#1414 Richard Teng | EXCLUSIVE: Binance CEO on Bitcoin, Macro Impact & CZ's Release

Richard Teng is the CEO of Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange. In this conversation, we discuss how big Binance is, macro environment, why bad monetary policies are driving people towards crypto, the nuances of running a global exchange, an employee being held in Nigeria, recent release of CZ from prison, and where crypto is headed. ======================= Buy book: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Extraordinary-Life-Anthony-Pompliano/dp/0857199927/ ======================= Wondering where to go for financial advice? Domain Money makes financial planning simple. No hidden fees and no sales pitches - you get a personalized roadmap to your goals, from dream vacations to retirement. Flat-fee advisors create a plan tailored to you, with zero pressure to invest. Don’t be like most people who’ve never had a real conversation about their financial plan. Book a free strategy session today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.domainmoney.com/pomp⁠⁠⁠⁠While I'm not a Domain Money client and they are paying me, I've seen first hand the value of their service through the free plan they did for one of my brothers. Yes, I might have an interest in promoting Domain Money, so just like any major financial decision, it's important you understand what the service is and if it's right for you so make sure to see important disclaimer at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.domainmoney.com/t/legal⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================= View 10k+ open startup jobs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone. This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. What's up guys. I've got a special episode for you today. We have the CEO of Binance, Richard Tang. He gives us all of the detail. How big is Binance? How many people have they hired this year? How many users? And that number's going to blow your mind. On top

• 0:43Anthony Pompliano?

  of that, we talk about the macro environment, where they're seeing users sign up, why bad monetary policy decisions are driving so many people towards crypto, and then we get into the nuances of running a global exchange, the number one leading exchange in the world. We talk about the situation with one of their employees, Tigran, out in Nigeria. Why is he being detained? And how can we get a US citizen back from detainment? On top of that, we talk about CZ and his recent release from prison. And then we get into all of the details of where Richard and the Binance team sees crypto going. This conversation is a peek into the mind of the leader of the number one exchange in all of the world. And so you're definitely going to want to pay attention. Here's my conversation with Richard Tang.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Today's episode is brought to you by Domain Money. I love talking about money, but I'm not a financial professional, so I don't offer one-on-one coaching or advising. But in order to get ahead, you need someone with expertise to work with you, one-on-one, and provide personalized advice. The decisions you're making now will significantly impact the rest of your life. The more time you waste not taking the steps to get a plan for your money, the harder you make it to achieve. Your goals. That's why I've partnered with Domain Money to pair our community with flat fee certified financial planners. That's right. They are CFPs. They can actually give you advice and they can help you level up your money game. Don't get left behind and head over to domain money.com/pomp to book your free strategy session to help you get started. That's

• 2:30Anthony Pompliano?

  domain money.com/pomp to get started with a CFP now. Go check them out. And just like any other major financial decision, it's important you understand what the service is and if it's right for you. So make sure to go see the important disclaimers at domain money.com/ legal. That's what the lawyers told me to say. Now go check them out. Domain money.com/pomp. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Richard here. Richard, as CEO of Binance, I think one thing people may not really understand is just how big and how fast the company has grown. You all have over 200 million users and you continue to grow at an exponential rate. You're hiring, you know, thousands of people. Help us understand just what is Binance today?

• 3:11Anthony Pompliano?

  What are the business lines? And then how fast are you actually growing? Right? Can you tell us any data that maybe people don't know yet?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely. But first of all, thanks for having me on the show and congratulations on your new book, How to Lead an Extraordinary Life. I need some help on that front. You need to give me some pointers. I'm definitely going to read your book. But first of all, Binance is continued to grow from strength to strength. You mentioned some figures. So let me give you some data, right? So we have seen crypto adoption being very rapid. I have a seven sign. As you see, we just celebrated our seven year anniversary in July this year. So it's a relatively young company. Today, we have more than 230 million users globally. Right? So the first 100 million users took us five years to onboard. The next 100 million users took us just north of two years,

• 4:04Speaker 02

  took us about 26 months to be exact onboard. And the 300 million users will be much faster. This year alone, we onboarded 50, 50 million new users for the year to date. So you can see that pace of growth being very rapid throughout the world. We continue to deploy, I mean fundamentally Binance is offering a crypto exchange. We are a platform, we allow users to come onto platform, support users in their journey on that front. And we're very proud to have, you know, the deepest liquidity pool, which many users, especially institutions, that are very sensitive to that and breadth of liquidity, pays a lot of attention to.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  But also retail users, users in the mid-tier, we serve our users in different parts of the clientele. And users are fundamentally at the heart of everything we do. We are user-first organization, we are very user-focused, and we continue to strive on that front. And really, thanks everyone for their support on that.

• 5:05Anthony Pompliano?

  And then, Richard, when you think of those users, where are they coming from? Are they coming from developed nations, kind of, you know, growing nations? Are they coming from areas where the fiat currency is working, not working? And then maybe even based on what geography they're coming from, who are they? Are these wealthy individuals? Are they, you know, kind of people who are looking for economic and social mobility?

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Well, I can make a few general observations, right? And you can extrapolate the trend. So, we serve global users, we are deployed in most countries around the world on a global basis, right? Which is why we have 230 million users globally. We have 19 regulatory approval globally, making us the most regulated exchange. More recently, in very populous, very big countries like India, we have secured registration approval over there. In Indonesia, we have gotten a full license, and the list goes on, right? Earlier on, in Thailand, Kazakhstan. So we are deployed globally on that front. But as a general observation, the pace of crypto adoption is the fastest

• 6:11Speaker 02

  where you see slightly younger demographics compared to the rest of the world, right? So, you know, as you can appreciate, people in their twenties, young adult, people in their thirties, they're much more tech savvy, they know how to create things like co-wallet. And if you look at data points from global... The younger adults, their first investment nowadays are not into stocks and bonds. Their first investment tends to be into crypto. And they hold a higher proportion of crypto compared to stocks and bonds very early on in their life. So that shows one trend, that's one observation. The second observation that we have is where financial inclusion is lower. So if you look at places around the world with twenty, thirty percent financial inclusion,

• 6:55Speaker 02

  meaning the bulk of the population have no access to proper banking system, which are extremely expensive for them, the banks are not embodying them, the payment service provider are not embodying them, they have no access to that. And crypto then becomes the very natural and very efficient means for them to acquire assets, to make payments both locally as well as cross-border in the lowest cost possible, right? Compared to traditional financial institutions that charge very high fees on that front. So we see we have fast pace of adoption for those segments. And crypto, unlike traditional assets, was first embraced by retail

• 7:36Speaker 02

  before slowly is spread out to corporates, high net worth, and then ultimately institutions. Most asset class started from institution, so it has gone the reverse direction. But this year alone, because of the ETF approval firstly in the States and then in many other parts of the world, from Hong Kong to Australia to Brazil, and that list goes on, right? We are seeing very fast pace of institution adoption as well. So for year to day, the number of new registration on the institutions and corporates front, at least for us, we saw it almost doubling compared to last year, right? So we have seen very, very fast pace of adoption among institutions. Now that they have started to embrace it, they are coming in in a big fashion.

• 8:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, what's interesting to me is in some of the countries where you guys are seeing the fastest growth, monetary policy is very important. It's important in every country, but how much of an impact does, you know, bad monetary policy decisions, whether it is the devaluation of a fiat currency, hyperinflation, et cetera, drive growth? Do you see economic events occur in a country and then immediately see a large uptick in adoption in those countries?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  So is a, absolutely. So is a combination of factors, right? So, I mean, where financial inclusion is lower. Uh, normally crypto is the only means, as I mentioned, for payments, for people to acquire assets as a store of value, right? They can acquire in other sense. And in many parts of these, these places, uh, where bad macroeconomic condition persists, bad monetary policy persists. Again, you see, you know, they tend to favor things like stable coins, crypto. I mean, if you look at Bitcoin itself, vis a vis all the major currencies around the world, uh, yes, outperform, right? Or the other fiat currencies.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  I think if you look at major currencies around the world in the last couple of years, most of them has underperformed the US dollars. Uh, but Bitcoin has continued to grow from strength to strength. So, so those people in many parts of this country that holds on to stable coins, that holds to majors such as, such as Bitcoin, they tend to be much better over time.

• 9:49Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the things in crypto is, um, there's a lot of tribalism. And so people who hold Bitcoin, you know, really, really believe in Bitcoin, think everything else is worthless. People who hold Ethereum think that Ethereum is really valuable and Solana and everything else isn't, you know, worth anything. And then there's some people who say, hey, I'm just in it for the meme coins and everything else is, you know, too, too big brain for me. Um, how do you all, given that you, you know, really, I think, found a kind of a niche at first and a wedge into the market? And now I've grown into this massive business. How do you all look at Bitcoin, you know, as the first digital asset that really kind of opened up this industry? And then depending on how you look at Bitcoin, how do you look at kind of competition among all of the smart contract platforms, the meme coins, kind of the rest of the industry?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, I think the best and brightest are working in this field together with the AI field, right? So blockchain together with AI will form the backbone of financial infrastructure and infrastructure for many, many industry going forward, right? So which is why we are very bullish. As a market operator, as a platform, we are agnostic, right? Towards all the different tokens. We have a very strong research team, very Very in-depth research into all the different tokens that's out there. We track the performance of these tokens and we determine whether they are suitable for listings at some point in time, right? So we we come here to see who are the performers, what are the laggards. But we are we are agnostic on that front.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  We cheer and we celebrate all new breakthroughs, all new innovation. We're very, very happy and very supportive. Ultimately, I think all of us are working in it together to create a very vibrant ecosystem, a dynamic infrastructure, a huge talent pool for the future, and that's what we are working towards, right? So we work very closely the ecosystem on that front. We are and we want to continue to support innovation. This is a very, very important innovation going forward. And we work with global governments, not only, you know, community, NGOs, industry players, but we work with global governments to stress to them, to educate them, the importance of blockchain, of crypto in the future economy.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  And if you want to support future economic growth, support the different parts of the ecosystem in terms of their continued value add, the talent pool that is coming through. This is a very important sector to embrace and embrace well, support the innovative part of it while managing the risk aspect of it.

• 12:17Anthony Pompliano?

  There's a growing interest, and I think trend, of companies putting Bitcoin or other crypto assets onto their balance sheet. Does Binance have any crypto assets on your balance sheet?

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Oh, we do. So, you know, we are we are there since 2017. And we believe in this space. We are, as I mentioned, we are always long-term bull. We do hold quite a lot of crypto in terms of our balance sheet on that front. But, you know, personally, I think most of us working in Binance and working in the industry are really holders, right? So we we all are very bullish in this industry. And I I think we we conduct our actions in the manner that of what we believe in in operating this platform.

• 13:05Anthony Pompliano?

  When you say that you do hold crypto assets in your balance sheet, I'm assuming that Bitcoin is one of those assets, BNB is one of those assets. Can you talk a little bit as to kind of maybe the philosophy or the framework that you all go through? You know, you mentioned being agnostic to what tokens get listed on the exchange. How do you all think about what assets go onto the balance sheet? And whether you maybe you hold them or you know, at some point you would sell them?

• 13:28Speaker 02

  As you appreciate, this is confidential information, which I can't really go into details. But you know, a lot of, you know, even the fees that we charge are received in crypto, right? So rest assured that, you know, in our space, any exchange that tell you that they don't have crypto, I think that's not true.

• 13:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Given that we're on the topic of confidential information, you wouldn't happen to be interested in telling me the revenue of Binance or the profit of Binance, right?

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I can share with you this, right? So we are very fortunate, we are very blessed to be in the privileged position. We have been operating in a profitable position since very early days, right? So six months into our operations, after July 2017, we have became the largest crypto exchange globally and we kept that position since then. So we are very fortunate, but we're also very prudent in terms of fiscal management, right? In terms of managing our P and L, our balance sheet, our spending. So unlike what you see in many other exchanges, you know, we tend to be very prudent physically on that front.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  And I think our continued focus has been to build a very sustainable platform that is focused on the long term, that continues to provide the best product features, the operationally the most resilient, security wise, the most secure platform for our users out there. And those are things that we continue to invest very, very heavily on.

• 15:01Anthony Pompliano?

  It makes a ton of sense. The last question I'll ask kind of about the business is, there's a lot of investors who I think would love to be investors in Binance, the entity itself. That brings into question, you know, can Binance be a trillion dollar company? Just given the size, the growth, the revenue, the profit? And/or is there a world where Binance would actually try to go public, whether it's in the United States or elsewhere, to allow people in the public markets to get exposure to the equity of Binance as well?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Well, certainly, I think we do hope that you'll become a trillion-dollar company. I think all of us working in Binance, as I mentioned, we're working very hard. The management team, the call team, all the staff are working very hard to support our mission, which is the freedom of money, support our users in terms of their journey, right? And we look forward to global crypto deployment and adoption, supporting users wherever they are. We also look forward to working very closely with global regulators. As of now, only one third of regulators are regulating this space. We are the most regulated so far in this space. And for those that are not regulated, we work with them on frameworks to really support their growth into this sector. So those are things that we continue to work on.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  At this point in time, we have no plans to go IPO. But as if all things in life never say never, we will continue to evaluate our options to see what's best for all the stakeholders on our side to determine whether there's a path going forward.

• 16:32Anthony Pompliano?

  It makes a lot of sense. So one of the things I want to try to highlight for people is, you know, as the CEO of Binance, people will focus on a lot of the positive stuff in terms of the growth, the user base, the revenue. And they'll say, wow, these guys are, you know, they're killing it. They are the leading exchange and they continue to kind of be in this dominant position. On the other hand, many of the negative stories will focus on things around regulation or, you know, kind of past events. But there's a lot of nuance to running a global exchange, specifically a global exchange. And what maybe we could talk about is the situation going on in Nigeria, where you all have an employee who was asked to fly from the United States to Nigeria. And he's now been detained in Nigeria. And I know that you personally, along with the team,

• 17:17Anthony Pompliano?

  and many people in the United States have been working very diligently to try to secure his return. But can you give us a kind of some background information on Tigran and his situation? And then kind of where we are at the moment? And maybe what you think the potential solutions are?

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Certainly. So for all of us that know Tigran, and I think most people that have been involved in the crypto industry long enough, know that he is a financial crime fighter all his life. He's very passionate on that front. So he has been a function, a functional expert, visiting many countries on invitation around the world to impart knowledge, how crypto is a traceable technology. How do you use this technology to trace illicit funds, fight financial crimes, right? So Tigran is, you know, one of the top experts around the world on that front. He used to work for IIS in the States. He was invited to Nigeria earlier this year. He was promised safe passage. As I mentioned, he's a functional expert. He is not a key decision maker within Binance.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  He helped us, he was head of financial crime, and he really helped us work with law enforcement agencies around the world, while we keep out bad players and fight illicit crimes together, right? So unfortunately, he has been detained. His health has deteriorated greatly. He suffers from herniated disc. He's in pain. He can't walk properly. He's not given the proper medical care, right? So we are very concerned that his condition will become permanent. And we have been trying to appeal to the Nigerian government to release Tigran on humiliating grounds. Let him go home. Let him get the proper medical care he needs. Let him get back to his family and friends and loved ones.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  We have past issues with some governments, and we have resolved in a very collaborative actions with all of them, right? Be it the States, India, Brazil, Thailand, and that list goes on, right? And, you know, in many places in the world like Brazil, India, Thailand, we continue to operate, right? After resolving those issues. And we have conveyed those messages very strongly to the Nigerian government. We are here. We are collaborative. We want to work with you. And if there are outstanding issues, let's solve them. There's no need to hold our staff because it sets a very bad precedent. This it sets the chill down all corporates. For any corporates that you have a disagreement with, uh you detain their staff.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Uh that really sets a very bad precedent and many corporates will be very hesitant in terms of their corporate decision within the country, in terms of future investment. So that's not necessary. I I think the US government now is looking at this issue and hopefully we can get the House to approve a resolution to say that Tigran is unlawfully detained in Nigeria and please let him go home. So, you know, hopefully the US government and we appeal to the US government to work through all the issues and get Tigran released back home as soon as possible.

• 20:18Anthony Pompliano?

  What is the grounds that Nigeria is holding him on?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Well, I think there are various. Uh I've set it up in my blog. Uh I've discussed this issue twice by now. I think one of the earliest allegation was uh because of our operations there, the Naira devalue and then I tried to debunk with statistics even after exiting in February, the Naira continued to depreciate and devalue, right? So is to prove that look, this this are macroeconomic forces as economists who educate all of us on this front, these are contingent to things that's happening in the country, right? Um that's one. And then the the others, I think there are certain allegations about uh failure to detect

• 21:05Speaker 02

  and prevent certain money laundering. Uh what we need are real facts, right? So this is our allegations. We we again, if there are any outstanding issues, we will work very closely, the governments to resolve issue, we investigate, we conduct with due diligence and we have worked very closely with global law enforcement agencies, right? So. If you look at publications, we have worked very closely with India enforcement agencies to bring wrongdoers to task camps, frauds, same with Indonesia, same with Taiwan. We have gotten commendations from the Attorney General's Office in Taiwan to say that we are the most cooperative of all the exchanges globally, working with them to fight illicit

• 21:49Speaker 02

  crimes, financial crimes. And that happens throughout the world. In any given year, we receive close to 60,000 law enforcement agencies' requests. And we look very closely at them, we conduct due diligence on those transactions to see whether there's indeed something wrong with those transactions. And if there are, then we are doing our utmost to really work with enforcement agencies to fight those bad actors in the marketplace. So again, let me reiterate our commitment, working with the Nigerian government, law enforcement agencies throughout the world. We are doing, we are playing a very proactive role with many agencies around the world to fight crimes on this front.

• 22:31Anthony Pompliano?

  I saw the video of Tigran. It looked like he was kind of moving from an elevator to a courtroom. And to your point about his health deteriorating, obviously did not, did not look good. He looked very frustrated. And, you know, I, I think anyone can kind of see that situation and, and say, hey, if this was, you know, my brother, my son, my husband, you know, a friend, obviously you want him to, to be returned home, you know, safely and quickly. And so, you know, we'll actually play the video so that people can see that and kind of understand that the severity of the situation. Is there anything that people at home can do to kind of help get the word out and/or, you know, get this in front of some of the politicians that potentially will be voting on this?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Well, Tigran is an American citizen. As you said, he deserves all the protection that US can provide. He is a financial crime fighter. That's his passion in life. It's such an irony that Nigeria detained him on charges that are not proven.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Let him go home as soon as possible. And if all of you can join in the effort, lobby your local legislators, add your voice to the movement to get him home as soon as possible to his loved one and family and get the proper medical treatment before it's too late to do so, right? That will be very, very much appreciated. We thank you from the bottom of our heart on that.

• 23:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Switching gears from, you know, kind of the situation with Tigran. Another thing that when I was asking folks, you know, what questions they had for you, overwhelmingly, everyone wants to know about CZ, who obviously is a pioneer in the crypto industry. He and Binance both kind of settled with the US government in various forms. And then CZ spent about four months or so, you know, detained. And now he has recently been released. My understanding is that he is not actively involved in the day to day management of Binance. But help us just understand, you know, kind of what Binance's official position is on CZ being released. And then also how you guys see his role moving forward.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  So we are elated as with the rest of the community that CZ is home safe. I think that's the most important thing on that front. Binance and CZ, we paid a very heavy penalty for some of the past mistakes we made. But I think what's very important for us is we acknowledge, we took we took responsibility for those, similar to other major financial institutions around the world. Binance is a very, very young organization, seven year old, right? So even financial institutions, there are hundreds, there are decades who, you know, make some of these breaches on those front,

• 25:20Speaker 02

  right? We acknowledge those. We make remedy, pay to have a heavy penalty. But what's very important is we continue to invest into our compliance program and improve upon it and continue on our journey pivoting very strongly. As I mentioned, you know, last year alone, we have invested

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Two hundred over million into our compliance program and that's more than thirty percent increase compared to twenty twenty two where we spent hundred fifty eight million and this year that number continue to increase a lot more. So we continue to invest in terms of global resources in compliance. When we want to build compliance into a competitive advantage on our front. If you think about it, we have the financial ability, we have the financial strength to make all this investment into compliance. As the world moves in the direction of greater compliance requirements, greater regulations in crypto, that will be a very important competitive advantage for us because many of the smaller players may not have

• 26:21Speaker 02

  the financial strength or financial wherewithal to make some of these very important and heavy investments. So let me touch on that point first. I think CZ has tweeted that he's back home, he's enjoying the moment, he's thinking of the future. I think some of those questions on that front is best to direct it to him. But on our front, at the finance front, at the management front, at the board of directors, we are really focused on building the best platform for users, building a very sustainable platform for future growth and we are very bullish for our future.

• 27:02Anthony Pompliano?

  That that makes sense. And, you know, I think there's a lot of people who are very thankful for CZ and the initial Binance team kind of starting this business, really opening up access for many people around the world and obviously creating, you know, economic opportunity. And, you know, one of the things that I think is underestimated about this industry is just how much economic mobility it provides. You know, anyone in the world, regardless of education or, you know, wealth, et cetera, can, with an internet connection, participate in the wealth creation that has occurred and pretty stunning wealth creation that's occurred in this industry, which is, which is pretty cool. Help me understand, Richard, what is the view going forward, right? Everyone is focused on kind of what

• 27:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Binance is today, but obviously you all have started to, you know, build things and launch things and do things outside of just the crypto exchange. And so how do you see Binance evolving and where do you see opportunity in the crypto industry over the next decade or so?

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Well, I think, I mean, I started getting exposure and involved in the crypto industry right around twenty seventeen, March. Binance was launched around July twenty seventeen. At that point in time, I was a regulator, right? So my thesis has always been, this industry, crypto is going to be the future of finance. But for it to go mainstream, you need two elements to get into play. Firstly, you need clear regulations. It's only with clear regulations that, you know, users like players like ourselves, platforms, fund managers, know which are the parameters that we can operate in, right? And then secondly, users need those because they need to know what sort of

• 28:44Speaker 02

  investor protection provisions are out there, what's the security standard they should look out for in terms of platforms, et cetera, et cetera. So that's one element. Second element, you need more institutions in this space because at that point in time, twenty seventeen is predominantly retail pay, right? And crypto adoption is less than one percent. Today, we're probably around six percent of crypto adoption. We are still very early days. As I mentioned, the pace of adoption is getting faster, is getting much more rapid, more and more institutions are jumping on the bandwagon. Twenty twenty four is with a landmark here, with greater regulatory approval, greater regulatory recognition and attention around the world.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  The ETF approval, I think, is a big shot in the arm for many people. And if you look at the top financial institutions in the world, top hundred, top twenty, all of them have a crypto agenda, have a blockchain agenda, you know, many of them have trading desks now that trades crypto as well. So that is a landmark shift, institutions coming in, greater regulatory attention. So the pace going forward is going to be much more rapid. We envisage that many more financial institutions, many traditional exchange jump onto the bank register on this front to offer different sort of products to tap the growing interest in this front.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  The wealth planners, the wealth advisors are going to advise their clients to increase allocation into this particular asset class, right? When the largest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, highlighted they went from Larry Finn went from a critic to a believer in this space, I think that speaks volumes. So you're gonna, we're gonna see a lot more allocation, a lot more new product features that's going to be introduced into this asset category. We believe that many of these areas may not serve the needs of new players coming through, right? So if you think of traditional exchange, the ETF, it serves certain type of users, right?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Probably people that takes a very long term view, trade as much, because you can't effectively hedge your exposure. At night, when the, when the exchange is closed or during the weekends when markets are moving, if you are a trader, if you are, you wanna take positions, you can't do effective positions taking during those period of time. So people then realize that, you know, like exchange like ourselves, offer them the twenty four seven hour trading. You can take position effectively, hedge your position, and we offer a lot more product features, a lot more tokens compared to what the, some of these ETF offer. So we are doing our best to serve all the different type of clientele coming through, the value chain,

• 31:32Speaker 02

  from the institutions to your family office, to corporates, to retail throughout the world. And all of them have slightly different needs in terms of what they're looking for. So many of the entities only trade majors, for instance, right? So what are things that they, they need in terms of product features on that front? Compared to family offices when they do allocation, et cetera. So we track user trends and preference very closely, and user trends and preference tend to be different in different parts of the world as well. So it's how do we tweak our product offering in different parts of the world to best of their needs as we continue to deploy in this space.

• 32:12Anthony Pompliano?

  And as you continue to see that world play out, how much of the future of Binance is what I'll call crypto native versus kind of legacy finance native? And I'll give you two examples. We see many firms on Wall Street, which most people would say, hey, these are legacy incumbent firms. They now are launching kind of crypto native firms. They may say, hey, let's tokenize treasuries. Let's go, obviously, and start to do more and more things on a blockchain. We know JP Morgan and other banks are trying to figure out settlements of payments and things like that versus there are plenty of crypto firms that started out crypto native and they now are trying to become more legacy finance related. They're going away from kind of the hardcore crypto native type approach.

• 32:54Anthony Pompliano?

  And so maybe it's not an either or, but how do you see Binance moving forward more crypto native or trying to kind of quote, quote, "sophisticate" and become more like an incumbent type financial organization?

• 33:06Anthony Pompliano?

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• 33:51Anthony Pompliano?

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• 34:11Speaker 02

  I don't think that Binance at its heart will always be a crypto native, right? But I mean, the general trend will be there's going to be greater and greater convergence, right? So I can just give you a few examples on that front. So even as a crypto native firm, we have to respect the evolving compliance provision, the new regulations that are coming through, which is why we have set up a board of directors comprising seven directors, right? Because regulators... All familiar with a traditional type of corporate setup. So when C Z was running the company, he's a founder-led, founder-run. Uh. He's the CEO of the company then. Um. When I took over, I think one of the first thing we have done is to move it from a founder-led run firm

• 34:56Speaker 02

  to a board-led operated firm, right? So that's is very different. The look and feel, I mean, is closer to what traditional financial firms are and what regulators are used to. Uh. It is a changing landscape. In twenty seventeen, when Binance started, there are, you know, there are very little regulations, if any, that regulate this space. Today, we are close to a third. If you look at five years down the road, we probably cross uh half the jurisdiction having rules and regulations on that front. So again, it's it's a trend. You can't reverse the trend. What you have to do is to understand the landscape and then make changes according to accordingly to adapt to that.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  As you mentioned, a lot of crypto native firm now started to go into the track five world, right? We've introduced with introduction of those products and a lot of track five firm are now introducing crypto products. So you you're going to see greater and greater convergence. I think many firms are going to compete based on product feature, what they can offer to the end clients, understanding user needs much better. And on that front, uh we firmly believe that we have a competitive edge. Uh. We stay very close to our user. As I mentioned, we are user-first firm. Our users give us feedback and comments all the time and we welcome them. And we do have a list of running list of issues and items that our users want and we continue to push the agenda. I mean, look

• 36:18Speaker 02

  at throughout this year, we we continue to rock many new features, right? From things like Mega Drop to Webtree Wallet to Super to pre-market spot trading for tokens uh to Binance Square and and the list goes on. Throughout the course of this year, we continue to push forth new features onto the platform. And these are things that user wants, right? So we hear them, we work very closely with our community on that front to serve them to the best of our ability.

• 36:45Anthony Pompliano?

  What's so interesting about your business is probably saying no is a very important thing because you have the user base, because you have the capital base to be able to do so much. You know, there's a world where Binance could buy the New York Stock Exchange. There's a world where Binance could start a global stock exchange that gives 230 million people the ability to access, you know, any public equity in the world. How do you think through what are the things worth pursuing versus the areas where you're like, ah, this is a good idea, but you know, it's not a Binance idea. Maybe we should not go ahead and do this and we need to say no here.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  Well, the company has very strong values, has very strong DNA, and we are guided to really support the crypto journey and agenda of many of our users globally, right? So that's at the heart of what we do. Certainly, we receive many proposals in different parts of the world. Any one point in time, we are assessing a lot of different proposals that come to us. And it really depends on whether they fall in line with our thought process of how we see the world and whether they add value to the franchise and enterprise, right? There are many in directly into our line of business, some are adjacent lines of business, et cetera. But we continue to evaluate them. And where it makes sense for

• 38:02Speaker 02

  us to do so, we will, we will pursue those opportunities. But at the heart of everything we do, we are running a crypto exchange platform. So we won't deviate very much from that mission of ours.

• 38:14Anthony Pompliano?

  That, uh, that makes a lot of sense. My last question for you is everyone wants to know, you know, we're in a bull market. How high can all this stuff go? Is this going to look like past bull markets? Or do you think that maybe something has structurally changed because there's ETFs and you have the large players are here? How are you all at Binance, uh, thinking about this? And really, it's a resource allocation, right? You don't want to get into a massive bull market and say, oh, we're understaffed in terms of engineering or, um, customer support or marketing or whatever. So what are you all doing internally, uh, to prepare for this bull market and how big do you think it could be?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  So Paul, I wish I have a question. I wish I have a price point to tell you by the end of this cycle where we would be. But we, I do not have that. Uh, but I can tell you as an enterprise, we are very bullish for the future, right? And where are the data points at that front? This year alone, we have added a thousand new headcount for global deployment. We are going to add possibly another six hundred, seven hundred more, I suspect, before the end of the year. So we continue to recruit quite aggressively, right? Globally on this front. And that's really to support our global crypto deployment on that. Uh, September normally has been the slow month from crypto.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  But if you look at what's happening, we went from a very high interest rate environment. And you saw Fed rate cuts, right? Because it appears that inflation is under control now. And a lower interest rate normally is a big boost for risk assets such as crypto. So we don't, we did not only see a rate cut in the U S. We saw a substantial rate cut coming out from China to boost economic activity. And again, that provided another boost. So and October, November are normally are much better month for crypto, traditionally speaking. I think another dynamics that we have not seen in previous cycle is institutions.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  The amount of institutions money, if you look at what has been, you know, injected into the ETFs. The U S ETF alone is pretty substantial. So this cycle, you see a lot more institutions coming through. They provide a different avenue for new liquidity, new user base coming through. And that will create greater dynamism for this industry. Uh, you're going to have much more users, different users of different sorts, right? A different duration in terms of their investments as well. And that's a big positive. It leads to a much more vibrant marketplace with different type of users in the marketplace, right? So we are, we are bullish for the future.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  And I think it pans out in terms of the, I, I mentioned this year alone with on board fifty million new users. And that number continue to grow quite rapidly. Uh, we see a lot more institutions coming to us and the institutions are trading uh quite robustly as well. So, so we are, we are pretty bullish for the future.

• 41:12Anthony Pompliano?

  I misled you. Actually, I have one more question, which is, can you run out of people? Is there an ability? You have 230 million people. You're growing incredibly quickly. You know, there's only about half of the world that has internet connection. How many of those actually want to participate in kind of crypto? What do you see as kind of the total adjustable market? Or are there concerns that eventually you may run out of people to sign up?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Our aspiration is to onboard the next billion users, right? So I think in the first phase of growth, you have a lot of crypto native, you have a lot of Web3 native. The early believers are coming in, right? So in the very early days of our journey. By now, I think you are seeing, you know, not the very early adopters, but people that are starting to see the trend of global institutions allocating into this space. And they say, hey, if the institutions, the smart money are coming in, there's something in there. If Larry Finn is saying that, look, this technology is here to say is a very important technology for the future, then I think people sit up and take notice, right? Especially in the Web2 world.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  So we are seeing a lot more of the traditional players, some of the TradFi players, people that are of, you know, slightly older age group. I think the early adopters are very, very young adults. And you see, you know, different profile coming through now. And our aspiration is to onboard the next billion users.

• 42:40Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a great place to end it. Richard, thank you so much for doing this. Binance continues to be a leader in the space and you guys are growing incredibly quickly, giving access to hundreds of millions and hopefully billions of people in the future. And so we are, we're cheering for you, but I appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone, for your support and thanks for this.