space do you think that you guys would ever launch your own stable coin again Richard at this at this point in time is not in the pipeline uh we are working with you know we are agnostic platform we want to support as many as possible I mean in Europe we support other stable coins as well because of Mika requirements uh so we have UI and and other stable coins yeah we do have a lot of partnership proposal in different parts of the world right yeah I mean us being a global player uh in in every

regions are deploying we have proposal and we review those proposal to see whether it makes sense firstly either for the global platform or you know it is something more much more Regional in terms of perspective for those product class right so but any point in time we get a lot of a lot business proposal yeah I'm sure I'm sure do you have I mean as a you know former regulator do you have any thoughts on um tether it seems like the regulatory risk around tether is probably mostly gone because Trump got elected and you know caner Fitzgerald and uh their relationship uh with with tether there but just curious how you how you see tether broadly I'm no longer a regulator so you have to

ask binance yeah yeah they probably get more information than I do so I think it's a it's not a question I can answer from regulatory perspective but from an industry perspective I mean Teta has contined grow from strength to strength you know they continue to support user in their Journey uh and I very confident I mean they they have their own game plan in terms of how they engage The Regulators and policy makers around the world on that front so I'm sure they have their road map all all set up maybe one more question on uh Santi Santiago's uh earlier stuff about binance smart chain and this kind of line between CI and D I just saw that today Dex volume is now 20% of sex volume I think for the

first time ever do you see a time when dexas will be a serious competitor to binance well Dex has grown a lot in the last few years right again going back to the point I mentioned now there there are certain areas that centralized exchange are doing much better um but I have no doubt that Dex will continue to grow will it come a time where the volume of Dex you know is much bigger than CX who knows yeah we see um back to you talk a lot about Innovation where once the volume continue to grow um

regulatory scrutiny and pol policies maker scrutiny or start to go into that space so when they small again it's like crypto when you're small Regulators don't spend a lot of time and energy once you start to get a certain size I think Regulators might apply the same set of Standards to ensure a Level Playing Field one idea I've had is uh knowing how stringent your listing requirements are um could that ser Sano you're very interested in listings because I I did invest in banking so I I just think that you guys are in a very Prime position to set the standard for regulatory Clarity because I think I think the misperception I'm I'm not trying to be like over critical about fees I'm not trying to extract my point is just

seeing how stringent you guys are I think the market doesn't truly appreciate on the outside in from a perception standpoint and I'm trying to emphasize that point I'm more asking do you see an opportunity to set a standard from a regulatory guidance standpoint to say this is because I think we can all agree as an industry we need standardization of what information projects disclose token wallet address vesting schedules you know all of that if everyone the role of regulator should be to to your point to create Market integrity and fairness for every participant and that's it they shouldn't have an opinion on the assets but they do on crypto or half historically my point to you is do you see an Avenue for binance playing a bigger role on regulatory clarity now that we have an incoming us Administration that is more

more open and receptive to creating one well we try to so you make an absolutely very important point right so Regulators just pay certain attention to certain areas and in many instances U those doesn't go far enough in our view and we share with them but unfortunately as you know there are regulatory priorities there's regulatory resources are scar a lot of time they underfunded in many instances they don't get the talent they don't get the resources that they need and I you give a a very good example in terms of listings right we should have more stringent listing standard and you know if possible Regulators should set the listing standard uh which in many instances is not being done right so

that there is a certain minimum criteria that all the exchanges possibly need to adhere to right uh of course you have the pH flexibility to to decide what to list um as long as you meet those criteria but you must clear those minimum Benchmark and for our we set even a higher Benchmark is to make sure that our users are protected uh in terms of we we we impose V Rion criteria but same can be said for security we have highlighted this issue to many Regulators around the world we we said that look it's not only about things like money laundering EML issues which should be hygiene issues by now but if you think about security last year alone how many exchanges was hack right so you

I mean werx large indan check sa for 2013 million you have BX you have indoex in Indonesia you have BTC and and that least goes on right meaning that most of the exchanges have underinvested in security and if you look at what happened to RX after the hack and they have an external uh custody provider and they still got hacked for that amount you went to liquidation user assets was not protected on that front so he said that look it means that's there a problem but again these are not areas that Regulators spend time and these are critical areas to protect user interest right so if you think about how they do

things like Co wallet for instance how do you do your wallet management how do you preserve us assets these are fundamental to any exchanges but these are not being discussed enough yeah absolutely um transitioning a little bit more promis that might be my only last question around regulatory stuff um the how do you think about SEC uh geographies um which markets do you are you really excited about I've heard around like India and some of like Southeast Asian countries but just um how do you think about like prioritizing expansion every region has its price sport so Asia Pacific you know as you mentioned a few right India is very big Market very high crypto adoption we are very happy to be regulated in India uh then now uh and you look at different

parts of Asia there are many different PR Sports Vietnam South Korea is obviously a big Market uh Indonesia Thailand Philippines Etc and then those list goes on if you look at South Asia uh the likes of other than India Bangladesh Etc Pakistan is big on that but every region right so if you look at Latin America again there are a lot of bright spots Brazil Argentina uh Mexico and that this goes on and they're growing very fast um we have secured licenses in Argentina and Brazil to support crypto deployment over there uh Middle East uh North Africa a the entire African continent again are

growing very fast so there's no one area that we are focusing on as a global platform we need to know what where are the growth area and really push and support our user journey in those areas how do you think about building versus buying into some of these regions uh sometimes You' bought an exchange sometimes s you've actually like you know done the effort to get a license um I would say that in it really depends right so in many instances we we prefer to build ourselves we prefer to go in you know apply for the license stand Our Own Credit but a lot of times in in terms of Market deployment is much much

faster to buy uh R uh financial institutions and then you just change whatever is you need to change internally to get it operational those are much faster deployment in terms of uh acquisition but also partnership is important you have seen we partner in Thailand GF which is one of the largest thae company uh there again there there's no one single model that you know we just adopt it really depends on local market dynamics MH yeah absolutely uh I've heard CZ most recently just continue to adopt this

Narrative of um you know really pushing the non-speculative adoption of crypto um how do you think about that like when you hear that what does that actually mean to you and the organization and things that you're doing to really push that forward well I always stress that we we want to support all all form of innovation right so again the the different types of you know one label infrastructure game five which is power building social fire you have seen many different narrative right so even things like de uh we will continue to look at those areas and then you have a more controversial subject matter of MIM Kong uh should we be supporting that but

this is really MIM represents different things to different people there are people that very against it there are people that very supportive of it again me may not be the b or may not be the end state where which we see now right so for example Dodge t as a as a meme and I think Dodge will continue to develop into something totally different right the road map is going to be very very different on that front so just don't take some of this at face value but for the people that are much much younger he represents them a fun way of learning and being engaged in this sector right so it is a bit sometimes is also a bit of

antiestablishment right so if you remember the anti-establishment movement on Wall Street where people buying into some of those mem stocks right it could be a bit of that so it represents different things to different people we are quite careful we look at it uh but we want to support our user we want to support their interest areas and but we still continue to apply our our listing criteria and listing standards to many of them geonet is a first ofit kind d protocol that's revolutionizing satellite navigation Services they're actively generating onchain Revenue that's growing 500% year-over-year by providing Precision location services that are 100 times more accurate than

standard GPS on Empire we always talk about finding how crypto can power completely new business models and they're a perfect example of this they're already trusted by over 30 Enterprise customers across Industries including Automotive agriculture construction and even robotics the network is powered by its native token GE EOD and easily mind with their satellite Minor by setting up a base station you can get involved with this uh groundbreaking web 3 ecosystem learn more by heading over to geod net.com or just by hitting the link in the description of today's episode uh from the outside in a lot of

the criticism that we continue to hear is hey crypto just a casino you know you know you just are just speculating on stuff that doesn't have real cash flow doesn't have real tangible and you know you can you know counteract and you know argue the the alternative what would you say to those people you know because a lot of our listeners might just think that like that well it is a difficult Journey for us to continue to change that narrative uh but we can only do it through greater awareness and effort right so as Larry Finn put it very very clearly right he went from a the skeptic to believer why is that the case because the more you take time and resources to understand and to learn about this space you know

the True Value right you know the True Value behind all the different layer ones the different layer to was what they're supposed to do uh the different type of Subs segments with crypto what do they represent the utility of the different projects on that front right um so it really takes time energy and effort right so we on our own we spend a lot of time educating not only educating our users so uh we educate the public at large so last year I think believe so far 44 million users have gone through binance Academy which is a free to a Content you know you have plenty of information U Learning Materials in

there that you can learn anything about blockchain and crypto many many people take advantage of it we Tire with universities and learning institutions to Raw you know U syllabus on crypto and and blockchain around the world we conduct courses uh and and the same perception exists among policy makers and Regulators as well as law enforcement agencies around the world so we spent a lot of time energy with the policy makers the law enforcement agencies people say you know crypto is used for money laundering essentially by large other than being a casino that you mentioned and the data is furthest from the truth so if you look at data published by the US Financial crime office less than 0.02% of money

laundering take place via crypto the rest take place VI your traditional fat space right if you look at you know money laundering last year some of the biggest news came from uh the fat and banking space but nobody reports to that because it's not sexy crypto is a newspage right there's lack of understanding if you look at what is being reported in traditional media media is is has always been quite anti- crypto but by hope you know under the new US Administration things would change on that front there's going to be much more understanding and now the institutions are into this space it means that they have really done their due diligence to really understand what this space represent right because it cannot be that all the institutions just

part in this space saying that you know this is a bad space they must know the benefit and the good of this is so again for those non-believers take time to understand uh then you will really understand what this space is about yeah there's been a lot of discussion around exchanges becoming much more than an exchange a bank uh and really just like a sort of a TENS Cent model like you just Encompass particularly for younger Generations you just capture many more business lines like 10cent did very successfully in China is that something that you think about and if so in what time frame ire and and how does that sequence look like like what does

Finance looks like in five or 10 years well we always explore new areas right so you if you look at the broader landscape you have seen the broader convergence right so 2024 you see a lot of those convergence you see stock broking firms Banks starting to offer crypto stock broking firms buying crypto exchanges or or brokerage firms to try to merge and increase their product offering right I I've seen many of the traditional firms that traditional trading firms that just used to trade Commodities Forex stocks bonds last year adding a crypto death and start trading crypto right adding to their repertoire of assets right so you're are going to see a much greater

convergence between what we term as trapy uh and and defy and crypto right on that front so you're going to see that what form will they D is uh things are developing at a very rid pace um but I would say that our key focus at binance is continue to be the best of what we do which is being the largest crypto exchange globally uh offering our users the deepest liquidity pool uh you know where they enjoy substantial savings over time if they trade to us we apply very stringent standards so that you know we have quality asset that's been listed on our platform and that's part of user protection uh which we hold

very de at binance so we continue to focus on all those things will we explore other things um it really depends right um do you think do you think you guys will explore um like traditional equities uh trading or you know add yeah add equities trading to the platform as well at this point in time we have no intention to do that um again we are not expert in that space um will we partner with somebody else at this stage you know is too early to call as know uh if there any proposals out there that we think is interesting enough for us to consider and we come to a conclusion on that front we will let the market know but it is uh it's different because if you think about it crypto

trades 247 we're very used to this product class traditional Equity you know trade the day the technology is very different the operational aspects are very very different are you going to see a lot of synergy between the two not that much yeah essentially that two Standalone still Standalone platform you just offering you know greater products for those people that wish to Tri do and I guess on that note of binance in five or 10 years would you guys ever reconsider a US expansion a and I guess on that note would you um would you ever think about taking binance public Never Say Never to any of these things I think I'm old enough right I'm

my enough to say never say never right but these are things that we constantly think about you know where should we continue to deploy are there any issues that we need to overcome globally any Regulators that we need to engage and convince etc etc right so us under the Trump Administration is be very very Pro crypto you're going to see a lot more Innovation coming out from the states I think there's a new dynamism coming out so crypto Renaissance is is coming on that front I think some have as a golden era of crypto we possibly will see that we have very clear rules coming out with have you know Pro crypto uh Regulators being put in place and I believe both the House of

Representative as well as Senate are very Pro crypto on that front so you're going to see a very good four years ahead where you're going to see a lot more Innovation being pushed through um a lot of new product features and it could be trap five firms issuing coming out with some of this new product features on their own platform Etc so we're going to see a lot more there so Never Say Never we will continue to explore possibilities yeah Richard so uh let's go back to that time where you having a discussion with c and the yacht what would you tell yourself knowing what you know now and what you've lived through what would you have told you can only tell yourself one piece of advice or one

piece of information and what would what would what would you have told that older I mean younger version of Richard before stepping into the role that you did now if if I can be much younger and I want to be 10 years before I met C is to put a lot more exposure into crypto right so but I mean uh when I I don't think I'll tell myself anything that's quite different right so you know I have a very good relationship with Cy you know very good rapport with him uh and I mean I don't know whether you you guys have met C you know he's a very straight forward is I told C see he's

extremely transparent and he's extremely straight forward person you can ask him the same question at different occasion in different setting and his answer will always remain the same so he he is a very straightforward he's a straight talker he's extremely transparent about his views of different things you can ask him he's very very what white red as you know and he will be totally transparent about his position and those position don't change Through Time right that's something that I realize he doesn't change um I mentioned several other things about him extremely humble in the social setting you know um's he's a great leader I'm quite fortunate to have with him yeah Richard

um thank you for the time I know you're busy um is there anything else just as we as we wrap this podcast any other miscon ctions about binance uh that you want to set the record straight or any thoughts on on 2025 that you want to cover that we haven't discussed yet well we are the most regulated crypto exchange globally so we have licensed in 241 or regulatory approval in 21 different places around the world so there's still still a perception that you know um some somewhat negative some from time to time that when I talk to people right is from the days where binance was growing at a very very fast PA as I mentioned very nent underinvested in some things but we have corrected a lot of things right and last

year we put in corporate structure on that front we have appointed board of directors we three independent directors so through our engagement with The Regulators I think those perception are starting to change quite rapidly in terms of our engagement we work very closely policy makers around the world and we have always always Place user interest at the Forefront of everything we do every decision that we make so we always make sure that you our users are protected on that front I think those are under reported in terms of listing policies or security uh etc etc and that list goes on so hopefully over time we'll continue to push the agenda we are still at a

very early stage right so if you look at crypto adoption is less than 10% um the next 10% will come true very quickly if you look at what happened during the internet age right the first 10% is very slow but once you reach that threshold the the adoption will come true very quickly so you're going to see that very fast adoption coming true but we are still very early stage we want to continue to support Innovation uh so we are still early in the game we are going from early adopters to mainstreaming but it's still going to be very exciting right for everybody that's still not that not involved start to learn about the space if you have any misconception a lot of institution a lot of bright brains around the world have changed your

perception of crypto it's time that you spend some energy on it yeah indeed good way to end it Richard congrats on everything uh I think most folks in the industry are rooting for binance in 25 and I think you guys will have a big year here thank you so much for keep hey everyone just wanted to give a quick thanks to today's title sponsor geod net by setting up a base station you can get involved with this groundbreaking web3 ecosystem learn more by heading over to geod net.com or just by hitting the link in the description of today's episode [Music]