Interview with Binance founder Zhao Changpeng: Four months that change life

Written by: Anderson Sima, Executive Editor of Foresight News

TL;DR

Abu Dhabi's strategic investment:

• Binance chose Abu Dhabi because of its regulatory framework and strategic positioning, rather than funding needs. The UAE's compliance environment provides Binance with a key fulcrum for global development.

Meme Coin Ecology:

• Meme coins reflect community creativity, but high-risk attributes are significant.

• Binance supports innovation, but needs to balance user education with risk warnings.

• Trump issues coins: Most celebrity tokens are used by third parties to ride on popularity, and public figures should focus on long-term value projects.

Binance Coin Listing Strategy:

• Binance cannot become a place for big investors to cut leeks, and it is not recommended that exchanges act as "filters". It is optimistic that decentralized exchanges (DEXs) will become the mainstream in the future.

• It is recommended that project parties disclose the lock-up mechanism and use third-party smart contracts to enhance transparency.

Industry development:

• From "building a chain for issuing coins" to the ERC-20 standard, the technical threshold is lowered but the core logic has not changed (community consensus is value).

• The industry needs to break through financial speculation and explore practical applications such as government identity authentication and DeSci.

Ethereum and L2:

• Missed Ethereum investment, but it is certainly its foundational role in DeFi.

• The current bottleneck of Ethereum is insufficient innovation in the application layer and is not a technical problem.

Prison Experience:

• A 4-month imprisonment reshapes life priorities and realizes the importance of family and health.

• The body loses 6 kg but is healthier, and mental stress comes from uncertainty.

Educational Project Giggle Academic:

• Aim to address global educational inequality through gamified learning and develop skills that enhance employment (such as AI data annotation).

Future layout:

• Investment direction: Focus on three major areas: Web3 infrastructure, AI, and DeSci (decentralized science).

• Vision: Support thousands of entrepreneurs, create sustainable unicorn projects, and reshape the industry landscape.

In 2013, a 36-year-old entrepreneur came to Las Vegas where he met a 19-year-old. The two are far apart, but unlike the gambler who comes here to find excitement and wealth, the elderly saw a pure geek spirit in the eyes of the 19-year-old, and he knew that he had come to the right place.

A month later, he sold his house in Shanghai and bought all the funds he earned, which caused confusion and opposition from the people around him. Because just a short time later, the price of Bitcoin began to plummet, and Shanghai's housing prices ushered in a new round of soaring, which made his behavior seem very stupid at the time.

However, he became good friends with the unpretentious young man. This simple young man looked like a backpacker and had lived in his home, living on bunks with his son, teaching his son what a "smart contract" is. It was from that point on that, their fate began to change drastically.

Later, the young man founded a blockchain network worth more than $200 billion

• Ethereum. And he founded Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. The names of these two masters are Vitalik and Zhao Changpeng respectively.

Zhao Changpeng has many labels and identities, and people prefer to call him CZ. As the founder and largest shareholder of Binance, he was once rated as the "richest Chinese" by Chinese media, but was denied by him. In the crypto community, he is the first crypto KOL with more than 10 million Twitter followers, and those young people who love Meme love to call him "big cousin". Like those crazy entrepreneurs, his life was not smooth sailing. Just in 2024, he spent four long months in prison in the United States, and that was his darkest moment.

Recently, Foresight News had an exchange with one of the most important figures in the crypto field. He told Foresight News that he was discussing biotech with Vitalik before the interview began. 12 years have passed, and the lives of the two have changed drastically, but the natural link between humans seems to have never changed.

The following is the full text edited:

Foresight News: Abu Dhabi 's investment institution MGX (established in 2024 and closely related to the Abu Dhabi government and royal family) recently invested US$2 billion in Binance, the largest single financing in the crypto field to date. Why does Binance choose to establish a strategic partnership with investment institutions in Abu Dhabi?

Zhao Changpeng : Yes, this is a strategic investment. In fact, Binance is not short of money, and its growth is never restricted by capital.

When accepting such investments, you must consider strategic help. At present, the UAE, where Abu Dhabi is located, has high strategic significance in the compliance regulatory provisions and government support of the entire digital currency industry. There are indeed other state-owned funds or investment institutions that come to us for negotiation, but we generally only choose strategic partners.

Foresight News: You have been very active on X recently, which is different from the image you had in the previous cycle. Regarding Meme Coin, crypto leaders in the circle have different opinions. What do you think of the Meme trend?

Zhao Changpeng : There are a few points here. I have always interacted with others on the X platform, but I have rarely interacted with the Meme coin community before. In 2024, I have been dealing with matters related to the United States and paid less attention to the entire industry. I had no internet for 4 months in the meantime. At that time, I was in prison.

So there was really less interaction in the community during that period, but I had been interacting frequently before, and I personally like to communicate and learn with the community. Recently, I have interacted with the Meme coin community to understand what the Meme coin ecosystem is like. I have never bought Meme coins myself, nor have I participated in the "local dog" project. Because I have never been exposed to it, I want to learn about it through interaction and asking questions.

They asked me if I had any pets. I guess someone behind me might want to send coins with the pet name. I didn't object to this, so I sent out my dog's name. As a result, everyone really issued coins based on this, and formed a project similar to Pet Battle (PVP). I have never been exposed to such things before, and after observing the community, I found it quite interesting. Later, everyone asked me to choose which coin was true, because there are several Memes with the same name with relatively large market value. But I don’t want to do this, because there are many users in the several Meme coins involved, and choosing one will definitely hurt the feelings of other users, so I didn’t participate.

If there are new and fun projects, it will be fine if I interact with them. Apart from buying a BNB TST and Mubarak, I have never bought any other Meme coins. Interaction with the community is a learning process for me, and you can also see that I am learning. I think the Meme coin ecosystem is quite interesting and I have some understanding now.

Foresight News: What are the changes in the transaction experience and usage experience of blockchain nowadays, such as the gameplay of Meme coins, compared with when you first came into contact with the Bitcoin white paper?

Zhao Changpeng : There are common points and changes. In the early days, enthusiasts in the digital currency industry all advocated freedom and decentralization. After Bitcoin appeared, they had to make a new chain to issue new coins, and the code required 20,000 lines, such as Ethereum, China's Little Ant (later changed to NEO, and now it is not as popular as before) and so on.

Later, Ethereum launched the ERC20 standard. There was no need to develop new chains for issuing coins, just write a smart contract. So in 2017, a wave of ICO projects appeared, and at that time, at least 10 pages of white paper and a website had to be written.

Now it’s easier, you can do a project by posting a picture. The threshold for issuing coins is getting lower and lower, the community is getting bigger and bigger, and the amount of funds is getting more and more sufficient. But the core logic is that as long as someone agrees with a certain concept to issue coins and someone participates, it will have a price, and if no one participates, there will be no price.

Of course, there are also many projects that are really making products and platforms. The current Meme currency culture is relatively unique and novel, and there are several factors in its rise.

First, everyone is a little dissatisfied with the traditional VC model. Traditional VCs began to withdraw after their early investment projects, and founders also sold, and retail investors took over. Moreover, the last US government and the US Securities and Exchange Commission believed that many coins have securities attributes, while Meme coins claimed that they had no practical purpose, just fun, and avoided possible legal disputes.

In addition, many small retail investors want to use a small amount of funds, such as 100-2,000 US dollars, to change their lives by 10 times or 100 times. Based on these factors, Meme coins became popular. I think Meme coin has great risks and obvious price fluctuations, but the advantage is that it is relatively open and transparent. I'm not sure how long it will last, since the community is very popular, we support it. My thinking model has always been to see the direction of the community and then support it. At the same time, we will continue to support entrepreneurs and platforms that have truly business models, incomes, and users. Although there have been changes in form, the core concept of the industry has not changed much in recent years.

Foresight News: Even Trump has participated in the issuance of Meme coins. He is the first president in human history to issue Meme coins. What do you think about the president’s issuing coins?

Zhao Changpeng : As far as I know, this Trump coin is not necessarily issued by Trump himself. He does not have much actual relationship with issuing coins. It may have been issued by a third party in his name. Although he has obtained some acquiescence to him, I am not very clear about the specific degree of participation and interest relationship, and I heard that there are very few.

I think the subsequent issuance of coins like Melania, Mile and others may be used by others. If they claim to issue coins themselves, it is one thing, but if someone else borrows their name and asks them to help forward the publicity, in this case they may have insufficient understanding of the industry and be exploited.

Influential figures, I think you should be cautious when issuing coins. The coins they issue should have long-term value and long-term application scenarios, which can bring long-term benefits. Nowadays, many stars and celebrities, especially those who retire, want to make a fortune with this. This mentality is understandable, but I don’t think it’s good. For influential figures who are still in service, they should focus on issuing tokens with long-term use value.

Foresight News: As the world 's largest crypto trading platform, listing coins has always been a headache. What do you think about the issue of listing VC coins and Meme coins?

Zhao Changpeng : Regarding the issue of VC coins and Meme coins being listed, from my perspective, after the exchange becomes bigger, listing coins is a very complicated thing. As a Binance shareholder, I least want Binance to become a place where big investors cut retail investors' leeks, which is not good for Binance users, Binance itself, and the entire industry.

But if you go to the other extreme, it is not good to list coins with small market value too early. For example, a currency has a market value of only 5 million US dollars, and Binance now has 250 million users. Everyone comes to buy a little. The price may be very high. After that, it will fall again without support, forming a "pin" market, which is not OK.

Therefore, it is best to find a balance in the middle and try to list the coins as early as possible, but the tokens must have sufficient market value to avoid pins, and the holders must be dispersed and cannot be controlled by several VCs or large investors. In addition, whether it is a VC or a large player, it is best to lock the position. The locking time should be long. It is recommended to use a third-party locking plan instead of controlling the smart contract by the project party. We recently invested in a company called Sign, a third-party lock-up solution controlled by smart contracts.

Of course, if the project founder is very powerful and has a high product user base and is unwilling to adopt this model, we also need to weigh it.

Listing coins is indeed very complicated. I don’t participate in the decision to list coins on Binance, but I think some of the actions they have made recently are quite interesting. Actually, I wrote in my blog before that there shouldn’t be the concept of listing coins. A platform with a large number of users should allow users to buy any currency in the blockchain world, whether on-chain or off-chain, allowing users to choose by themselves, rather than filtering by the platform. I think this is the right direction. There should be no middlemen in the blockchain industry to help users make decisions. The platform only needs to provide access services. I said many years ago that decentralized exchanges will be larger in the future than centralized exchanges. I think this will definitely be achieved.

Foresight News: As Binance’s largest shareholder, do you still think that decentralized exchanges are more important than centralized exchanges in the future?

Zhao Changpeng : I still think so.

Foresight News: You recently announced your portfolio in Binance Plaza, with BNB accounting for 98.5% and BTC accounting for 1.32%. The rest is a 0.17% token that an early payment project airdropped to you. You have never held Ethereum, what is your holding philosophy? Why are there no other tokens?

Zhao Changpeng : Binance Plaza displays my personal wallet. In fact, at different times, we have more or less had Ethereum a little, but none of them reached the magnitude of investment. BNB was first issued based on the Ethereum ERC standard, so we will definitely use Ethereum.

But from my personal point of view, I completely missed the investment opportunities in Ethereum. I have known Vitalik (founder of Ethereum) since I entered the industry in 2013, and the industry was very small at that time. In 2014, we met many times and attended the exhibition together.

In 2015, he went to Shanghai and originally wanted to live in my house, but because my family was young, I arranged him to a friend's house. Later, he went to Japan and lived in my house. He slept with my son on the upper and lower bunk beds, and taught my son some blockchain-related knowledge.

Ethereum was basically formed in 2015. When he told me about this project, I also questioned that it was difficult to implement such complex functions on the blockchain using Turing complete language, so I have never invested. Later, Ethereum rose thousands of times, and I did miss an opportunity.

However, Vitalik and I have always had a good relationship. This morning I talked to him about investment opportunities in the field of biomedicine.

Although I have not invested in Ethereum, I think Ethereum has made great contributions to the industry. Only with Ethereum can there be the ERC20 standard and the following series of projects. It is now the second largest currency with market value. Although there are some problems at present, such as network congestion and slow processing speed, and people complain a lot, Vitalik is still very young and still has a lot of room for development in the future.

Foresight News: How do you view the current situation and future of Ethereum? Is Ethereum now entering a development bottleneck?

Zhao Changpeng : It is difficult for me to evaluate how Ethereum is. Vitalik is a genius person with a different personality than mine. He doesn't like social interaction very much and focuses more on technology research and development. Maybe because I am young, I have been criticized many times online, so I don’t pay much attention to external comments.

I think there is not much difference between L2 and L1 now. Our research has found that the difference between L1 and L2 is not very obvious at this stage. At present, except for Bitcoin, the carrying capacity of other chains is not saturated and there is enough room to carry more transaction volume.

What is even more lacking now is the on-chain applications. The transfer function is basically mature, while various practical applications are relatively scarce. I encourage everyone to develop on-chain applications. BNB Chain and Yzi Labs are both very supportive of everyone to do applications, such as social media, AI, bioscience data collection, and the use of blockchain for government identity authentication.

Foresight News: Since the birth of blockchain, most of the innovations that have emerged in the industry are related to finance, such as ICO, DeFi, etc. In addition to finance and making money, in which direction do you think this industry should develop?

Zhao Changpeng : In my opinion, the development of the industry is basically divided into two major parts. One is related to finance, including money transfer, investment, ICO, DeFi, etc. Another area is currently developing less, but I think it has more potential than the financial field. Since the birth of Bitcoin, there has been a concept that anything that needs notarization should be placed on the blockchain, but the demand was not strong enough before and the related applications have not been made. Now, starting from the United States, Musk has proposed to use blockchain to improve government efficiency. I have recently contacted many governments and they have similar ideas, such as the UAE government. To realize these ideas, first of all, decentralized on-chain identity authentication (DID). With this identity, it can be applied in scenarios such as opening a bank account, applying for a visa, entering and leaving the country, real estate and land registration, hospital medical treatment, graduation diploma certification, government procurement, securities investment, real estate investment and other scenarios.

Although I'm still in the trial stage, I've seen a lot more attempts than before. Just like when the Internet first appeared, video conferencing technology developed for a long time and is now gradually mature. The same is true for blockchain technology. Although I am not sure when these applications will fully develop, I see many people working hard, and Yzi Labs has also participated in many such projects, and we have invested a lot in this regard.

Foresight News: You spent a lot of effort on DeSci last year. How do you view the development of such projects? Is it meaningful to use blockchain to raise funds for them? Or is this just a short-term trend like Meme coins?

Zhao Changpeng : The long-term development of this type of project (a project that combines scientific research and blockchain) is definitely meaningful, and it is completely different from Meme coins. The DeSci project development cycle is very long, such as researching drugs for treating cancer and hair growth, which take a long time.

At present, global pharmaceutical research and development funds are basically controlled by several large pharmaceutical companies. Their starting point is more about pursuing profits rather than curing all diseases. To give an extreme example, if scientists find a low-cost cure for all cancers, large pharmaceutical companies may be reluctant to promote it because it will affect their existing huge industrial chain and huge benefits.

But many scientists and medical researchers lack funds for university or personal research and cannot set up decent laboratories to do experiments. They may not need much money, around $100,000-500,000, and the cost is about the same every year. Blockchain financing is relatively easy, and many people around the world are willing to invest in these scientists. Through blockchain smart contracts, funds can be restricted. For example, only US$100,000-200,000 per year will be given out. The project reaches a certain milestone and the funds will be released after community voting.

If scientists stop researching, they will not be able to obtain subsequent funds. After successful project research and development, patents and income should be obtained, it should also be given back to investors.

It’s just that the project cycle is long, while investors in the digital currency industry generally have short attention. Meme coins are very popular, so this type of project is not paid attention to. But in the long run, such projects have made great contributions to mankind and society. I believe that they will develop in the future, but they are not sure about the specific time.

Foresight News: You have done an educational project "Giggle Academic". This project seems to have nothing to do with cryptocurrency and finance. Why do you try to do education? I'm even wondering if this has something to do with your family background?

Zhao Changpeng : It is hard to say whether the family background has any impact, but there will definitely be something in your subconscious mind. I think education is a very important thing. When I had nothing to do in the United States last year, I was thinking about what to do to have the greatest positive impact and to make my time worth the most.

After thinking about it, education may be the most worthy area to invest in in the long run. It is not from the perspective of making money, but considering positive influence. There are many problems with the current education system. Textbooks have not been updated much for 20 or 30 years, and classroom education has great limitations. Classroom education is an average education for twenty or thirty children. If a child is good at math but poor in English, he may be required to reduce his math study time and spend more time learning English. In the end, all students who are trained at average level are all average.

But the future world is an era of global competition. For example, programmers, now everyone uses AI to write code. You must be better than one million other people. You need to use your expertise instead of pursuing average development. Moreover, there are about 1.23 billion people worldwide who cannot go to school, of which 700 million are adults, and two-thirds of them are women, who are illiterate, and 300 million are children who are not in school. It is very inefficient to solve these problems by building schools.

With our current technological level, we can use gamification methods to build an educational platform with the help of mobile phones and iPads (Android tablets are also very cheap) to allow children to learn while playing games. I formed a team at that time, and at the beginning there were only three or five people, but now there are about 30 people. We have made thirty or forty courses, which are very game-oriented. When children come into contact with them, they will immerse themselves in learning about letters, colors, new words, etc., and everyone likes them very much.

I have calculated that it will cost up to $1 million to do a first-grade English course and $12 million to do a 12 million to do a 300 million course. If you do 30 different courses, including English, mathematics, biology, science, etc., it will cost about $300 million. The annual subsidy for the education department of the United States is US$110 billion. We only need to spend three thousandths of the money to digitize all the educational content in the current school for 18 years and teach it directly to children through the platform.

I do this project not to make money, everything is free. I think the return on investment (not money returns, but social impact returns) is higher than any charity or donation, so I will continue to do it, and I am very happy to do this project. In the past year, I have been trapped in prison for 4 months. I was preparing for the trial for five or six months, but I have only been doing it for a few months. Now there are more than 7,800 children using our products, and many universities only have 5,000 or 6,000 people. This success makes me feel very accomplished.

Our starting point is not to let children get a school diploma, but to help them find a job. Children aged 10 can make money by using AI data labeling. My nephew managed a 14,000-person gaming community at the age of 13, which is also a job that can make money. But if you want to get a graduation diploma, you need to study many subjects such as Chinese, mathematics, English, natural sciences, and physical education.

Finding a job may only require one skill, and the age limit is loose. For example, when doing programming, English can meet basic communication; when doing art design, the requirements for other subjects are not high. My starting point for this platform is not to let African children get into Harvard, but to let them find a job . Whether it is remote work or face-to-face working, they can earn $300-2,000 a month, which is a very high income in Africa. Therefore, the starting point of this platform and traditional education are different, and there will be great differences in design.

Foresight News: In addition to the vitality of the encryption field, the global macro environment this year is not good. Tariff problems not only exist between China and the United States, but also between the United States and all its allies. The war between Ukraine and Russia has not stopped, and Israel and Hamas in the Middle East are also continuing to conflict. Will you care about these macro situations?

Zhao Changpeng : I don’t care a lot, but I’m quite optimistic. I think the last US government is not very friendly to encryption, which is my personal deep experience. The new US government has just been in power for about 60 days. Just like a company has changed its executives, it will take several months to stabilize all matters. From my perspective, we cannot expect that as soon as the new government comes to power, all problems will be solved within 10 days. Many problems have been accumulated over the years, such as the war between Ukraine and Russia, which has a deep historical origin.

But I can clearly see that the U.S. government is working hard to solve these problems, and the solution is greatly improved compared to before. Although it cannot be resolved immediately, at least in active negotiations, business negotiations usually take several months. At present, the US government has taken action very quickly and there are new measures every day.

This government is relatively friendly to digital currencies and the entire business. Of course, being friendly to business does not mean that the stock price will continue to rise, because it involves negotiations between countries, including taxation issues, such as negotiations between the United States and China, Canada, Mexico and other countries. But as long as you are talking about it, there is hope, so everyone should have reasonable expectations for the problem. I can clearly feel that this government is much better than two months ago. Although not all problems have been solved, at least there is a tendency to solve the problem.

I am still optimistic about the macro environment. In the future, several major countries must cooperate with the development of AI, robots and blockchain, because China has strong production capacity. For example, American robots, many raw materials are produced in China, and the supply chain is difficult to cut off. So I'm still optimistic.

Foresight News: You had four months in prison last year, which is an experience that ordinary people can 't imagine. Did this experience change anything for you? Do you think this is a nightmare experience?

Zhao Changpeng : This experience is very bad, but it is not as good as a nightmare. In American prisons, I was not physically threatened, no fights or anything else, but my psychological pressure was very high.

What I worry most is that I am not sure how long I will be locked up. If I knew that it would be fine for 4 months, I might have a lot of relaxed mentality, but I was always worried that they would find reasons to lock me up for longer. This uncertainty brings a lot of mental pressure.

This experience has definitely changed my outlook on life and made me realize what is important. Before, I was a workaholic. In prison, everything I had lost. What I miss most was not work, but family and friends. And in prison, if you get sick and not dying, the doctor will not care about you, and you can only bear the cold and fever yourself, which makes me realize the importance of health.

There is nothing else to do in prison, so I exercise every day. Although I don’t eat well, I still try to eat a little. In 4 months, I lost 6 kilograms, but my physical condition is pretty good and my muscles are more developed. After I come out, I will cherish the time I spend with my family more, and the focus of my life will change. This is a very bad experience, and I don't want anyone to have such an experience as well.

Foresight News: Have you ever been sick in prison?

Zhao Changpeng : Yes, I had a cold and coughed three or four times in four months. You can buy ordinary antipyretics, painkillers, and vitamin C effervescent tablets in prison. Less than two weeks after I entered, I had a sore throat and a little fever, and I happened to have a physical examination. I told the doctor that I was uncomfortable. The doctor said they only checked their blood pressure and weight. If treatment needed, they either went to the store to buy over-the-counter medication or reapply for a doctor, but they had to wait for three weeks. So in prison, you basically rely on buying medicine to treat illness.

Foresight News: Is there an economic and monetary system in prison?

Zhao Changpeng : Yes, you can spend up to $180 every two weeks, and you need to fill out a form to apply for buying things. The process is quite cumbersome and you can only buy it every two weeks. If you fill out the form and apply for things, you can’t buy them if you’re out of stock, so you can’t spend $180 at all, and shopping is very restricted.

Foresight News: There is another important figure in the field of cryptocurrency in prison - Sam Bankman - Fried (founder of FTX). Starting from your experience, do you think you should give him another chance? What do you think of what he did?

Zhao Changpeng : I think it is better to have less evaluations. You may think that I have too many evaluations. I just think any fraud should be punished, after all, many people suffer huge losses as a result. But I am not an expert in this regard, so I will no longer evaluate it.

Foresight News: What are your most concerned things at this stage? What plans do you have in the next stage?

Zhao Changpeng : What I spend more time at this stage is thinking about how to help other entrepreneurs succeed. I have not started a business now, and I have accumulated some accumulation before. We have investment funds, and if entrepreneurs need help, I can also be consultants for them. Of course, there are many people looking for me, and we will conduct a certain screening. I hope to support hundreds or even thousands of successful entrepreneurs and make their projects become unicorn companies, so I will be particularly happy because this can indirectly promote the development of the entire society. This is what I am most interested in at the moment.

We already have Yzi Labs now, and basically use it to invest and support entrepreneurs. I generally don’t make particularly grand plans and do not plan specific matters in 5 or 10 years. I will probably look at one direction. I know that the blockchain industry will be bigger in 5 or 10 years, the AI ​​industry will continue to develop, and biological science will become more advanced. So I will basically continue to invest in these three areas and support entrepreneurial projects.