Latest / What's Uptin? / The CEO who inherited a $4.3 Billion Storm. Then Built an Empire

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The CEO who inherited a $4.3 Billion Storm. Then Built an Empire · What's Uptin?

• 0:00
  Bitcoin hit all time highs. Trump won the White House.
• 0:03
  Crypto finally had a friend in power, and for a moment it felt
• 0:07
  like nothing could stop it. We started. 2024 with 170
• 0:11
  million users. By now we are close to 300
• 0:14
  million users. 300 million users at the world's biggest crypto
• 0:18
  exchange, the same exchange that just two years ago was hit with
• 0:22
  a $4.3 billion fine. That's one of the largest
• 0:26
  corporate penalties in U.S. history.
• 0:29
  Its founder sees Z pleaded guilty to money laundering
• 0:32
  violations. He went to prison, but when he
• 0:34
  walked out, he was still worth $60 billion.
• 0:38
  C ZS. Resignation came with a $4.3
• 0:41
  billion settlement with the US government.
• 0:43
  How did you build? Trust we did mix on the sticks.
• 0:46
  Meet Richard Tang, the former regulator, now the man
• 0:49
  rebuilding trust at the center of crypto.
• 0:52
  Is CZ still involved in any decision making today?
• 0:55
  The future of crypto and what governments around the world are
• 0:59
  actually doing. Behind the scenes.
• 1:01
  This is what's Upton with finance CEO Richard Tang.
• 1:05
  You're coming up on 2 years as CEO of Finance.
• 1:07
  When CZ first stepped down, What was that first month like?
• 1:11
  What was the most challenging part?
• 1:12
  Well, firstly, I'm very grateful to CZE and the rest of the Co
• 1:15
  founders for having faith and confidence in me to continue to
• 1:19
  lead this very important franchise going forward, right?
• 1:23
  So I think the first month, again, very, very fortunate to
• 1:26
  have a very strong leadership team with me, very committed
• 1:29
  staff. We will pull through it
• 1:31
  together. So we spend a lot of time
• 1:33
  rejigging and rethinking, you know, what's the strategy of the
• 1:36
  future. And then in my first month, I
• 1:38
  came out to say that, look, I have three key missions.
• 1:41
  I have three key objective, right?
• 1:42
  Firstly, it is always to make sure that we are the best in
• 1:45
  class platform, a best service provider for our users out there
• 1:49
  and protect them, make sure the contrast and confidence continue
• 1:54
  to be very strong our users. I think that's one.
• 1:56
  Secondly, working with global regulators to really support
• 2:00
  crypto adoption and deployment coming out of smart regulations.
• 2:03
  And then thirdly, because crypto is still very early and so
• 2:06
  working with global partners, regional local partners to
• 2:09
  continue to foster a very vibrant ecosystem for crypto,
• 2:13
  right? So the more we can do together
• 2:16
  to make this ecosystem much more dynamic, the vibrant, the better
• 2:20
  off we all are, right? So, so that's, that's my tree
• 2:23
  objective. And then so far we have been
• 2:25
  really hitting on all three. So it's interesting you say
• 2:28
  crypto is still early. A lot of people are saying this
• 2:30
  is the year crypto goes mainstream.
• 2:32
  Do you think we're at that level?
• 2:34
  Well, I see the mainstreaming started last year in 2024,
• 2:38
  right? So firstly with approval of ETF
• 2:41
  in the United States and then subsequently throughout the
• 2:43
  world for many financial institutions, they went from
• 2:46
  crypto skeptics for many, many years, right?
• 2:48
  And pushing back from the crypto agenda to last year, they
• 2:51
  started to embrace it, right? So the likes of Black Rock,
• 2:54
  Fidelity, Child Soft and the list goes on to say, hey, we are
• 2:57
  going to offer our customers crypto products, right?
• 3:02
  They launch ATM and then come out with other products to
• 3:05
  launch to their customers. And this year the momentum's
• 3:08
  continue to be much stronger compared to last year, right?
• 3:11
  So towards the end of last year election of President Trump,
• 3:14
  which is a pro crypto president, right and of the largest
• 3:18
  economy, most important economy of the world.
• 3:20
  I think that is a landmark shift, OK.
• 3:24
  So we are all beneficial of that.
• 3:26
  I mean, just in terms of user, we started 2024 with 170 million
• 3:32
  users. By now we are close to 300
• 3:34
  million users. So in the span of just slightly
• 3:35
  more than a year and a half, we have onboarded 130 million
• 3:39
  users, right. So you can see the momentum and
• 3:41
  many of them we doubled our institution onboarding last
• 3:44
  year. This year again we saw double
• 3:46
  there. So we see very, very strong
• 3:48
  momentum from institution. So you're absolutely right,
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  institution has happened and then today you have close to 200
• 3:55
  listed companies globally with tax right.
• 3:57
  So digital assets, treasury. So we continue to see very
• 4:01
  strong shift and momentums towards the crypto adoption and
• 4:05
  supporting the crypto agenda. So that's what exit.
• 4:08
  C ZS resignation came with a $4.3 billion settlement with the
• 4:13
  US government. This was on about two years ago.
• 4:15
  How did finance managed to get over 100 million users?
• 4:21
  You know, after that controversy, how did you build
• 4:23
  trust with the public? Well, maybe I should put things
• 4:28
  into perspective, right? So, so when CZ and the rest of
• 4:30
  the Co founders started this company in 2017, the landscape
• 4:34
  is totally different. And so I mentioned this, at that
• 4:37
  point in time, crypto adoption globally was less than 1%.
• 4:41
  The institution was saying that it's a passing fare, it's a
• 4:44
  scam, don't do it. Different narrative coming out
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  and the regulators was just, you know, squatting it away saying
• 4:50
  that not going to spend time and energy on it.
• 4:52
  So at that point in time the rules was very nascent, right?
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  It's very unclear. So in those early days we did
• 4:59
  make some mistakes. But as with all responsible
• 5:02
  financial institutions like we are, I think what's important is
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  that we realized those mistakes and even when CZ was there, he
• 5:10
  started to make huge investment into compliance.
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  So in the last few years, we have make huge, huge investments
• 5:17
  into the area of compliance. Now our compliance team is
• 5:21
  almost 1/4 of our total headcount, right?
• 5:23
  So we have close to 1300 compliance staff.
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  We didn't mind it. That's how important and how
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  committed we are on that front. And we want to make compliance a
• 5:33
  competitive advantage for ourselves, right?
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  Because the direction of travel now is very clear is one that
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  more and more countries are coming out clear regulations.
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  But we are the most regulated exchange globally by now.
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  So we are regulated in 22 different jurisdiction.
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  So this is a competitive add, competitive add for us.
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  The more we can invest in it. For the new entrance, you'll
• 5:54
  find that the compliance cost is pretty high, but we are able to
• 5:57
  make those financial commit and investments in the debt space.
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  So this, this something that we're going to harness on and we
• 6:04
  have make a lot of investment not only on the compliance
• 6:06
  front, but also the AI front making things much better,
• 6:09
  right, Both from the onboarding of customers, be they be they
• 6:13
  retail or corporate customers to how we do transaction monitoring
• 6:18
  to how we do surveillance, etcetera.
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  So throughout the organization, this not only on the compliance
• 6:23
  front, but on the AI front. So we are able to make all those
• 6:26
  investment to make this the most trusted, the safest platform for
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  our users and the one that's the most innovative in terms of
• 6:33
  products and services. On that note, you let's talk
• 6:36
  about the US market, you have some sort of operations there,
• 6:40
  not in all states. New York you can't operate.
• 6:42
  Do you see a path forward to to be operational in the US Well.
• 6:46
  So maybe if I can highlight something, finance.com is not
• 6:51
  operating in the US, right? So we have no users, no
• 6:53
  customers from the US There is Finance dot US right, which is a
• 6:59
  different company with a different set of shareholders
• 7:02
  for the directors and CEO. So I can't speak for them, but
• 7:05
  at this point in time, binance.com is not operating in
• 7:07
  the US But what we're doing is, you know, US being the largest
• 7:12
  economy in the world has great speed of influence.
• 7:15
  Whatever the US do, the rest of the world will take notice.
• 7:19
  And so President Trump is extremely visionary and
• 7:22
  strategic to say that, hey, US will be the capital capital of
• 7:26
  the world, will be the AI capital of the world, because he
• 7:28
  knows that these are the two most important technology that's
• 7:32
  going to drive every economic sector going forward in the
• 7:35
  world, right? So if you look at the future
• 7:37
  world, everything will be built on pitching and AI.
• 7:41
  So given US ambition, we, we as the largest ecosystem in the
• 7:45
  world and largest capital exchange, we want to be
• 7:48
  supportive of that, right. So we are keeping our close
• 7:51
  watching brief of what's coming out from the USI mean big kudos
• 7:57
  and positive from Genius Act that give clarity on stable
• 8:00
  coins. So you see a lot of new stable
• 8:02
  coin issuers because of that clarity given right.
• 8:05
  So I think the next phase will be the Clarity Act, the market
• 8:07
  structure bill that's coming through.
• 8:09
  So with all those clarity, then I think we can take a real look
• 8:13
  of what's happening over there. So Speaking of President Trump,
• 8:18
  there's speculation that CZ could get a pardon from
• 8:21
  President Trump. I'm curious, has Binance or your
• 8:24
  team had any discussions with the administration on that?
• 8:26
  Well. CZ himself very recent right
• 8:29
  nobody will mind your pardon on that front.
• 8:32
  So and quite a normal people have have secured pardons.
• 8:36
  So we have to wait and see any, I'm not Privy to those
• 8:39
  conversation. Any of those conversations will
• 8:41
  be private and confidential as you appreciate it.
• 8:45
  Absolutely. And has is CZ still involved in
• 8:48
  any decision making within finance despite formally
• 8:51
  stepping down? South CZ is a key shareholder of
• 8:55
  finance, substantial shareholders.
• 8:56
  So as with any corporates right, shareholders have their rights
• 9:01
  on that front. But on a day-to-day basis, me
• 9:05
  and my team, we run the company, we report to our Board of
• 9:08
  directors, including three independent directors and an
• 9:11
  independent chairman on that front.
• 9:13
  So we really push the company forward in terms of strategy, in
• 9:18
  terms of operating matters are with the senior management team
• 9:21
  and the board of directors. On that front, of course, there
• 9:23
  are still matters that we have to refer to shareholders for
• 9:26
  approval, similar to any other corporates in the world.
• 9:29
  Absolutely. So you mentioned Finance,
• 9:31
  world's largest exchange, more than 100 million users added,
• 9:36
  right? You said 300 million users, now
• 9:38
  close to 300. So we're about to hit the 300
• 9:40
  million users. We're at token 2049.
• 9:42
  You know, you look to your left, you look to right, there's a new
• 9:44
  exchange. What is the secret sauce that
• 9:46
  made finance #1? Well, really, kudos to the
• 9:50
  founders, right? So they have instilled a very
• 9:53
  strong mission statement, which is to support the freedom of
• 9:56
  money globally. I think in today's world, if you
• 9:58
  talk to people, they say, hey, these are my money I want to use
• 10:01
  in a, in a way that I want to, right?
• 10:04
  But there's still a lot of friction points globally, right?
• 10:07
  So we have been supporting that from the very early days.
• 10:11
  So crypto exists to soft droppers even today.
• 10:14
  You have close to 1.4 billion people around the world with no
• 10:18
  access to banking system, with no access to payment system.
• 10:21
  So crypto become the only mechanism in the last decade or
• 10:24
  so that allows them to do transfer locally, domestic
• 10:28
  transfer, domestic payment, remittance globally to their
• 10:31
  loved ones at a fraction of the cost of what traditional
• 10:35
  financial institutions charge and instantaneous.
• 10:38
  If you do a money remittance today, it will take two days to
• 10:41
  reach the recipient at a very high cost, but you would do it
• 10:43
  by crypto, it's instantaneous, right?
• 10:45
  So the beauty of crypto is it solves the world's problem.
• 10:49
  So other than very strong mission statement, we have very
• 10:51
  strong values and they're coming as very strong DNA.
• 10:54
  And the DNA the values is really putting users at the forefront
• 10:58
  of every key decision we made, right?
• 11:00
  So user protection, user assets, making sure we have the best
• 11:03
  product suite out there and we continue to innovate of our
• 11:06
  users. So I think that's those are key.
• 11:09
  It's a very hardcore, very committed team of people
• 11:12
  focusing on execution, very humble and collaborative very.
• 11:17
  So all those are very strong DNA of Binance that continue to
• 11:22
  drive where we are and where we will go head towards.
• 11:26
  Absolutely. It kind of reminds me of
• 11:27
  leapfrogging in China when they, you know, many Chinese skipped
• 11:32
  the, the laptop and the computer and straight to mobile.
• 11:35
  And now as you look at the most advanced mobile market in the
• 11:37
  world, it's China, right? So which are the markets that
• 11:40
  are kind of exciting you the most in terms of capturing the
• 11:43
  the unbanked? Well, there are so many, right,
• 11:46
  so, but there's not only markets, they are unbanked,
• 11:49
  there are different even developed markets that continue
• 11:52
  to embrace crypto and developing very fast.
• 11:54
  But if you look at the top ten global crypto adoption countries
• 11:59
  globally, five of them are in Asia Pacific.
• 12:03
  So Asia Pacific continues to grow very fast, Latin America
• 12:06
  continue to grow very quickly and Africa region, right.
• 12:09
  So you have different pockets of very fast grow, but it's not
• 12:13
  only all the developing and emerging markets, they are
• 12:16
  growing very fast. But the developed markets are
• 12:19
  also embracing. I mean, US is an extremely
• 12:21
  developed market. And they jump from #4 on index
• 12:24
  two years ago to now #2 right? And given President Trump's
• 12:28
  ambition, I'm, I'm not surprised if they reach for the number one
• 12:31
  very quickly, right? Because they are putting in
• 12:33
  place all the funded fundamental building blocks for success and
• 12:38
  the best and brightest talent pool continue to be there.
• 12:41
  So the rest of the countries are taking notice to say, hey, US
• 12:45
  being such a dominant economy, you want to compete with that,
• 12:48
  right? We had to really get ahead of
• 12:51
  the curve in terms of embracing AI, embracing crypto and
• 12:55
  blockchain, making sure that we continue to draw foreign direct
• 12:59
  investments into the country, the best talents into the
• 13:02
  country. And many countries are also
• 13:04
  starting to do allocation into crypto, right?
• 13:07
  So you probably have seen our newest announcement where
• 13:11
  Kazakhstan started their own strategic crypto reserve and
• 13:14
  they were with violence Kazakhstan on that front.
• 13:17
  So many different countries have approached us now wishing to set
• 13:19
  up their own strategic reserve. So we are helping countries on
• 13:23
  that front, not only on the regulatory front coming out with
• 13:26
  smart regulations, but helping them set up those.
• 13:29
  And many institutions come to us right being by virtue of us
• 13:32
  being the deepest liquidity to liquidity pool.
• 13:36
  They get best execution, best beta spread, lower slippage when
• 13:40
  they trade through us. And people know that they save
• 13:42
  substantial amount of money when they trade through Binance and
• 13:44
  our products with this the widest.
• 13:47
  So we continue to push the agenda on that front.
• 13:50
  I'm curious with your background in compliance and your you said
• 13:52
  25% of your staff is in compliance.
• 13:55
  You spend hundreds of millions a year on compliance programs.
• 13:58
  How do you? Balance innovation with
• 14:01
  compliance because traditionally compliance is seen as hindering
• 14:05
  and stifling growth and innovation, right?
• 14:07
  So as CEO of finance, I mean, how do you prioritize the two
• 14:11
  and and make the two work with each other?
• 14:13
  I do think that they do come hand in hand.
• 14:16
  So we don't view compliance just as a hurdle by social enabler
• 14:21
  because when we work with institutions around the world,
• 14:24
  governments around the world, regulatory agencies, right?
• 14:28
  So they want the provisions that there's proper safety, there's
• 14:33
  proper compliance provision to allow for them to work with you
• 14:37
  as a keys that coded. So I think that's a key enabler.
• 14:41
  We work very tirelessly to make sure that we keep the global
• 14:46
  system safe, right? And so we, we, we on the
• 14:50
  compliance from we also work very closely law enforcement
• 14:52
  agencies around the world to keep this sector safely.
• 14:55
  So any we work, we have in the last two years gotten
• 14:58
  commendations letter from different law enforcement
• 15:01
  agencies and police force for our efforts in working with
• 15:03
  them, right. So places like Hong Kong,
• 15:07
  Singapore, Taiwan, in Asia Pacific, so all have booked with
• 15:11
  us to fight illicit crimes and they are really grateful for our
• 15:14
  efforts on that front. So we continue to uphold trust
• 15:18
  and confidence in this sector, which is extremely important,
• 15:21
  right? For the now we are 7 1/2%
• 15:24
  adoption, right? It's only by upholding trust and
• 15:27
  confidence in this sector that you're going to continue to
• 15:30
  scale up very quickly to reach 2030% crypto adoption.
• 15:34
  So I covered the El Salvador story a couple years ago where,
• 15:38
  you know, I think a lot of times when you talk to people, let's
• 15:40
  say in the US, me being American and you hear about Bitcoin, the,
• 15:44
  the average person sees Bitcoin as a way to make money and get
• 15:47
  rich, right? They don't when you tell them
• 15:48
  like no, no, no, people are using it to, to, to pay for
• 15:51
  their payments and instead of getting paid in Argentinian pay,
• 15:55
  so or El Salvador, Well, El Salvador uses the dollar.
• 15:57
  But you know, Argentina is also a good example, right, where
• 16:00
  they have at some point 100% inflation all of a sudden.
• 16:04
  So they want to use the dollar, but even the dollar is going
• 16:06
  down at times, right? So they want to use Bitcoin.
• 16:09
  How do you kind of educate the different markets and change?
• 16:13
  Your your your. Branding and communications to
• 16:18
  to to cater to the different markets to increase that 7%
• 16:22
  adoption you're talking about. Well, so a lot of times we we
• 16:26
  recently published a series, right?
• 16:28
  So live content, meaning these are real life stories and these
• 16:31
  are things that when I get on the road, people come up to
• 16:34
  thank me, right? Especially many of these
• 16:36
  emerging markets. So for any crypto skeptics that
• 16:40
  argue that crypto is not a proper transfer of value, right,
• 16:44
  look at what's happening throughout the world.
• 16:46
  People are using crypto, including stable coins to
• 16:48
  transfer value. And that is a superior
• 16:50
  technology and superior solution compared to what we have
• 16:54
  currently, right? So you transfer values in an
• 16:56
  instantaneous basis. We have very slow slippage at a
• 17:00
  fraction of a cost of what traditional finance do.
• 17:03
  And for anybody that argues that crypto is not a proper stall,
• 17:06
  well, right. Again, going back to your story,
• 17:09
  I have been to many parts of the world where people come up and
• 17:12
  thank you. And when I asked them why, they
• 17:14
  said, you know, my family has benefited so much by calling to
• 17:19
  crypto, whether it's Bitcoin, you know, BMB or things like
• 17:23
  stable coins in the last four to five years.
• 17:26
  Because the country's currency, the Fiat currency is going
• 17:29
  through hyper. I mean, the country is going
• 17:32
  through hyperinflationary situation and the Fed currency
• 17:35
  keep depreciating by holding on to crypto, which on the other
• 17:38
  hand, has been appreciating. They are so much more wealth
• 17:43
  compared to their peers, compared to their relatives,
• 17:45
  their friends. So they are extremely grateful.
• 17:48
  So for anybody that have tried to argue that crypto is not a
• 17:51
  proper story, well, just look at all these life stories that are
• 17:54
  out there, right? So I think all those things,
• 17:57
  people experience it. People tell their friends, tell
• 17:59
  their families, and that's where part of the crypto adoption is
• 18:03
  coming through in a very big way.
• 18:05
  Let's go back two years. Would you say looking back on
• 18:08
  your two years, nearly two years, would you say adoption
• 18:12
  has met your expectation exceeded or it's below?
• 18:16
  I would say is slightly matching and above my expectation.
• 18:20
  For example, I didn't expect the ETF approval to come early last
• 18:24
  year to come early in 2020. I expected it to come towards
• 18:28
  the second-half of last year, right?
• 18:29
  So, but with the ETF approval that started the acceleration,
• 18:33
  right, a bit by bit and then suddenly the momentum becomes
• 18:37
  very quick, right? So we President Trump's election
• 18:40
  now with the passing of genius, you see so many stable coin
• 18:43
  issuers trying to come to the marketplace, right?
• 18:45
  And then you see all the with the clarity given you see crypto
• 18:50
  company listed firstly in the US and then globally around the
• 18:54
  world and then with the digital assets treasury companies coming
• 18:57
  through in another big fashion, right.
• 18:59
  So that support has allowed for institutionalization and
• 19:04
  mainstreaming to take place at a faster place compared to what I
• 19:09
  would expected it to be correct. So we are very privileged to be
• 19:13
  in this time. But now we are about 7 1/2%
• 19:16
  crypto adoption. Given the momentum, the next 10%
• 19:19
  will come very quickly. What are your thoughts on
• 19:22
  prediction markets? Well, I think that they are
• 19:25
  great for anybody that's interested in tech sector, Yeah.
• 19:30
  So we continue to monitor those space very, very, very closely,
• 19:33
  right, whether it's prediction market or stock organization.
• 19:37
  We have also announced partnership with Franklin
• 19:40
  Templeton and many institutions are coming to us by virtue of us
• 19:45
  being the largest web tree ecosystem, right.
• 19:47
  So when they need help, support partnership on those fronts.
• 19:50
  So we get a lot of people approaching us on different
• 19:55
  partnerships. Amazing finance pay is
• 19:57
  processing billions in transactions.
• 20:00
  Do you see it taking over Visa and MasterCard?
• 20:03
  American Express? I would.
• 20:05
  Say that there is going to be a wave of future payment via
• 20:09
  crypto because it's just much more superior on that Friday,
• 20:13
  right but there's also partnership we just partner
• 20:16
  MasterCard or in South America right on that front and also we
• 20:22
  also have a partnership in Master Teddy in Europe, which
• 20:25
  were announced in August. So is, is really some of the
• 20:30
  traditional financial institutions also embracing this
• 20:32
  space. You probably have seen Swift and
• 20:35
  now saying that they're going to adopt dock chain Ledger as well.
• 20:37
  Again, Swift based on the current architecture is pretty
• 20:40
  arcade by now, right? So now I think the financial
• 20:44
  institutions are all realizing that they have to embrace this
• 20:48
  otherwise they'll be dinosaurs. So, so we are seeing a huge
• 20:52
  shift on that front. Everybody's jumping on a
• 20:54
  bandwagon to try to adopt this best best in class technology.
• 20:58
  What kind of ripple effect have you seen with Trump being the
• 21:01
  most crypto friendly president we've ever seen?
• 21:03
  What kind of ripple effect have you seen with governments and
• 21:06
  regulators around the world? Huge because as I mentioned, the
• 21:10
  US is the dominant economy in the world, the largest economy.
• 21:13
  If you look at capital markets in the US, it's 50% of global
• 21:16
  capital markets, right? So whatever the US do, the rest
• 21:20
  of the countries will take notice, right, and determine
• 21:24
  what's their strategy in terms of being part of that, that
• 21:30
  strategy or how do you counter that.
• 21:33
  So that has a big positive around the world.
• 21:36
  So I think, I think now if you talk to governments around the
• 21:41
  world compared to a year or two years ago, most of them have a
• 21:44
  much more open attitude towards crypto and many of them have
• 21:47
  started to formulate their crypto regulatory framework.
• 21:51
  As I mentioned, many of them have started to consider doing
• 21:55
  strategic allocation in the crypto.
• 21:56
  This is something that is unimaginable 2 years ago.
• 21:59
  So we are seeing that spill over effect to the rest of the world.
• 22:04
  What is 1? Market that you look at and say
• 22:07
  they're at the forefront. Oh, there are so many.
• 22:11
  There are so, so many because every country now is trying to
• 22:14
  say, hey, there's something that's really happening here,
• 22:17
  right? So if I want to be a important
• 22:20
  and relevant player in the world on that front, what do I do?
• 22:23
  Right. So you look at different parts
• 22:25
  of Asia Pacific, Singapore, Hong Kong, or is trying to be a
• 22:28
  crypto hub. If you look at different parts
• 22:30
  of Middle East like Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, again the same
• 22:36
  narrative that happens throughout the different parts
• 22:38
  of the world. Again, that's happening in Latin
• 22:40
  America. So we are seeing a lot of
• 22:43
  different shifts and a lot of different developments around
• 22:46
  the world. What's something that keeps you
• 22:48
  up at night? Well, it's continue to make sure
• 22:51
  that we develop the best in class platform for users,
• 22:54
  continue to rethink what is going to happen, continue to
• 22:57
  push the innovation agenda on their front, continue to make
• 23:01
  sure that safety and soundness are the most important in terms
• 23:04
  of our user etcetera. So listening to what users want,
• 23:08
  continue to develop products and services that serve their needs
• 23:12
  working or with global partners to really rethink the future of
• 23:16
  finance. Absolutely.
• 23:18
  I want to talk about President Trump's sons.
• 23:21
  I think a lot of us did not predict a couple years ago that
• 23:23
  they would be so heavily involved in the industry.
• 23:26
  What is what is the reception been like for for the industry?
• 23:30
  Well, I think it's been great. I even listened to them.
• 23:33
  They have been telling why they went to crypto in the first
• 23:36
  instance because they were essentially the bank, right?
• 23:40
  And for them then the only way, as I mentioned in many parts of
• 23:44
  the world, financial institutions make it very
• 23:46
  expensive to onboard clients, right?
• 23:49
  You have to maintain a minimum balance for them to bank you,
• 23:53
  right? And compliance costs and they
• 23:56
  impose a lot of compliance burden and many families around
• 23:59
  the world can't afford to do that, right?
• 24:01
  They can't afford to put huge money at the pens, etc.
• 24:04
  And crypto is permissionless. You can access it 20547.
• 24:09
  It doesn't discriminate between groups.
• 24:12
  So when you know the Trump family I think for a while was
• 24:18
  facing a bit of the banking issues, crypto become the
• 24:21
  natural choice, right to overcome some of those
• 24:23
  challenges. And obviously now the thing that
• 24:26
  times have changed, a lot of big banks and institutions are now
• 24:29
  than crypto. But there was a time where you
• 24:33
  know under President Biden's administration that it was very
• 24:36
  anti crypto and industry was oppressed at that point in time,
• 24:40
  right. So then, and the entire
• 24:43
  landscape has shifted 180 interviews.
• 24:46
  Is Binance thinking about 2028? And would Binance openly support
• 24:52
  a political candidate publicly, you know, in return for a more
• 24:57
  favorable crypto relationship? Well, Binance doesn't quite look
• 25:01
  at political issues on that front.
• 25:03
  I think our key focus first and foremost is always on our users
• 25:08
  and building the best platform for users in terms of trust,
• 25:11
  confidence and the best asset a product suite help there.
• 25:15
  So I think political issues are not really our faulty.
• 25:20
  Who is your number one target customer right now?
• 25:24
  Everyone. Everyone.
• 25:26
  Not the 300 million people using.
• 25:29
  No, no. So if you look at it, our
• 25:31
  ambition is to reach 1 billion customers globally, right.
• 25:35
  So we are close to 300 million. So we have a fair bit of work to
• 25:38
  do. 30% there. Yeah.
• 25:40
  So, but everyone so from your retail customers to your
• 25:43
  corporate family office, trans foundations, institutions to
• 25:47
  sovereigns, right. So we have more and more people
• 25:50
  from all across the category onboarding to finance and
• 25:54
  they're very, very grateful for our user support on that front.
• 25:57
  It's only with them that we continue to push ahead with our
• 26:00
  gender. And final question here, what
• 26:02
  excites you the most right now? Well, you know, crypto is
• 26:05
  developing so quickly. We have so many new innovation
• 26:08
  coming through. We are really very supportive of
• 26:11
  this, all this new innovation. So what excites me is to see the
• 26:14
  next big thing, the next big utility coming through, right?
• 26:17
  That makes big development coming out from this sector.
• 26:21
  And you can't quite predict, right?
• 26:22
  So a year ago you couldn't predict.
• 26:24
  There's 200 listed companies around the world involved in
• 26:27
  decks. So again, things are developing
• 26:30
  at such a rapid pace that it keep us on our toes and keep
• 26:34
  everything fresh and exciting the time.
• 26:37
  Richard, really enjoyed your time and really appreciate it.
• 26:39
  Thanks so much. And hopefully we'll catch up at
• 26:41
  the next one in Dubai or back here in Singapore.
• 26:44
  Thank you. So.
• 26:44
  Much for your. Home, thank you so much.
• 26:46
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 26:46
  Thanks for listening to this episode of What's Up 10 where I
• 26:49
  bring you inside the minds driving tech, money and power.
• 26:52
  Follow along on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you
• 26:55
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• 26:58
  account on Instagram at Up 10. Would love to connect with you.