Wu Shuo’s conversation with Changpeng Zhao: Talking about childhood experiences, Binance’s entrepreneurial story, the most important articles in life, why Solana broke out, Vitalik’s dilemma, and the difficulties of listing CEX

Author:Colin Wu , Wu talks about blockchain

In this interview, Wu said Colin communicated with Binance founder Changpeng Zhao CZ on various aspects. CZ recalled his happy childhood in a Chinese school before he was 12 years old. After immigrating to Canada at the age of 12, his family's economic status changed, and his mother changed from a teacher to a garment factory worker, which even affected his health. Later, he dropped out of school early because he received a job offer.

Due to the rapid success of Binance, CZ went from obscurity to becoming the richest man in the world in just a few years. But then he was indicted by the United States and ended up in prison for four months. CZ says every year that his biggest wish is six-pack abs. He also joked that the closest thing to a six-pack was when he was released from prison because the food there was so bad.

During the exchange, CZ discussed the reasons for Binance’s rapid early success, believing that it was mainly due to personal experience accumulation and timing luck. At that time, other exchanges were trading mainstream currencies, but Binance quickly launched a large number of ERC20 token transactions. In addition, it was also discussed whether FTX can be saved and the currency listing dilemma currently faced by CEX; whether centralized exchanges must become compliant; and the direction of cryptocurrency policies in Hong Kong and the United States.

CZ shared the experience of writing the most important article in his life, "Principles" ; discussed the current dilemma faced by Vitalik, and teased Justin Sun; he analyzed why the memecoin on Solana suddenly exploded; and introduced his future plans Work and advice for entrepreneurs. Finally, CZ sends New Year blessings to the Chinese community, thinking that this year will be a very good year, and hopes that everyone will work steadily to achieve good results.

Listen to the full podcast:

Small universe:

https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episodes/6795f930d74435e4a3dc2cfa

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/vfl73WULagc

Childhood life in China before the age of 12, family situation after immigrating to Canada

Colin: Welcome CZ to accept our interview. The first question is, you left China when you were 12 years old. Do you still have memories of your childhood in China before you were 12 years old?

CZ: Yes, of course. I think I had a very happy childhood and all my memories are wonderful. My parents were both teachers at that time, and I had always lived on school campuses, such as primary schools, middle schools, and the campus of the University of Science and Technology of China. I had always lived in a school environment, which left a very good impression on me. When I was a child, I lived a carefree life. My family was not wealthy, but children don't feel the lack of money. I have always lived well.

Colin: I read your later interview and I have a question. After you moved to Canada, you said that your parents’ salary was close to the local minimum. Will your life be more difficult after moving to Canada? Will your parents continue to be teachers or have other jobs there? Do you need to work for yourself to make money?

CZ: When we first arrived in Canada, we were a middle-class or well-off family in China. Both parents had a salary. My dad would save money to send back to China when he was studying abroad. After the exchange rate conversion at that time, our life was pretty good. After arriving in Canada, my quality of life has not declined, but I am still at the bottom of the social income bracket. But food, clothing and housing are still no problem. Because my mother is not good at English, she cannot continue to be a teacher. She can only work in a garment factory. She goes out early every day and comes home late to sew clothes. This job is not very good for the body, but it is the only (only) job she can find. .

In Canada, my dad is a teaching assistant, and the salary is not high, but fortunately the university provides teaching assistants with family housing subsidies. We live in a small house, but it is bigger than the place I lived in China, which is an improvement for me. . We are not particularly poor in Canada, but our income is close to the minimum.

Colin: What major did your father teach?

CZ: He teaches geophysics, which is Geo Physics. This major is very demanding in mathematics, with many complex formulas and frequent calculations. My father is very good at mathematics, which may be the reason why I am better at science.

Reason for dropping out of college: Postponing graduation because of good internship salary

Colin: You and Vitalik both immigrated to Canada and dropped out of college. Did you drop out because you wanted to start a business, or were there other reasons?

CZ: I was already a senior when I dropped out, which was different from when I dropped out after my freshman and sophomore years. At that time, I was interning in Tokyo. At the end of the internship, my boss gave me a job offer with a very good salary. I compared it and found that it was difficult to get such a high salary after graduation. My boss had a project that was halfway through, and he hoped that I could delay it for a year and continue working. At first, he said that I would delay it for a few months, that is, for one semester, and that I would be given a normal salary. The offer was very generous, so I postponed it again and again, and finally didn’t go back to school for two years.

Colin: In other words, I didn’t decide to drop out of school and start a business at that time. The main reason was that the job paid so well.

CZ: Yes, I am not like some people who decisively start a business. I postponed my studies because of this good offer and never went back to school. Later, I found out that I had no academic qualifications and it was a bit troublesome to apply for a visa, so I got a degree from a college through distance education. So now I have a degree, but I didn’t graduate from my original university.

Discuss the reasons for Binance’s rapid early development

Colin: I understand that you have started several projects, reports say there are 5-10. You founded Binance in 2017. The early days of Binance were very difficult, and you certainly didn’t expect it to grow so big. Looking back now, what do you think are the most important reasons for Binance’s explosive growth in just one year?

CZ: Many people think that Binance became famous overnight, but they may not have counted my more than 20 years of experience in the industry. I have been working hard in the technology industry and exchange industry for more than 20 years. When I was working on Binance, I had been working in the digital currency field for four or five years and accumulated contacts and a team. When I was working on Binance, I built a strong team, both the technical team and the product team were very good. At the same time, the community has also given me a lot of support, and everyone is no stranger to me. Also, I was lucky, the timing was very good.

In 2017, old exchanges such as Coinbase, OKCoin , and Huobi were mainly engaged in Bitcoin transactions, and Ethereum ERC-20 tokens were rarely listed. Our BNB itself is an ERC-20 token, so we supported this type of token from the beginning, and subsequently added many ERC-20 tokens. From a product perspective, our products have obvious advantages. However, I think the most important thing is that our philosophy is different from previous exchanges. We don’t just think about making money, but we put protecting users first, which was clearly reflected in the “94 Clearance” incident.

At that time, it was stipulated that if ICO projects in China lost money, they had to return the money to investors. However, many projects suffered serious losses and could not repay the money. About four projects on our platform are in a state of loss, and the project owners have no money to make up for user losses. After consideration, we decided to make up for user losses, which we calculated would cost US$6 million. You know, we only raised US$15 million two months ago. At that time, the company was still losing money, and US$6 million was equivalent to 40% of the company's assets. Even so, we still used this money to make up for user losses, and these are not projects we issued. In terms of customer service, customer service requests from other exchanges may have to wait two to three months in 2017. We promised to handle them within one day, and now it has been shortened to 5 minutes. It is for these reasons that Binance has developed rapidly, and of course luck also plays a part.

The security pressure and system performance issues Binance faced in its early days

Colin: I was working at Bitmain at the time, and I felt that Binance was under a lot of pressure in its first year, especially in terms of security. At that time, the team was small and the industry's security infrastructure was not perfect. Was it under great pressure to deal with security issues such as hacker attacks?

CZ: Yes, for any exchange, the security pressure caused by hacker attacks has always been great. Security is the key to exchange operations. Without security guarantees, it is impossible to conduct business. There is a little episode here that many people may not remember. In the first four months after Binance was launched, that is, from July to mid-to-late October, withdrawals from Binance were reviewed manually. Every withdrawal is processed manually, with several transactions being processed every few hours.

There is no one to deal with it at night when the staff are off. The reason for using manual review was that we were particularly worried that if a loophole occurred, automated withdrawals would lead to the loss of all funds. By October, Binance had become one of the top ten exchanges in the world, but withdrawals were still done manually. However, the bigger challenge at that time was actually the pressure on the system. Binance is developing too fast, users keep coming in, and the system keeps getting stuck. Although the matching engine we promoted was fast, the surrounding registration system, KYC system, deposit system, withdrawal system, etc. all experienced lags, so at that time more energy was focused on optimizing system performance.

Analyzing the FTX incident, can it be saved now?

Colin: The FTX incident is a very important event in the currency circle. Looking back now, it is ridiculous in the history of the currency circle, and Binance was also involved. Looking at it now, is it possible for FTX to be saved at that time? Now it seems that its assets can cover user compensation. Although its misappropriation of user assets is very bad and the relevant responsible persons will definitely go to jail, the remaining assets seem to be able to complete the compensation.

CZ: My understanding is that according to the price of cryptocurrency in U.S. dollars at that time, FTX’s existing assets can be covered if they are converted into U.S. dollars based on the currency price at that time. However, if all the digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum held by users at that time were returned to the users as they were, FTX’s assets would not be able to cover the appreciation in value of these coins. In other words, if there were no problems with FTX, the assets in users' hands may be three or four times more than what they actually have now. According to the current calculation method, converting the currency price into US dollars at that time, and then comparing the current value of FTX assets converted into US dollars, it can be covered. But if users had been holding those coins until now, the market value would have been four to five times what it is now. I'm not sure my understanding is entirely accurate.

Colin: It seems that the gap is still too big and difficult to make up.

CZ: FTX actually does not fully cover all user assets, it is only calculated based on the lower currency price at the time. If all digital currencies are returned to users, the money received by early users will be five times that of now. This is all the money that users deserve. This is like the Mentougou incident in 2014. At that time, hundreds of millions were owed, which was a sky-high price at the time. Now the currency price has risen. Although FTX assets can now cover the price of Bitcoin at that time, from the user's perspective, if they had been holding the currency, the money they would get now would be five times more, so users still lost about 70 to 80%. Looking back, by the time FTX began to collapse in November 2022, there was no way to save it. If the problem could be discovered earlier, there might be a chance, but there was no way to detect it in advance at the time.

Dilemma of centralized exchanges with active on-chain economy?

Colin: There is another hot topic recently. I would like to hear your opinion. In the early days, Binance was largely successful because of its introduction of many new coins with high growth rates, such as BNB and TRON. Later, Binance’s launchpad and launchpool were also very successful. But in the past year, the on-chain economy has been very active, and many people can get the lowest price on the chain. The listing of the currency on the exchange has become a signal that the price has peaked, which is in sharp contrast to the early days. I think neither Binance nor other exchanges know how to respond. What do you think about this?

CZ: I think there are at least two reasons for this. On the one hand, as the platform develops larger and larger, it can only list some relatively stable coins. If the last coin on Binance had a market capitalization of only 10 million, or even a few million or hundreds of thousands of dollars, its price would fluctuate too much. Therefore, from the perspective of large exchanges, in order to avoid excessive price fluctuations, we can only choose coins with larger market capitalization. This is a natural limitation of large exchanges. However, big exchanges can also set up innovation areas or support these small coins in Web3 wallets. There are still solutions. Personally, I don’t think Binance does a particularly good job in this regard. In the past year or two, Binance’s energy has been distracted due to some things in the United States and some of my personal affairs. I have basically been in the United States for the past year to handle personal matters.

On the other hand, MEMEcoins have been very popular in the past year. Major exchanges have basically not seized this opportunity. On the contrary, it is easier to participate on the chain, especially on the Solana chain. There are some statements here, and I’m not sure whether they are true or not. Solana used to have close ties with FTX. After FTX collapsed, many people on Solana lost a lot of money and lost the support of the exchange, so they chose to pump and dump. It is not appropriate to do this kind of thing on Binance Chain, and it is problematic from an ethical and legal perspective. In addition, in the past few years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, like Gary Gensler, has basically recognized various currencies as securities, and the only ones that can be clearly not recognized as securities are those coins that have no practical use, that is, MEME coins, so MEME Coins are less susceptible to prosecution. The MEME currency has no other practical utility or promise, and is just right for pulling and smashing the market. It also has no close cooperation with exchanges and is decentralized, so it is very popular on Solana. It's like we were lucky enough to have good timing in 2017, and the past year or two has been good timing for MEME coins. I think it's quite interesting and I don't judge it as good or bad. Since the industry is developing in this direction, as a Binance shareholder, industry KOL or OG, I will support anything that is beneficial to the development of the industry, so I also encourage everyone to support MEME coins.

Do all centralized exchanges have to become compliant?

Colin: Data shows that last year, Binance’s capital inflows exceeded all other exchanges combined. This shows that although Binance has been in constant trouble this year, its development is still very stable. However, centralized exchanges now face compliance challenges, compliant exchanges have difficulty making profits, and offshore exchanges face increasing regulatory risks. Exchange owners may have problems traveling to Japan or Europe, just like the Telegram owner who was arrested as soon as he landed in France. What do you think of the current predicament of exchanges? Do you think everyone must be compliant in the future?

CZ: I think so. As long as the platform develops to a certain scale, it must be compliant. From the perspective of regulatory authorities, small platforms may not be able to control them or may be ignored for the time being, but large platforms are definitely the focus of supervision. Just like Binance, it has been regulated and rectified for a long time, so it must take the path of compliance. Binance has many restrictions, such as the Web3 wallet associated with the exchange, and Binance's wallet requires KYC certification. Although users in Web3 wallets control their own assets (using MPC technology), some exchanges smaller than Binance do not require KYC certification for their Web3 wallets. This is something Binance cannot do. These second-tier exchanges are not small in scale, but often do not perform KYC certification. Therefore, Binance is more restricted. Large exchanges generally have more restrictions, but compliance is the only way to go. Moreover, during the compliance process, regulatory enforcement is uneven and not all platforms are treated equally.

Colin: It's definitely different. It is possible to make crazy donations to Trump like Justin Sun did now, but he may not have the chance when the Democratic Party is in power.

CZ: Yes. However, I think regulation will be improved sooner or later, especially since the United States has become very supportive of digital currencies. I think the United States will introduce a series of very positive regulatory provisions for the digital currency industry. The regulatory provisions proposed by the new US Securities Regulatory Commission are very clear and much more positive than before. In this way, the overall regulatory environment will become better and the regulatory framework will be more complete. Platforms that have obtained licenses and meet regulatory requirements have a better chance of developing and growing.

As you just said, although the MEME currency is very popular now, in terms of capital inflows, the Binance platform’s capital inflows last year exceeded the sum of other exchanges. This means that many retail investors, especially those who are new to digital currencies, will choose large exchanges that appear to be the most regulated and are still operating after multiple reviews. Therefore, many new users will tend to choose this type of more stable platform. MEME coin is indeed very popular, but most of the people who play MEME coin are OGs. Although there are also new people joining, the early adopters account for a large proportion. After playing with MEME coins, many people will still choose to buy Bitcoin when investing in digital currencies, and when buying Bitcoin, they may still choose major exchanges. Therefore, different fields will have different development speeds, regulatory pressures and models. I think this is good. An industry should have multiple different platforms.

Hong Kong has not done enough and will be more relaxed under pressure from the United States in the future.

Colin: What do you think of the current regulatory policies in Hong Kong? You just mentioned the United States. The next two to four years will be a major benefit to digital currencies as a whole. At present, the entire Chinese region may regard Hong Kong as a breakthrough in the field of cryptocurrency, and the latest report from the Central Bank of China also encourages Hong Kong to actively explore cryptocurrency policies.

CZ: I think China’s strategy is very wise, using Hong Kong as a pilot area. In the past four years, the United States has had a very unsupportive and even suppressive attitude towards digital currencies. In contrast, Hong Kong is more friendly to digital currencies, but Hong Kong may be a little behind in this regard. Hong Kong’s existing regulatory provisions are very restrictive. Take Japan as an example. Seven years ago, Japan also had many regulatory restrictions on currency listings and futures, and the regulations were unclear. However, about three or four years ago, Japan’s restrictions on currency listings were basically completely relaxed. Hong Kong has not yet reached this level of easing. But after recent exchanges with some senior people in Hong Kong’s regulatory authorities, I feel that Hong Kong is beginning to loosen its supervision. Now that the United States has made progress in digital currency regulation, Hong Kong must not lag behind. I think Hong Kong will make major positive adjustments soon. The adjustment of regulatory policies needs to be gradual. Hong Kong’s regulatory provisions were indeed tight before, but they should become more competitive in the future. Therefore, I am relatively optimistic about Hong Kong’s development in this area.

The most important article in my life, "Principles"

original:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gUU-tp4U9X43qIkX9niCgQ?token=386014621&lang=zh_CN

Colin: Next I want to talk about the article "Principles" you wrote before. This article has been widely circulated. Many people think it summarizes your many years of entrepreneurial experience. There are many interesting views in it, such as your hope and initiative. Find your people to cooperate with, and regarding work efficiency, if you can use text, don’t make phone calls, if you can make phone calls, don’t have meetings, etc. Looking back on this article now, what key points do you most want to convey to the outside world? After all these years, are there any new ideas you’d like to add? I heard you are writing a book, is it an expansion of this article?

CZ: Yes, it took me about two or three years to write that article.

Colin: It took me so long to write.

CZ: Yes, I didn’t expect it to take so long to write at first. I added content little by little as I wrote. It was only after I read Ray Dalio's book "Principles" that I wanted to write one myself. But I couldn’t write it at all at first. Later, I met with Ray and asked him how he wrote the book "Principles". He told me that every night I think about the decisions I made that day and why I made those decisions. If there are principles behind some of the decisions, write them down. After hearing what he said, I started writing a little bit every day. I will review what meetings were held that day, what decisions were made, and the reasons for the decisions. If the reasons are common, I will record them. It took two or three years to complete this article. Although it is not long, it is only about 10 pages.

Colin: This is a very important article in your life.

CZ: Yes, it did take a lot of time. Ray's guidance gave me ideas. I slowly wrote down my thoughts, and tried to write down something that was different from other people's thinking. I won’t write about things that everyone knows about the company’s need to save money. I have been observing myself to see which ideas are different from others. For example, others think that they should not make phone calls if they can meet in person and have meetings, and they should not send messages if they can make phone calls. My view is exactly the opposite.

This article took me a lot of effort, and the team also helped me polish it a bit, but the main content was indeed written by myself. Also, I am currently writing a book about my personal experiences. I originally hoped to finish writing and publish it at the beginning of this year, that is, from the first to the second quarter. I didn't have much to do in the United States before and couldn't meet many people, so I spent a lot of time writing. But now I have encountered a bottleneck. Although I no longer have a job, I am still very busy, and I don’t know why.

In the future, the focus will be on participating in investments and communicating with early-stage entrepreneurs.

Colin: There was news before that you might be more involved in the investment work of Binance Labs. Are you mainly busy with investment-related matters now?

CZ: That’s right, we are now preparing to give Binance Labs a new name, which may be announced this week (already announced, Yzi Labs). I am indeed making some investments now, but in terms of investment, I don’t see many projects. I prefer to communicate with early-stage entrepreneurs because I am an entrepreneur myself and am happy to support other entrepreneurs, so I pay more attention to early-stage investment projects. Recently, I have been communicating frequently with founders from all walks of life, and everyone is very considerate. Many people come to me to meet and chat, and I try to give them whatever advice I can.

I learned a lot from talking to these founders. I have been focusing on Binance’s centralized exchange business for the past seven or eight years, and now I have been exposed to many new fields, such as AI, biological science, and many new things in the blockchain field. You may think that I know everything about blockchain, but in fact when you are busy running a centralized exchange, you don’t have time to understand many new things in depth. I only know a little bit about it. Now I have the opportunity to spend more time with these founders and learn about the new things they are doing, which I find very interesting.

Thoughts on Ethereum’s difficulties

Colin: Another interesting question, do you usually check Twitter? Vitalik has been severely attacked recently, and Justin Sun gave him advice yesterday. What do you think of the current difficulties faced by Ethereum? Any suggestions?

CZ: I think this is more of a PR crisis, a PR issue. Ethereum itself is actually very strong. Looking at the market value alone, except for Bitcoin, it is larger than other currencies. Although Solana is rising rapidly, its current market value is still behind Ethereum. To be honest, Sun Yuchen has always liked to stir up hot spots, and he has done a good job in public relations. However, Justin Sun’s advice to Vitalik is like a small exchange giving advice to a large exchange. There is still a gap in business level. Of course, Justin Sun is very smart and has great strengths. Every founder has his or her own strengths.

Vitalik is a technical genius and that cannot be ignored or denied. Things like ERC-20, NFT, and Soul-bound Token were all invented by him. These were all born in Ethereum. He has made a great contribution to the entire industry. Although the price of Ethereum has not increased much in the short term, the overall market value is still considerable.

From my perspective, I support every entrepreneur in the industry, and it’s not easy for Vitalik and Justin Sun. For those who speculate in currencies, it is difficult to guarantee that they will only make profits and not lose money. It is impossible to keep rising, and the industry will inevitably fluctuate. I suggest that everyone maintain a long-term investment mentality and not get emotional just because currency prices rise or fall. From its birth to now, Ethereum’s overall growth has exceeded that of Bitcoin, which is not easy. Vitalik has posted a few tweets recently, which may not be in the right place.

Colin: Feeling a little anxious.

CZ: And his way of speaking may not be acceptable. He comes from a technical background, is relatively straight, is young, and speaks more directly. For example, he said that certain aspects were controlled or designated by him, which triggered more curses. But as industry practitioners, we should be more tolerant of him and not put a lot of pressure on him just because of trivial matters. It is really not easy to start a business.

Responding to the difficulties faced by entrepreneurship in the currency circle

Colin: And this industry needs diversity. Not everyone can only focus on Solana, or issue MEME coins, nor can everyone be like Justin Sun. The industry should have different development directions. You mentioned just now that you mainly communicate with entrepreneurs and support them, but entrepreneurship in the currency circle seems to be facing some difficulties. There is a popular saying recently, good products don’t need tokens, good tokens don’t need products, and so on. In any case, entrepreneurship in the currency circle seems to be facing a problem. Except for financial business, it seems difficult to make money in other fields, and the path to entrepreneurship is relatively narrow. Do you feel this way? What advice or thoughts do you have for these entrepreneurs?

CZ: This is the first time I heard this sentence today. But my view is completely different. I think there are many opportunities in the currency circle now. There are a large number of projects that can do a good job in the project itself and the token performance will be excellent. On the contrary, I think that if there are only tokens but no actual project support, it is difficult to understand how to maintain its value in the long term. Even if MEME coins are issued, there needs to be valuable support behind the MEME coins and cannot just rely on speculation. So I think there's a lot that can be done in the industry. The transaction volume of decentralized exchanges is rising, and more and more people are using it. However, every blockchain will freeze when the transaction volume is high. Even Solana, which claims to be fast, has experienced freezes recently. And there is still a lot of room for improvement in the wallet’s ease of use.

There are still many industries that have not yet been served by blockchain, such as the field of scientific research. Many scientists need financing to conduct research. Although there may be many failures, once successful, the rewards may be very generous. This model is feasible, but it is not yet fully implemented. Now some politicians have begun to issue MEME coins. How to provide value support for these MEME coins after the issuance requires someone to explore.

From my perspective, I have always been an entrepreneur. What I see are countless opportunities, but I always feel that I can't make it. Good entrepreneurs are always the scarcest resource. Currency speculators may complain why the coins they bought cannot skyrocket immediately. But if we extend the time a little longer, when Bitcoin was US$60,000 a few months ago, everyone was very happy and thought it was a new high. Now that it is US$100,000, everyone is still complaining. I think everyone cannot expect prices to rise every day and should take a long-term perspective.

Discuss your views on Bitcoin price trends

Colin: How high do you think Bitcoin can rise in this cycle?

CZ: Many people ask me this question, but I really can’t say. However, I think this wave of Bitcoin has not reached its peak yet. Trump has just taken office, and a series of new measures such as new compliance provisions in the United States have not yet been introduced. I think there should be a lot of positive developments in the future. I have always been bullish on the industry as a whole, and I remained optimistic even in the worst bear markets, and the same in bull markets. So I have always been optimistic, but my view may not be completely accurate.

Changing attitudes towards U.S. digital currency policy

Colin: In your last interview in Dubai, I remember Trump hadn’t taken office yet. You said at the time that you didn't want anything to do with the United States. Will your attitude change now? You talked a lot today, and I still feel very confident. But after you get closer to Trump or the United States, if the Democratic Party comes to power again two or four years later and the policies are repeated, how will you deal with this situation?

CZ: Yes, the last interview was probably before the U.S. election, around the end of October and the beginning of November. The U.S. election had not yet started, so the situation in the U.S. was not very clear. I didn’t know who would be elected. Even if he was elected, I didn’t know who Trump would be. How optimistic is Pu about digital currencies?

But big changes have indeed taken place in recent months. Not only was Trump elected, but he also issued relevant policies that were not thought of before. Now a series of newly appointed officials in the United States, especially those in core government positions, have strong support for digital currencies. It is obvious from this change of leadership that the influence of digital currency is very great. Many young people hold digital currencies. If they are not friendly to digital currencies, it will directly affect their wealth, which will affect their voting. This is an instinctive reaction. So it’s clear that digital currencies can no longer be ignored. I personally feel that the previous group believed that suppressing digital currencies would gain more support, but the current election results show that this perception is wrong. Therefore, I think that in the next four years, digital currency will have greater development, and the possibility of returning to the previous suppressive attitude after four years is very small.

Just like the Internet back then, everyone questioned its quality at first, but after it developed to a certain level, its recognition could not be ignored. Therefore, the risk in four years' time is, firstly, relatively small. Secondly, at present, the American Republican Party has a strong talent pool, such as the vice president, who also has a high reputation. So we’ll see what happens four years later. But now the United States has a positive attitude towards digital currency, which is a very good thing for the entire industry. Now all countries are actively promoting blockchain regulatory provisions, and the provisions are becoming more and more friendly, which is very positive. Binance currently does not serve US users, but there is an independent company called Binance US. Although Binance is in the name, it is a completely independent company from Binance. It was much smaller due to some problems before, but it is still in operation. We hope that it can develop healthily in the United States and continue to grow with the help of this wave of favorable conditions in the United States.

I think Binance US's products are very competitive. It has twice reached 45% of Coinbase's global trading volume, but both times it fell due to other third-party objective reasons. So as long as the regulatory terms treat it fairly, it's very competitive, and I'm not particularly worried about that.

Share daily life

Colin: Some of my friends also want to ask you a few questions. First, how do you spend your day? Second, your New Year's resolution was to build six-pack or eight-pack abs every year. How is your progress now? Third, what is your favorite city?

CZ: Okay. Regarding daily life arrangements, I am much more relaxed now than before. I arrange about seven or eight meetings and make a few phone calls every day, but now I can exercise every day and go to the gym. I currently like two sports.

Both sports are related to boards, one is skiing and the other is kitesurfing. When it's windy, I play for an hour or two every day, and the rest of the time is used for meetings and the like. Life now is more like that of a retired investor, much better than when I was the CEO of Binance. Speaking of six-pack abs, when I first came out of prison, I could vaguely see my six-pack abs, and I even took a picture of them.

Colin: Is it because you eat relatively lightly?

CZ: The food there was really bad, so I ate less. When I first came out, I could vaguely see my six-pack abs. When I have the courage one day, I might post the photo I took casually in the toilet. It’s not the kind of beautiful photo. After being released from prison, it was difficult to maintain six-pack abs because I had not eaten well before and suddenly something delicious became available and it was difficult to restrain myself. To train abdominal muscles, you need to control your diet, but I don’t have very strong self-control over my diet now, so I no longer have six-pack abs. That was probably the closest I’ve ever come to six-pack abs. What's the third question? Oh, my favorite city.

I like many cities, each with its own uniqueness. I now feel very comfortable living in Dubai and Abu Dhabi , United Arab Emirates. The business environment and digital currency environment here are good, and the national management and security are also very good. Of course, there are disadvantages. This is a desert, and it is really hot in summer, but it is very comfortable in winter, and it is very comfortable now. I also like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. There are also many good cities in Europe, but Europe is currently developing slowly in digital currency, so I go there less. South America and the United States are far apart, so I haven’t been there much. Now I mostly travel in the Middle East and Asia. In Thailand, the traffic is quite congested, but I also like other aspects.

Colin: I can only travel by motorcycle.

CZ: Yes, but when I go to a place, I usually stay in a hotel. I don’t spend much time on the road, so I meet many people in the hotel.

Sending New Year greetings to Chinese entrepreneurs and investors

Colin: Finally, thank you CZ for taking the time. I hope I will have the opportunity to continue communicating with you next time. Since Chinese New Year is coming soon, could you please say something to Chinese entrepreneurs and investors?

CZ: OK, thank you very much Colin for giving me this opportunity. I think we can definitely communicate frequently in the future. In many Asian communities before, I usually put He Yi in charge of the Asian market, and I mainly focused on the English market. This is how we divided the labor. Therefore, my communication with the Chinese community may not be enough. Now that I am "retired", I will take care of both sides in my personal capacity.

Here, my advice to you is to look at this industry, technology and industry development with a correct mentality and patience. Whether you are an investor or an entrepreneur, the entire industry is on the rise. Although there is not obvious progress every day, from a monthly or annual perspective, the situation is very favorable. Don't be anxious, everyone. Whether you are starting a business, issuing coins, or investing, you must do your own thing steadily. I think this year is going to be a very good year. Here, I wish all my friends and supporters in the Chinese community a Happy New Year. In addition, I will spend more time in contact with the Chinese community in the future, so we can communicate more in the future.

Colin: OK, thank you CZ.