Interview with CZ: I am proud to lead an industry-leading organization as a Chinese
Original post by Benjamin Pimentel (@benpimentel)
Compilation of the original text: Colin, SevenUpDAO
Known simply as CZ in the crypto space, he is the head of one of the most dominant players in the industry.
It took Binance CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao just five years to build his company (founded in 2017) into the world's largest exchange, with 90 million customers and about $76 billion in daily trading volume, surpassing the U.S. Cryptocurrency giant Coinbase .
But Binance has also become one of the most controversial companies in the crypto space. It has been accused of being a "hub for hackers, fraudsters and drug dealers". The company is banned from operating in two of the largest markets in the world - the United States, where they have a separate entity, Binance.US, operating with the help of Binance. Another country is the country where Binance started.
Even though Binance had to abandon its country of origin shortly after its launch, critics still described the exchange as their tool. CZ, who was born there but grew up in Canada and is a naturalized Canadian citizen, addressed the allegation in a blog post after a reporter questioned a Binance employee accused of spying on Twitter .
first level title
Stablecoin Policy
Benjamin: Why did you delist Circle’s USDC? Some have described it as a very aggressive competitive move.
CZ：That's a misnomer. We didn't actually delist USDC. People can still deposit and withdraw USDC from Binance. It's just that when they deposit, we automatically convert them to BUSD. We consolidate all liquidity in BUSD. When people complete a transaction and they want to withdraw, they can withdraw USDC and other stablecoins. So it's not delisting. It's a misunderstanding, and we somehow haven't explained it well.
Benjamin: Why don't you do the same with Tether?
CZ：For Tether, we don't know how risky it is to depeg. We have a commercial relationship with Circle to convert on a one-to-one peg. We have an agreement with Circle that we're pretty confident we can exchange one-to-one, whereas with Tether we don't have that commercial agreement. So Tether is a black box for us, and we cannot ensure that the one-to-one conversion is risk-free for us.
Benjamin: Is this move with USDC a coordinated effort with Circle?
CZ：Yes, we are talking to Circle. We notified them in advance. They think it's okay. It's just messaging. Many people misunderstand messaging.
Benjamin: How do you see the stablecoin market developing? The push for CBDC is gaining momentum. China has its own digital yuan. The U.S. is also pushing for a digital dollar, what do you see as Binance’s role in this trend?
CZ：I don't think we really have a character per se. We just want to give our users as much access as possible. We currently do not have access to the PBoC digital currency. So we can't integrate with it. We also don’t know what a digital dollar in the US will look like. Ideally, we would like to be able to integrate directly with it. I think this is the best way to maintain the dollar's global dominance.
Supervision
Supervision
Benjamin: With increased regulation, especially in the US, what rules, laws or recommendations are you most concerned about?
CZ：In terms of regulation, I think more regulation is definitely good -- more clarity in regulation. Insiders know what to do. Consumers know what to expect. There are many more licenses. There is more oversight. All of these are fine.
But not all regulations are good. Such as the per transaction tax in India. I believe America is actually pretty good. In the US, banks work well with cryptocurrency exchanges. Overall, I think more clarity is generally good. Other governments, like France, Dubai, they are pushing relatively friendly regulations.
Benjamin: Can you talk about Binance.US? It's a separate entity, but it's clearly affiliated with Binance.
CZ：Binance.US is a separate legal entity, but it uses Binance products and technology. It also uses branding. I am a board member of Binance.US. But otherwise, the team is relatively independent.
The US has a very different set of regulations and business environment. The US is a big market. So we obviously hope that Binance.US will continue to offer the best of the best in the US. What they offer today is pretty good, but still much smaller compared to Coinbase. Hope this grows.
Benjamin: I would like to revisit your recent blog post, can you elaborate on why the reporter asked such an offensive question? You mentioned a campaign to attack Binance.
CZ：There is a common perception, especially in the US, that Binance is a Chinese company, mostly because I look Chinese I guess. I did spend many years in China. When Binance first started, we first started in Shanghai.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the United States has such perceptions and views of us. But what we hear in lobbying circles in Washington, “Binance is run by a certain party,” “Binance is a spy,” couldn’t be further from the truth.
We wanted to say, "No, we're not like that." Chen Guangying was one of the original original team. But she is not the core high-level. We hear a lot of rumors about her, that "she's a member of some group". So we want to clarify that. That's pretty much it.
Benjamin: You write that "just being a national, ethnic origin or immigrating from a certain country should not be a label that one has to wear for life." How has this affected you personally?
CZ：I grew up in Canada. Canada is a country of immigrants. I am very satisfied with international cities or countries. So is Singapore. There are many immigrants in Singapore. So I feel very comfortable. I actually grew up being very desensitized to things like race, ethnicity, skin color.
Until recently, our team kept telling me that there was a strong narrative, especially in Washington, D.C., that Binance was a Chinese company. As tensions rise between the US and China, many are labeling us another company of the same name, ByteDance, which is a Chinese company. It is headquartered in Beijing. They have a huge team in Beijing. So we are often lumped together.
When Binance.US raised funds, there was a question: Do you have a relationship with a certain country’s government? Journalists out there have a lot of these questions, and they're brewing all the time. So we see journalists blogging and tweeting about it. So I wrote a blog post hoping to address this directly so we can clear up any concerns. We are not a Chinese company. I am Canadian. I have been a Canadian for 33 years. this is us.
Benjamin: The other side of your statement is that it could also be interpreted by including Asian Americans and Asian Canadians as a rejection of your Chinese heritage and identity. I was wondering if you could talk about that as well.
CZ：This is definitely not a denial of my race. On the contrary, I am proud to have a Chinese leading an industry-leading organization. I've always been very proud of that. I know this could be a problem. We actually talked about it before posting this blog. But so far, we haven't received any negative comments on those fronts. At least, I didn't.
Benjamin: What concerns did your team raise?
CZ：first level title
crypto market
Benjamin: Clearly, the evolution and growth of cryptocurrencies took place against the backdrop of the international geopolitics of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and then the rivalry between the US and China. How does Binance plan to deal with this reality?
CZ：Binance.US is in the United States, and Binance.com serves the rest of the world for as long as we can. We don't talk about politics. We neither support nor oppose any country.
Benjamin: What was the toughest part of the market downturn for you? what surprised you
CZ：Honestly, it has always been an integral part of education. There are so many misconceptions about encryption. Whenever something negative happens, "Oh, crypto is bad." People don't say "the stock market is bad" when Netflix's stock price is down 70% to 75%. They just say, "Netflix sucks." When a project fails, they say, "Oh, the whole crypto ecosystem sucks." They don't just say "that project."
In the early stages of this industry, the education and misunderstanding part is always hard to correct. But I think that will sort itself out as the industry matures. We are doing our part to keep educating people.
Benjamin: Binance is reportedly investing in Forbes. What state is that? Can you talk about the decision to make this investment?
CZ：As far as I know, this investment is stalling. At the time, Forbes was doing a SPAC listing, so we were going to participate. But the SPAC listing didn't happen. As far as I know, I don't think anything has really happened yet. I'm not intimately involved.
The thesis behind this investment is that we want to take traditional industries, focus on different industries, and pick one or two players in those industries, invest in them, help them go to Web3, adopt cryptocurrency, accept cryptocurrency payments, issue NFT. If we can help them do that, it might lead to new business models for them. Hopefully with these new models, they'll be better funded and thus make more money.
We want to grow the industry. When the industry grows, Binance benefits because we are the biggest player and have the biggest exchange. So it's kind of an argument.
We looked at Forbes, which is a media company. We looked at Twitter, which is a social media company. We also looked at gaming, e-commerce and many other areas. So we're still looking at them, but many of these deals are not small. So it takes time.
Benjamin: Tell me about your first encounter with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
CZ：It actually happened in a poker game. I played poker with Bobby Lee, who is becoming the CEO of BTC China. It was 2013, a very friendly game of small stakes poker.
The next day, I asked him out for lunch. He said: "CZ, you should convert 10% of your holdings into Bitcoin. It is very unlikely to go to zero. It is more likely to be 10 times. If it is 10 times, your net worth will double times.” I was like, “Okay, that makes sense.” That’s when I started to get more serious about cryptocurrencies. I sold my apartment for Bitcoin.
Benjamin: We just had a crash that wiped out $2 trillion in value in cryptocurrencies. In different parts of the world, the situation is even more tense. With all of this in mind, what worries you the most in the industry?
CZ：I think it's just a matter of talent growth. The more developers we can get into the industry, the more effective this technology will be. But the technology will take time to develop. Computers don't just evolve on their own. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people working on different parts of a computer -- the chip, the CPU, the memory, and the Internet. We are still in the TCPIP phase of the blockchain world. We are still talking about the consensus mechanism. We're still talking techie stuff.
As long as there are more developers building different applications, building different tools, the industry will continue to grow and people, more entrepreneurs will come in.
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