Latest / The Starting Block / CZ: $500M in Elon's X, 4 Months in Prison & What's Coming Next

Transcript

CZ: $500M in Elon's X, 4 Months in Prison & What's Coming Next · The Starting Block

• 0:00
  My lawyer is telling me, like, you
• 0:01
  are most likely a primary extortion
• 0:03
  target. So that didn't help.
• 0:05
  No one else went to jail for a
• 0:06
  single banking secrecy violation.
• 0:08
  So I'm just very happy that, you
• 0:10
  know, a crypto firm was able to
• 0:11
  contribute to that freedom of speech
• 0:13
  platform. To have freedom of money,
• 0:15
  we need freedom of speech.
• 0:16
  Users know whether you're protecting
• 0:17
  them or not, with or without
• 0:18
  regulation, with or without
• 0:19
  licenses. Crypto is going to be
• 0:21
  around. AI is going need money.
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  And they're going to use crypto.
• 0:24
  And that phrase was actually used
• 0:25
  against me in court by the U.S.
• 0:27
  Government, saying that, look, this
• 0:28
  is a guy who does not follow rules.
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  In my life, actually, I think I'm a
• 0:31
  rule follower. Near the end of my
• 0:32
  life I want to say, look.
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  I did my best.
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  It's not so much a competition with
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  Elon, with whoever else, wealth
• 0:38
  rankings.
• 0:39
  Those things doesn't matter.
• 0:40
  Good afternoon.
• 0:40
  Good morning to you wherever you're
• 0:42
  watching this live stream.
• 0:43
  Welcome to The Starting Block.
• 0:44
  It's an absolute pleasure to
• 0:46
  officially launch The Block's new
• 0:47
  show. If you don't know me, my
• 0:48
  name's Gareth Jenkinson.
• 0:49
  I'm the head of multimedia here at
• 0:51
  The Block and I'm a host of our new
• 0:52
  daily show. So it's a great pleasure
• 0:54
  to have you and it's great pleasure
• 0:55
  have you, CZ, here on the first
• 0:57
  episode of the show, Big Launch.
• 0:59
  Thanks for having us in Abu Dhabi.
• 1:00
  Well, congrats on the launch.
• 1:01
  I'm really honored to be the first
• 1:02
  guest here.
• 1:03
  Thank you.
• 1:03
  And looking forward to many
• 1:05
  more episodes.
• 1:06
  Beautiful, thank you very much.
• 1:08
  Yeah, it's a bit of a dream to
• 1:09
  launch a show with you joining us
• 1:11
  and a lot has happened in
• 1:13
  the many years that I've been in the
• 1:15
  industry and like we were talking
• 1:16
  about Orfair, we met.
• 1:18
  Well, the first time we interviewed
• 1:19
  was in 2018 and at the
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  time it had been a year since
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  Binance had launched.
• 1:24
  There was a lot of scrutiny on the
• 1:25
  exchange already by then, like you'd
• 1:27
  overtaken everyone by trading volume
• 1:29
  and needless to say, it's been
• 1:31
  a crazy story since then.
• 1:33
  In recent weeks, Elon Musk
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  has grabbed headlines, becoming the
• 1:36
  world's first trillionaire.
• 1:38
  And I was doing a bit of research
• 1:39
  before we sat down
• 1:41
  and did this interview and
• 1:43
  ex-crypto
• 1:45
  Twitter has been talking about you
• 1:47
  overtaking Bill Gates
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  as a billionaire, like on
• 1:52
  the world rich list.
• 1:53
  And it's very crazy to see the
• 1:55
  similarities between the two things.
• 1:56
  But I wanted to talk to you about
• 1:57
  Elon Musk, just to do something
• 1:59
  completely different with the start
• 2:00
  of the interview.
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  I stand to be corrected, but I
• 2:04
  think you invested close to
• 2:06
  $500 million in the takeover
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  of X and that money went to Elon,
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  but you've never met him.
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  Why would you spend that much money?
• 2:14
  Well, I just thought it was an
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  important platform to invest,
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  and to be honest, 500 million is
• 2:19
  a big number.
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  But in the grand scheme of the $44
• 2:22
  billion that he was taking over
• 2:24
  Twitter at the time,
• 2:27
  it wasn't a big amount.
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  I think we had about like 1.
• 2:29
  Something percent equity.
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  So I'm just very happy that a crypto
• 2:33
  firm was able to contribute to
• 2:36
  the freedom of
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  speech platform.
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  So I think Twitter acts now
• 2:41
  is the global tongue square.
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  Uh, to have freedom of money, we
• 2:45
  need freedom of speech.
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  Yeah. So in many countries, we don't
• 2:48
  have freedom. Um, and that's
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  a, actually a prerequisite for, for,
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  for, uh, for us globally.
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  So I just thought, to be honest,
• 2:55
  like the deal was supposed to happen
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  in May, 2022,
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  and then there were like back and
• 2:59
  forth, back and for us, I thought
• 3:00
  the deal was off and then it was,
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  then it was going to happen.
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  In October, by October, everyone's
• 3:05
  saying that the valuation 44 billion
• 3:07
  was too high, um, it's no
• 3:09
  longer worth that much.
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  Elon- what's going to go for it.
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  And I just said, look, let's, let
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  us support other strong
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  entrepreneurs. And it worked out
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  okay.
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  Why have you not had a chance to
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  meet in person with me?
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  I mean, has there ever been a chance
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  and then it just didn't happen?
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  No, I don't think we try to avoid
• 3:26
  each other, but we also like our
• 3:27
  schedules are quite busy.
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  So, um, uh, I, no, um.
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  Even through the investment, like
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  all of the 500 million dollar
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  investment, I probably chatted with
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  them, like 10 messages, like,
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  or like a dozen messages, um and,
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  um over the years, we were like
• 3:42
  probably exchange a few messages a
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  year on average.
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  Um, and he's a busy guy.
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  I'm a, I was a busy, I'm less busy
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  right now.
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  I think both he and I are of the
• 3:55
  mentality that we only need to meet
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  if we need to.
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  The need hasn't came up.
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  Fair enough.
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  I think it's been very interesting
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  to see Twitter evolve or X
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  evolve in the last year, and I think
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  that there is a movement towards
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  payments being native
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  on X.
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  How powerful will that be in the
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  context of global regulators
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  shutting down Meta's Libra
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  slash DM project a few years ago,
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  just understanding the network
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  effects of a
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  billion people on a platform and
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  then suddenly being able to transact
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  with each other directly on
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  social media.
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  I think it's hugely powerful and
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  especially like social media, that's
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  very global platforms.
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  I think if you look at payment
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  solutions before crypto,
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  most of the payment solutions are
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  limited to specific countries,
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  right? You know, you have Stripe,
• 4:41
  PayPal in the U.S.
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  And other solutions in other parts
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  of the world, and
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  you have Alipay and Tencent Pay,
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  WeChat Pay in China,
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  they're segmented by a country.
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  Crypto is probably the first one
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  that kind of broke the borders
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  because the technology allows it.
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  And then X hopefully will be able
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  to overcome
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  that as well.
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  But I did chat with Elon, I did send
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  a message to Elon on X when
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  they were launching X money.
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  I said, like, can we be a partner?
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  He said X money is really
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  handling off yet.
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  He said, or boring money,
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  or some term he used.
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  So they're not touching crypto.
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  But I do hope that they will become
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  a global platform for a money
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  should be global, right?
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  There shouldn't be any reason why we
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  have to divide money by so many
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  countries.
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  Um, to me that like this is
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  no longer necessary to do that.
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  Um, you can have your own monetary
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  policies, but you can use a global
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  currency, hopefully.
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  Um, so I really hope that X
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  can, can do that, I don't think
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  that would take anything away from
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  existing players.
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  It's just like a better service
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  makes, uh, makes the industry grow
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  bigger. Yeah.
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  Um, uh I think commerce, uh
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  humans should be able to transact
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  and do business globally.
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  Uh, we live on this little planet
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  until Elon goes to Mars.
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  Um, so, uh, yeah, so I think, no,
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  that's a very good thing.
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  I wonder if in the back of his mind,
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  it's just understanding that there
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  would just be so much scrutiny if it
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  was Bitcoin payments or stablecoin
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  payments on X as opposed to
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  integrating with Stripe or something
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  like that.
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  Yeah, but I think Elon has
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  a history of overcoming some of
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  those regulatory hurdles, if you
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  look at Starlink.
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  So Starlink is actually the largest
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  internet service provider.
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  It's also the lowest cost.
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  We're in direct shareholder now
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  because of the SpaceX
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  reverse merger, et cetera.
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  So I think he has a story
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  of doing that across multiple
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  countries already.
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  So hopefully he can replicate that,
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  what he did with Starlink with
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  X money.
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  And then this way, look, a crypto
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  firm can only need to integrate
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  with one VR channel and then you
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  cover the world. And that's much
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  simpler.
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  You have started exploring
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  philanthropic efforts now.
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  I found it interesting that you've
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  made a significant investment
• 6:52
  in prison professors.
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  Obviously you're doing a lot of work
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  for free language education.
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  What do you want your legacy to be
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  now considering everything that's
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  happened? And when you look at
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  someone like Elon, who is probably
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  the most influential man in the
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  world, you're the most influence man
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  in crypto, but do
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  you wanna just be remembered for
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  Binance, is my question.
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  Um, I think I care less about
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  how I'm remembered.
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  I just want to know that for me,
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  myself, before I die, I can look at
• 7:20
  my life and say, I did my best.
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  So it's how I remember myself.
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  Once I pass away, I won't be able to
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  remember too much, but, uh,
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  before that, uh no, at near the
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  end of my life, I want to say, look,
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  I did my, best it's not so
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  much a competition with Elon, with
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  whoever else, all the wealth
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  rankings and those things doesn't
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  matter. Um, actually don't even
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  think legacy matters that much.
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  How other people remember you.
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  But I think it's important for me,
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  for myself, to say, look, I did my
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  best when I'm older and
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  actually, hopefully throughout my
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  life, I can always say that.
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  So that means that if I
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  can, I should, I, I shouldn't do
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  more. If, look if my abilities are
• 7:57
  limited, I just do less, but I still
• 7:59
  did my best, right?
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  So I think right now I'm at
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  a stage where I'm diversifying my
• 8:04
  intention to help other founders
• 8:06
  instead of always being, being
• 8:08
  the sort of driving chair.
• 8:09
  I think Elon's amazing that he drove
• 8:11
  like many, many very difficult
• 8:13
  companies, very difficult projects.
• 8:15
  That's just incredible.
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  I think he deserved to be the
• 8:18
  world's wealthiest person.
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  And, but for me, I,
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  I differ from him in that
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  respect. I'm pretty happy being a
• 8:26
  one trick pony right now.
• 8:28
  So, you know, Binance, we got lucky,
• 8:30
  you know, binance is a very
• 8:31
  successful platform.
• 8:32
  We were able to help 300 million
• 8:34
  plus users all around the world.
• 8:35
  Uh, in, um, Many
• 8:37
  users write thank you letters to me,
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  et cetera. So I think that's a great
• 8:41
  achievement.
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  The next phase, I just want to help
• 8:44
  other founders.
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  And in the future, we'll see.
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  I might get bored and then we'll, we
• 8:50
  will see.
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  But do you have grander plans
• 8:53
  away from just Giggle Academy and
• 8:55
  is that your main focus right now
• 8:57
  other than what you're doing, you
• 8:58
  know, the incubations through Wyse
• 9:00
  Labs?
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  So I split my time in about roughly
• 9:02
  four equal parts right now.
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  GIGO Academy is one, Easy Labs
• 9:05
  Investments is another one.
• 9:07
  Advising other governments on crypto
• 9:08
  regulations is actually probably the
• 9:10
  largest chunk of my time, and then
• 9:11
  just helping other founders, et
• 9:13
  cetera, in the ecosystem.
• 9:14
  So those kind of, those things kind
• 9:16
  of take up my time.
• 9:18
  I don't make big plans.
• 9:21
  I never have like five year
• 9:23
  plans or 10 year, things change too
• 9:24
  quickly. So I just look at the next
• 9:26
  couple of months, what's important,
• 9:27
  what I should be doing, and kind of
• 9:29
  split my times that way.
• 9:30
  And then every so
• 9:32
  often, I would basically
• 9:34
  self-adjust.
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  I think people's mentality changes
• 9:36
  over time.
• 9:38
  So I was working really hard for
• 9:39
  like six, seven years when
• 9:41
  I was running Binance.
• 9:42
  And that's like a 21-hour
• 9:45
  job, right?
• 9:46
  Every day there was like 20 to 30
• 9:47
  calls plus other random meetings, et
• 9:49
  cetera. It was fun.
• 9:51
  It was very rewarding, it was very
• 9:52
  tiring. Like you need to be
• 9:54
  physically strong to do that job.
• 9:56
  But right now, I'm in a phase where
• 9:57
  I'm helping other founders, looking
• 9:59
  at broader things, learning about
• 10:00
  biotech, AI, et cetera.
• 10:03
  But I still think that crypto is
• 10:06
  my core, the technology for money
• 10:08
  is not going away.
• 10:09
  So the technology of money is now
• 10:10
  going away either.
• 10:11
  So recently, many people shifted to
• 10:13
  AI.
• 10:14
  I'm like, look, crypto is going
• 10:16
  to be around, AI is going need
• 10:17
  money, and they're going to use
• 10:18
  crypto. So I'm pretty happy with my
• 10:20
  split of time.
• 10:21
  Um, again, I don't make big plans,
• 10:23
  uh, but you know, every couple of
• 10:25
  years, your mentality will change.
• 10:26
  Uh, next year I might be too
• 10:28
  bored and I might do something
• 10:29
  different. Who knows.
• 10:31
  Yeah, I want to take you
• 10:33
  back, obviously you've just launched
• 10:34
  a book now and it's full
• 10:36
  of loads of interesting anecdotes
• 10:37
  and probably a lot of stories that
• 10:39
  people don't know, but I wanted to
• 10:41
  just double down on sort of the
• 10:42
  founding of Binance and
• 10:44
  what the secret source was, right?
• 10:46
  Because I mean, you and a small
• 10:47
  group of people built like a very
• 10:49
  high-performant matching engine.
• 10:51
  You had the BNB token as sort of,
• 10:53
  you know, the incentive mechanism to
• 10:55
  get people trading and then like a
• 10:56
  pretty, I don't want to say
• 10:57
  aggressive, but a pretty aggressive
• 10:58
  affiliate program, right?
• 11:00
  In this. Kind of created a trifecta
• 11:02
  of growth, where in the first year
• 11:04
  when we first interviewed, you'd
• 11:05
  overtaken every other exchange by
• 11:07
  trading volume.
• 11:08
  And I don't think you probably
• 11:09
  expected to grow that
• 11:11
  aggressively.
• 11:12
  Like, what was the secret in your
• 11:13
  mind that worked?
• 11:14
  You've got to get the fundamentals
• 11:15
  right. So you got to, as you said,
• 11:16
  you got to have a strong team, a
• 11:17
  really good product with a fast
• 11:19
  matching engine, very stable, very
• 11:20
  secure.
• 11:21
  We also were lucky that we occupied
• 11:23
  a product niche that nobody else
• 11:25
  occupied. Like it was the ICO season
• 11:26
  in 2017 and we've grown very
• 11:28
  quickly. But then the market changes
• 11:30
  over that, right? So the market
• 11:31
  became, there was a D5 was hot, NFTs
• 11:33
  was hot.
• 11:34
  Other things were hot for a little
• 11:35
  while, but we kept our lead.
• 11:37
  I think there's a fundamental,
• 11:39
  later on, the fundamental part was
• 11:41
  how we protected users.
• 11:42
  I think running an exchange
• 11:43
  platform, even initially
• 11:46
  unlicensed, unregulated,
• 11:49
  new market, users know
• 11:50
  if you're protecting them or not.
• 11:52
  With a financial platform like mine,
• 11:54
  like a crypto exchange,
• 11:56
  every policy, every decision you
• 11:58
  make affects people's money.
• 12:00
  And users know whether you're
• 12:01
  protection them or with or without
• 12:03
  regulation, with or without
• 12:04
  licenses.
• 12:05
  So I think that's the key that
• 12:07
  many people stick to Binance.
• 12:08
  I can give you countless examples of
• 12:10
  how decisions Binance
• 12:12
  made that, in the short term, hurts
• 12:14
  Binance financials but help protect
• 12:16
  the users.
• 12:17
  And the users rewarded Binance by
• 12:19
  staying on Binance long-term, right?
• 12:20
  So they're happy trading
• 12:22
  on Binace by paying a small
• 12:23
  commission fee over time.
• 12:25
  And that over time adds to a lot
• 12:26
  more than what
• 12:29
  a platform can make from like a
• 12:30
  little bit here and there.
• 12:32
  So, you know, the
• 12:34
  gas distribution, handling
• 12:35
  Bitcoin forks for users.
• 12:38
  When China forced some
• 12:40
  projects to return money
• 12:43
  to investors, there was a gap.
• 12:44
  Binance took 6 million out of its
• 12:46
  entire treasury of 15, 1, 5 million.
• 12:49
  And that's a 40% of treasury in one
• 12:50
  go. Right. So all of those things,
• 12:52
  some of this details are in the book
• 12:54
  and many are not just, are not
• 12:56
  detailed at all.
• 12:57
  And, but users know, users
• 12:59
  look at the accounts.
• 13:01
  They look at the decisions we make
• 13:02
  they know that we've always have
• 13:03
  protected our users So I think
• 13:05
  longer term that's really the key
• 13:07
  Many other platforms can
• 13:09
  copy your product can copy a
• 13:11
  technology can copy other things But
• 13:12
  sometimes I don't know why when it
• 13:14
  comes down to decisions on money.
• 13:15
  They always go short-term.
• 13:16
  I just yeah that part I just don't
• 13:18
  understand
• 13:19
  I mean, obviously you were under
• 13:21
  like a huge amount of scrutiny over
• 13:22
  the years and you spent time
• 13:24
  in jail for everything that happened
• 13:25
  in the U.S.
• 13:27
  Is there any reason and
• 13:28
  do you have any regrets about how
• 13:31
  quickly you moved and
• 13:33
  from the outside looking in, I
• 13:34
  always just felt like you were
• 13:35
  someone that took risks and was
• 13:37
  like, I'd rather ask for forgiveness
• 13:38
  than ask for commission.
• 13:40
  I mean I feel free to push back on
• 13:42
  you, but that's how I kind of
• 13:43
  perceived it. And you grew as
• 13:45
  aggressively as you did, probably
• 13:46
  because of that mentality.
• 13:47
  But you are the person that
• 13:49
  paid the price. Would you change
• 13:51
  anything?
• 13:52
  Hindsight is always 2020, right?
• 13:54
  So looking back, there are
• 13:56
  definitely things I could change,
• 13:57
  but at the time there was a limited
• 13:58
  information.
• 13:59
  It's better to ask for forgiveness
• 14:00
  than permission. That's a phrase I
• 14:02
  got from Richard Branson's book.
• 14:04
  In all of his books, I think he
• 14:05
  wrote like six, seven books.
• 14:08
  All of his book, Losing
• 14:11
  Regenity,
• 14:13
  in all of these books,
• 14:15
  he repeatedly used that phrase.
• 14:16
  So I used that phrases only actually
• 14:18
  once or twice in our internal
• 14:19
  communication.
• 14:20
  And that phrase was actually used
• 14:21
  against me in court by the US
• 14:23
  government saying that, look,
• 14:25
  this is a guy who does not
• 14:27
  follow rules.
• 14:28
  By and large in my life, actually, I
• 14:30
  think I'm a rule follower.
• 14:32
  The way I think is very often
• 14:34
  outside the box, but I never really
• 14:35
  go against the rules.
• 14:38
  But crypto was a new industry,
• 14:39
  right? So in a new we generally
• 14:41
  have to, well, there's
• 14:44
  no guidelines in the early days.
• 14:46
  And I have followed more of the
• 14:48
  technology route.
• 14:50
  Like, look, if you build a tech
• 14:50
  platform, it's a social media, you
• 14:52
  know, it's the tech platform that
• 14:54
  has viral growth.
• 14:56
  And it grew very, very quickly.
• 14:58
  Looking back, I think now
• 14:59
  understanding how financial
• 15:01
  rules work, I would like,
• 15:04
  the thing I would change is, if I
• 15:05
  build a platform now, I would just
• 15:06
  block all US users if we're not
• 15:08
  licensing the US.
• 15:09
  Otherwise you get a license in the
• 15:10
  US and you go
• 15:13
  direct.
• 15:14
  So, um, yeah, so I think that's
• 15:15
  probably the, the, uh, the one clear
• 15:17
  thing I would change other than
• 15:18
  that, there's a lot of mistakes here
• 15:20
  and there. You just self correct.
• 15:21
  Most other mistakes you can, you can
• 15:22
  self correct, even with the US
• 15:24
  situation.
• 15:25
  I voluntarily flew to the US and
• 15:27
  dealt with that situation.
• 15:28
  I just want to, I just wanna closure
• 15:29
  on that. So, it was,
• 15:31
  was painful.
• 15:32
  And I think I didn't expect to go to
• 15:34
  jail for it.
• 15:35
  No one else went to jail, for a
• 15:36
  single banking secrecy violation.
• 15:38
  Um, so, I thought, you know, the
• 15:39
  worst case is a few months home
• 15:41
  confinement.
• 15:42
  Uh, which means I would have
• 15:43
  internet, which would be fine.
• 15:44
  Um, I don't go out anyway, but I
• 15:46
  don't go out much anyway.
• 15:47
  So, um, but the outcome was a bit
• 15:49
  more severe than I expected, but no,
• 15:51
  I went through it, um I was, I still
• 15:53
  considered myself lucky that it was
• 15:54
  only four months at the time it
• 15:55
  sounded very long.
• 15:56
  Um, but looking back, okay, no,
• 15:58
  uh, it's unpleasant, but I dealt
• 16:00
  with it. I don, no I, I
• 16:02
  dealt over the consequences.
• 16:04
  What was the most, um.
• 16:05
  Surprising thing about your
• 16:07
  experience in prison because I mean
• 16:08
  obviously most people would be very
• 16:10
  scared and uncertain about going to
• 16:12
  prison.
• 16:12
  Yeah. So actually there was not
• 16:14
  a whole lot of surprises.
• 16:15
  No one can tell you for sure this is
• 16:17
  what prison looks like.
• 16:19
  Like you would think that's pretty
• 16:20
  simple and pretty clear, but no one
• 16:21
  can tell you that there's so many
• 16:23
  different prisons in the U S alone.
• 16:25
  There's 50, I think they count
• 16:27
  53 different prison systems
• 16:29
  and each state have their
• 16:31
  own system. There's a federal
• 16:32
  system, there's a couple of
• 16:33
  different other systems and each
• 16:35
  system has different tiers and each
• 16:37
  city, each prison is like two to
• 16:38
  3000 people.
• 16:40
  It's like a mini city.
• 16:41
  Um, so it's that uncertainty.
• 16:42
  That's always very worrying.
• 16:43
  Uh, doesn't help that the Bloomberg
• 16:45
  Wall Street Journal covers that I'm
• 16:47
  the, I'm going to be the richest
• 16:48
  person going to prison ever in
• 16:49
  the U S and then, uh,
• 16:51
  my lawyer's telling me like, you
• 16:53
  probably are most likely a primary
• 16:55
  extortion target.
• 16:57
  Um, and so that doesn't I help.
• 16:59
  So you, you kind of go into prison
• 17:00
  with that anticipation.
• 17:01
  And once you're in prison, it's
• 17:02
  like, when can I get out?
• 17:03
  Are they going to throw something more
• 17:04
  at me? Um Are there going to be
• 17:06
  some other things that will keep you
• 17:07
  there?
• 17:08
  Uh, so it's that uncertainty that's
• 17:09
  actually really, really worrying.
• 17:11
  If, if, if I knew for certain, it's
• 17:13
  exactly four months, no, uh, there's
• 17:15
  no other changes yet, then you, then
• 17:17
  it's much easier, but there's just
• 17:18
  so many different things like, um,
• 17:20
  you think like going to prison is
• 17:21
  very clear cut, like, you know, you
• 17:23
  can, do you, do qualify, do I
• 17:24
  qualify for a good time credit or
• 17:26
  earn time credit, which is, um
• 17:28
  a first step act thing that you can
• 17:30
  get a third of your time reducted if
• 17:32
  you have good behavior, uh.
• 17:34
  It's supposed to apply to everybody,
• 17:36
  but then I'm not a U.S.
• 17:37
  Citizen, so by default I
• 17:39
  don't qualify.
• 17:40
  But other non-U.S citizens do
• 17:42
  qualify, so there are many, many
• 17:43
  exceptions that you can apply for.
• 17:45
  So all of those things are like, you
• 17:46
  know, unknowns.
• 17:48
  It's actually quite tricky.
• 17:50
  So it was like the uncertainty
• 17:51
  of it that that's actually the most
• 17:53
  punishing.
• 17:55
  I remember hearing some funny
• 17:56
  anecdotes of you talking about like
• 17:57
  prison guards asking you if they
• 17:59
  should buy Bitcoin and that kind of
• 18:00
  thing. But you mentioned, you know,
• 18:01
  your lawyers being like, be careful
• 18:03
  when you go to prison because people
• 18:04
  might try and extort you, did that
• 18:05
  kind of think ever happen?
• 18:07
  Actually, for extortion, it never
• 18:08
  happened to me.
• 18:09
  I got into a group very quickly.
• 18:11
  So my prison consultants tells me,
• 18:13
  CZ, don't join any group,
• 18:15
  right? Just stay to yourself,
• 18:17
  stay quiet. That's the best way to
• 18:18
  keep out of trouble.
• 18:19
  That prison consultant used to be
• 18:21
  the ex-warden.
• 18:22
  So he was never an inmate in
• 18:24
  prison. He was like a guard,
• 18:26
  like an official in prison,
• 18:28
  my other prison consultant who has
• 18:29
  been in the prison says, look, you
• 18:31
  gotta join a group ASAP.
• 18:32
  If you stay alone,
• 18:34
  then you're going to get picked on.
• 18:36
  Once you join a group, then the
• 18:38
  group protects you.
• 18:40
  I'll offer a level of protection.
• 18:41
  What I found out is once you're in
• 18:43
  prison, you actually don't have a
• 18:44
  choice not to join your group.
• 18:45
  You are by default accepted into
• 18:47
  a group by your ethnicity.
• 18:48
  OK.
• 18:49
  So I got accepted into this
• 18:51
  group called Pacific Islanders.
• 18:53
  Um, but it's, it's a group of like
• 18:55
  Asians. There's not enough Asians.
• 18:56
  There's only two Asians, me plus
• 18:58
  another half Asian in this group
• 19:00
  of 200 people in a unit and plus
• 19:02
  two Pacific, Pacific, Native
• 19:04
  Americans, plus two Hawaiians.
• 19:05
  So there's six of us in this room
• 19:06
  out of 200.
• 19:08
  80% of that belongs 80% or 200
• 19:10
  people belong to a different group
• 19:11
  called the, um, the, uh, the
• 19:12
  Mexicans.
• 19:14
  But they're all drug lords.
• 19:16
  I got put in prison one tier
• 19:18
  higher than what I'm supposed to.
• 19:20
  One tier higher then for
• 19:22
  white collar crimes.
• 19:24
  So 80% of them are drug lores and
• 19:25
  they're are Mexicans, et cetera.
• 19:27
  But once you're in a group, the
• 19:29
  group does offer some protection,
• 19:30
  right? So people wouldn't come to,
• 19:32
  they will have to disrupt the group
• 19:33
  and the group have the rep.
• 19:35
  If there's an argument, they talk to
• 19:37
  the rep Uh, so I
• 19:39
  didn't get any extortion attempts,
• 19:41
  um, but there were people asking me,
• 19:43
  Hey, uh, how much money do you have?
• 19:44
  Uh, heard you're pretty wealthy.
• 19:46
  Um, you know, uh there's,
• 19:48
  there's questions like that, right?
• 19:49
  Um, no, you kind of just brush them
• 19:51
  off and, you know, yeah, I don't
• 19:52
  know what you're talking about, but
• 19:54
  what money.
• 19:56
  Um, the interesting thing now is
• 19:58
  obviously you, I think you, you
• 19:59
  disclosed a couple of weeks ago that
• 20:01
  you invested five million dollars in
• 20:02
  prison professors.
• 20:04
  Um, two, two million, but not, not
• 20:05
  even that's donate. Yeah.
• 20:06
  Donated to them.
• 20:08
  Um, is that come
• 20:09
  down to sort of your experience of
• 20:11
  prison and the type of people that
• 20:12
  are in prison and just understanding
• 20:13
  that most of them do need to
• 20:15
  rehabilitate into society and you
• 20:17
  want to help them because of your
• 20:18
  experience.
• 20:18
  Yes, and also more particularly,
• 20:21
  Michael Santos was actually one of
• 20:23
  my prison consultants.
• 20:25
  He didn't charge me money.
• 20:27
  He just said, look, he was
• 20:29
  sentenced for 45 years for
• 20:32
  a first time drug trafficking
• 20:33
  offense. And the reason he got 45
• 20:35
  years when he was really young was
• 20:37
  he fought the case
• 20:39
  and the other guys come really hard
• 20:41
  on him. Because of good behavior, he
• 20:43
  did 26 years, which is really a
• 20:45
  third of the time.
• 20:45
  So when he got out, he was very
• 20:47
  sympathetic with my case.
• 20:48
  He said, CZ, I'll help you.
• 20:50
  He runs prison professors,
• 20:52
  which is a, so after 26 years,
• 20:54
  he got out, uh, he started this
• 20:55
  organization to help people to, um,
• 20:58
  re, uh imprison, to, uh
• 21:00
  re acclimate to,
• 21:02
  to society, um by
• 21:04
  educating them before they get, they
• 21:05
  get out. So he sends free books to
• 21:07
  prison. Um, he
• 21:09
  organizes seminars into prison, et
• 21:10
  cetera. So he wrote six
• 21:12
  books while he was in prison and he
• 21:14
  got a bachelor's degree, a master's
• 21:16
  degree while he in prison.
• 21:17
  He got married with 10 years left
• 21:19
  on his prison sentence.
• 21:21
  And prisons pretty much only ever
• 21:23
  process divorces.
• 21:24
  They didn't know how to process
• 21:25
  marriages.
• 21:29
  So he gave me actually a lot of
• 21:31
  really good advice on how to survive
• 21:32
  prison.
• 21:33
  So after I got out, I
• 21:35
  looked at his program.
• 21:36
  I said, look, he's doing a really,
• 21:37
  really good thing. So I gave him
• 21:39
  basically a 500K every six months or
• 21:41
  so. So I've done that four
• 21:43
  times since I got outta prison.
• 21:45
  So two million total.
• 21:47
  We kept it pretty private.
• 21:48
  I said I didn't wanna make this a
• 21:49
  big thing.
• 21:50
  I kept it private until now.
• 21:53
  Two weeks ago he said he wants to
• 21:54
  make it public so that it's more
• 21:56
  encouraging for other inmates in
• 21:58
  prison. To be able to look
• 22:00
  at, look, this is a guy who's, the
• 22:02
  guy who was actually partially
• 22:03
  responsible for making this program
• 22:05
  available to them is a guys who went
• 22:06
  to the prison.
• 22:07
  And this is the crypto guy.
• 22:08
  That's why, he's actually
• 22:10
  asked me for our permission
• 22:13
  to put crypto education into prison.
• 22:15
  So basically I said, yeah, go for
• 22:17
  it. So he's copy pasted a lot of
• 22:18
  Binance Academy content into his
• 22:20
  education material.
• 22:22
  Which I think is great because look,
• 22:23
  in prison, you don't learn about AI.
• 22:25
  You don't know about blockchain
• 22:26
  crypto. You don't t learn, you don't
• 22:28
  even learn about internet.
• 22:29
  Uh, so when you come out, many
• 22:31
  people don't even know how to use a
• 22:32
  smartphone.
• 22:33
  Right. So like, uh, and many of
• 22:35
  those guys will spend 10, 20 years
• 22:36
  in prison. When they get out,
• 22:38
  they couldn't find a job, right?
• 22:39
  So what are they going to do?
• 22:40
  They're going to, they're going,
• 22:41
  they can, they are going to commit
• 22:42
  another crime. Yeah.
• 22:43
  Right. So it become a, it can become
• 22:44
  a cycle. So he's working really hard
• 22:46
  to break it.
• 22:47
  When I went through prison, I think.
• 22:49
  There's a pretty large portion of
• 22:50
  people who should never have been
• 22:51
  there. You know, our laws are not
• 22:53
  perfect, our judicial system is
• 22:55
  not perfect.
• 22:56
  There's also a large number of
• 22:57
  people who are there for way too
• 22:59
  long, right?
• 23:00
  So they, you know, Michael Santos,
• 23:02
  he didn't have to do 26 years.
• 23:04
  By the time he got out, drugs
• 23:06
  are legal in most of the states,
• 23:08
  right. So the thing that he
• 23:09
  committed a crime for was now
• 23:11
  perfectly legal.
• 23:12
  So that means like humans just made
• 23:14
  an arbitrary decision at that point
• 23:16
  to write that into law.
• 23:17
  There are some bad people there,
• 23:19
  but once they've served their time,
• 23:21
  we should still help them to try to
• 23:24
  be able to be successful in society.
• 23:26
  Otherwise, we release them, they can
• 23:27
  cause more trouble.
• 23:28
  So I just thought his mission was
• 23:30
  very important, and
• 23:32
  he's a guy I would trust.
• 23:33
  Other guys would come to me for
• 23:34
  money. I'm like, I don't know if the
• 23:36
  guy is a scammer or not.
• 23:37
  But him is a guy, I've interacted
• 23:39
  with him for many, many times.
• 23:41
  I know him, so I feel very
• 23:43
  comfortable giving him money,
• 23:44
  supporting his cause.
• 23:46
  And he's also financially
• 23:47
  independent.
• 23:49
  He doesn't need the money I give
• 23:50
  him. He also donates his own money
• 23:51
  into his own charity or
• 23:53
  prison professors.
• 23:55
  So I just thought that was a really
• 23:55
  good thing to be able to help.
• 23:57
  It's the right thing for the CZ
• 23:58
  effect to come in into force
• 24:00
  and put some power behind, I think.
• 24:04
  You also speak about the history of
• 24:06
  OKCoin and having worked at that
• 24:08
  exchange and I know you don't want
• 24:09
  to talk about this at length, but
• 24:10
  obviously OKX's
• 24:13
  founder, Stajou, has been taking
• 24:15
  a lot of public shots at
• 24:17
  Binance and you personally.
• 24:19
  I just wanted to get the backstory
• 24:20
  from your perspective.
• 24:22
  Your history at OKCoin, how
• 24:24
  you guys parted, if you parted on
• 24:26
  good ways, and how you see this
• 24:27
  situation now.
• 24:28
  Sure, sure. As he said, like, this
• 24:29
  is not a topic I want to dwell on
• 24:31
  at length.
• 24:33
  I detailed this in my book.
• 24:34
  Both He Yi and myself worked at
• 24:36
  OKCoin in 2014.
• 24:38
  I left early 2015.
• 24:40
  I thought we left on good terms.
• 24:42
  After I left, there was a dispute
• 24:43
  between Starr and Roger Vier over
• 24:46
  the Bitcoin.com domain, which you
• 24:47
  are aware. I got dragged into that
• 24:49
  for a little bit.
• 24:50
  I made my disclaimer and stayed
• 24:52
  out of it.
• 24:53
  And then a couple of years later, I
• 24:54
  launched Binance, right, together
• 24:55
  with He Yi.
• 24:56
  And a few other co-founders, and
• 24:58
  we became very successful, and
• 25:00
  we obviously overtook OKCoin by
• 25:03
  probably orders of magnitude.
• 25:04
  From that point on, look, that's the
• 25:06
  past, right?
• 25:07
  So for me, look we focus on our
• 25:09
  business.
• 25:10
  So for other people, they may have
• 25:12
  a personal imbalance,
• 25:15
  some psychological effect
• 25:17
  there.
• 25:19
  For me, we focus
• 25:21
  our business, so I always advise
• 25:23
  all of our team, look let's focus
• 25:25
  our own business.
• 25:26
  Let's build the best product, best
• 25:27
  user protection, best compliance
• 25:28
  programs and work with regulators
• 25:30
  all around the world to push crypto.
• 25:32
  That's what we do.
• 25:33
  We have plenty of jealousy people
• 25:35
  and people who are jealous at our
• 25:36
  success.
• 25:38
  And like, if you're jealous, it's
• 25:39
  okay. But I think for a direct
• 25:40
  competitor to lash out at another
• 25:42
  direct competitor, it
• 25:44
  kind of childish.
• 25:46
  So I usually try my best
• 25:47
  not to respond. It goes into my
• 25:49
  personal life, right?
• 25:50
  Whether I'm officially divorced or
• 25:51
  not. I'm obviously divorced for
• 25:53
  years now.
• 25:54
  So just stuff like that that had
• 25:56
  nothing to do with users, nothing to
• 25:58
  deal with business, etc.
• 26:00
  I think, look, every player should
• 26:01
  focus on providing the best product
• 26:03
  for our users and the industry
• 26:05
  will be so much better.
• 26:05
  Yeah, I mean, we shouldn't be
• 26:07
  hurling mud at each other online.
• 26:09
  I don't think it's, I don't think
• 26:10
  it' great.
• 26:11
  It's just very childish.
• 26:12
  Um, so I, yeah.
• 26:14
  And, but yeah, I think, um,
• 26:16
  it actually makes me worry much less
• 26:18
  about that, but that particular
• 26:19
  competition.
• 26:20
  So I worry much more about other
• 26:22
  competitors who focus on their
• 26:23
  product.
• 26:23
  Obviously, a lot of people in the
• 26:25
  industry have pointed fingers at
• 26:26
  Binance over the years about all the
• 26:28
  regulatory and compliance
• 26:30
  shortcomings in their mind.
• 26:32
  A couple of weeks ago, I was told
• 26:34
  by an anonymous source that
• 26:37
  ECB President Christine Lagarde had
• 26:39
  been involved in Greece's ultimate
• 26:41
  decision to block Binance's
• 26:44
  Mika application when they had
• 26:45
  every intention to go through with
• 26:47
  it. I'm not asking you whether you
• 26:49
  can verify that claim, but
• 26:51
  I wanted to get your perspective on
• 26:53
  everything that's happened in Greece
• 26:54
  since because Binance has made it
• 26:56
  clear now that the
• 26:58
  company has
• 27:00
  rescinded its application through
• 27:02
  Greece and will go to and try and do
• 27:03
  it through another member state.
• 27:05
  Does it give you a bit of PTSD
• 27:06
  around the regulatory
• 27:09
  hurdles that you face once
• 27:11
  again in another big jurisdiction?
• 27:13
  Uh, sure.
• 27:13
  Yeah. So, uh, yeah, um,
• 27:15
  I got the same information that, as
• 27:17
  you said online, I don't have direct
• 27:19
  information saying Christian Lagarde
• 27:20
  blocked anything. Um, I don't think
• 27:22
  there's any, I haven't heard of any
• 27:24
  very, very viable documents,
• 27:26
  um by Binance either.
• 27:28
  Um, um I asked, uh I
• 27:30
  did inquire about the MECAR process
• 27:31
  a little bit, uh with the Binance
• 27:32
  team. I don't want Binance anymore,
• 27:34
  but no, I'm a UBO and also there was
• 27:36
  a lot of UBO discussions, um about
• 27:38
  like, uh how the UBOs
• 27:40
  might, uh.
• 27:41
  Status affects the application.
• 27:44
  So my understanding with the Mika
• 27:45
  application process was at
• 27:47
  one point we were told by
• 27:49
  at least one or two
• 27:51
  regulators in the EU that
• 27:53
  Binance had a fully compliant
• 27:54
  application and they were about
• 27:56
  to approve it, but
• 27:58
  there were other forces at play,
• 28:00
  politics, etc.
• 28:02
  Actually, there were two countries
• 28:03
  who wanted Binance's EU Mika
• 28:05
  license, so they
• 28:08
  So that it's, you know, Binance
• 28:10
  being there, taxes, um,
• 28:12
  uh, drawing the, drawing the crypto
• 28:14
  economy there, et cetera.
• 28:15
  Uh, and because of that, there was
• 28:17
  actually a bit of a background for
• 28:18
  us and a fight over it.
• 28:19
  Bidding war. A bidding war of some
• 28:21
  kind. Um, but unfortunately there
• 28:23
  were other forces that were, that
• 28:24
  were against it, um not from these
• 28:26
  two countries.
• 28:27
  Uh, so, uh at the end of the day, um
• 28:29
  Binance kind of, uh I, I believe
• 28:31
  Binance reviewed that and said,
• 28:32
  look, we're gonna, uh it's not
• 28:34
  likely to happen, so we're going to
• 28:35
  pull out.
• 28:36
  So Binance withdrew the application.
• 28:38
  As a shareholder, my expectation for
• 28:40
  Binance is to work with regulators
• 28:41
  harmoniously all around the world
• 28:43
  and get licenses all around the
• 28:45
  world.
• 28:47
  But it's not a smooth process.
• 28:49
  In many countries, we have faced
• 28:50
  challenges before.
• 28:52
  For example, in Japan, Japan gave
• 28:54
  Binance a warning as early as 2018.
• 28:56
  And then there were multiple other
• 28:58
  warnings, issues, negotiations, et
• 29:00
  cetera. But by 2022,
• 29:03
  we got a nod from JFSA,
• 29:05
  the regulator in Japan, to go
• 29:07
  back to Japan.
• 29:08
  We were actually invited to
• 29:11
  go to back to go indirectly.
• 29:14
  So by early 2023, Binance
• 29:16
  acquired a full Japanese license.
• 29:18
  So now Binance Japan is fully
• 29:19
  operating there.
• 29:20
  And also SoftBank Japan is a
• 29:22
  major shareholder in Binance Japan
• 29:23
  as well.
• 29:24
  So now we're fully operating.
• 29:27
  Singapore, we went through a
• 29:28
  difficult period as well,
• 29:30
  and end of 2021, we had to withdraw
• 29:32
  from Singapore, well, Binance
• 29:34
  had to withdrawal from Singapore.
• 29:36
  And then most of the users went to
• 29:37
  FTX, who were invested by Temasek,
• 29:39
  the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund.
• 29:41
  And then we know how that ended.
• 29:42
  So it actually hurt quite a lot of
• 29:44
  users.
• 29:45
  And there are many other countries
• 29:47
  where we initially face challenges
• 29:48
  and we can overcome that over time.
• 29:50
  So hopefully, this is another
• 29:52
  situation that we will overcome,
• 29:54
  hopefully over time.
• 29:55
  But, you know, challenges happen,
• 29:56
  politics do come into play.
• 29:58
  Binance is the largest player.
• 30:00
  I think overall, the current
• 30:02
  situation, sadly, is a loss for
• 30:04
  Binance. It's also a loss to Europe.
• 30:05
  It's a lose-lose situation.
• 30:07
  Binance, I believe, is one of the
• 30:09
  most, oh, Binance definitely
• 30:11
  one of the most scrutinized
• 30:12
  exchanges.
• 30:13
  But it's also one of the most
• 30:15
  compliant, actually.
• 30:16
  It's a loss for Europe as well.
• 30:18
  We hope to be able to fix that
• 30:20
  situation soon.
• 30:20
  Yeah, and your competitors are
• 30:22
  working very hard to attract those
• 30:23
  users as all with big signing
• 30:25
  bonuses and
• 30:26
  And it's, yeah, it's okay.
• 30:28
  Uh, I think that is fair business
• 30:30
  competition. Uh, look, if you want
• 30:32
  to offer users more incentives, it'd
• 30:33
  be my guess. Go ahead.
• 30:35
  Um, I don't run Binance anymore, but
• 30:37
  as a, as a shareholder, I think
• 30:38
  Binance should offer, you know, uh,
• 30:40
  uh much more incentive for users
• 30:41
  outside of Europe.
• 30:42
  Yeah. Right.
• 30:43
  So, uh you know that's business
• 30:45
  competition, offer your users as
• 30:46
  much rewards, as much benefit as
• 30:48
  you, as you can. Yeah.
• 30:49
  Um, um, I feel that's fair.
• 30:51
  I actually want to put this out
• 30:52
  there just to the audience and
• 30:53
  everyone watching. Last year I had a
• 30:55
  great conversation with Paolo
• 30:56
  Arduino from Tether and
• 30:59
  I asked him very explicitly at the
• 31:00
  time, like, why don't
• 31:02
  you want to adhere to the Mika rules
• 31:04
  and go through that process?
• 31:05
  And he very simply said to me, I
• 31:06
  don't want to do that because at the
• 31:08
  end of the day, if Tether abides by
• 31:09
  those rules as a stablecoin issuer,
• 31:11
  they would have to have a very large
• 31:12
  portion of their reserves in
• 31:14
  European banks.
• 31:15
  Most of these banks run
• 31:17
  fractional reserves.
• 31:19
  So it would put him at risk
• 31:21
  of not being able to redeem
• 31:23
  USDT redemptions from users
• 31:25
  because the banks that they're
• 31:27
  depositing the money in
• 31:29
  don't have all the money, you know?
• 31:30
  So it, it would them at a risk.
• 31:31
  And at the end of the day, he was
• 31:32
  like, I don't really care about
• 31:34
  Europe anymore because USDT is
• 31:36
  a lot more useful for people in
• 31:37
  South America or African in
• 31:39
  developing countries that, that are
• 31:41
  largely using it for remittances.
• 31:42
  And it's interesting now that no
• 31:44
  tether, kind of no Binance in
• 31:46
  Europe and like, What does that mean
• 31:48
  when two of the biggest?
• 31:49
  You know, the two very big puzzles
• 31:51
  in the crypto space are
• 31:53
  not able to basically operate in
• 31:55
  Europe.
• 31:55
  Um, yeah, uh,
• 31:57
  I think overall Europe is more
• 31:59
  conservative, um, it's a government
• 32:00
  of governments, you know, and
• 32:02
  there's 27 countries plus like
• 32:03
  there's a, there's another government
• 32:04
  government governing those it's
• 32:06
  just more complex and they're more,
• 32:08
  um. Um, they're, more conservative
• 32:10
  even X, right?
• 32:11
  I think we're talking at lunch,
• 32:12
  like, no, I don't know a couple,
• 32:14
  tens of thousands of people got
• 32:15
  charged or got arrested by posting
• 32:17
  stuff on X.
• 32:18
  I think that's actually, I think
• 32:20
  I've seen the UK. Yeah, I was in the
• 32:22
  UK, but you know, close
• 32:24
  enough to Europe, even though
• 32:24
  they're Brexit. So I think it's a
• 32:26
  bit sad to see, but
• 32:28
  it's okay. Every government moves at
• 32:30
  a different pace.
• 32:31
  That's okay, I will see different
• 32:33
  regulations play out in different
• 32:34
  countries. I think the countries who
• 32:36
  do have progressive
• 32:39
  forward thinking crypto regulations
• 32:41
  will enjoy the crypto benefits,
• 32:42
  which is the future of financial
• 32:43
  industries.
• 32:44
  And so I think those countries
• 32:46
  will establish much stronger
• 32:48
  financial industries in the future,
• 32:50
  which will leave the countries who
• 32:52
  don't do that a little bit further
• 32:53
  behind.
• 32:54
  Over time, they will self-correct.
• 32:56
  So I'm not too worried about it.
• 32:58
  On the point of stable coins, yeah,
• 32:59
  there's no EU stable coin.
• 33:01
  Well, there are a few, but they're
• 33:02
  very, very small.
• 33:04
  I think the burden that's
• 33:06
  placed on some of the businesses are
• 33:08
  extremely...
• 33:09
  Bit too onerous.
• 33:10
  No, there were other things like,
• 33:11
  you know, that was discussed, you
• 33:14
  know, in this whole MECA process,
• 33:15
  right? So for example, one country
• 33:16
  wants all of our, all of Binance's
• 33:19
  key holders to be placed in one
• 33:20
  country and that country has the
• 33:22
  highest crypto-kidnapped.
• 33:25
  Come to Paris, come to France.
• 33:26
  And then including one of the
• 33:28
  Binance current staff,
• 33:31
  a country manager, his home got
• 33:33
  raided by kidnappers.
• 33:35
  Luckily he wasn't there.
• 33:36
  So there was things like that were
• 33:38
  quite tricky, right?
• 33:40
  So, but overall though,
• 33:42
  I do think that eventually you will
• 33:43
  have to catch up and
• 33:46
  Binance will, Binance, as
• 33:48
  my expectation is,
• 33:49
  Binance or will always be about,
• 33:51
  available and be ready.
• 33:53
  My last question kind of just
• 33:54
  focused on Binance here is Binance
• 33:56
  US. Can you explain a little bit to
• 33:57
  the audience, you know, the
• 33:58
  difference between Binance global
• 34:00
  exchange, Binance, US as the
• 34:01
  entity as it is now and what your
• 34:03
  general, what Binance's
• 34:05
  general plans would be for the
• 34:07
  US market going forward when there's
• 34:08
  been so much regulatory change
• 34:10
  there, your POD and all
• 34:12
  these things considered.
• 34:13
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:14
  So Binance US was set up in 2019,
• 34:17
  so six, seven years ago,
• 34:20
  as a completely independent entity,
• 34:22
  completely independent company.
• 34:24
  It has its own instance of a
• 34:25
  training matching engine, its
• 34:27
  own wallet, everything separate from
• 34:29
  Binance.com, the global sort of
• 34:31
  exchange. And Binance US has
• 34:33
  always been licensed in the US.
• 34:35
  So through my whole troubles with
• 34:36
  the US government, Binance us was
• 34:38
  never part of it because they were
• 34:39
  always compliant.
• 34:40
  So Binance U.S. Is not part of the
• 34:41
  plea agreement.
• 34:42
  There was no charges, nothing on
• 34:44
  Binance Us.
• 34:45
  Binance Use did lose, did have
• 34:47
  to deal with SCC lawsuit, which is
• 34:49
  a civil lawsuit.
• 34:50
  But even with that, Binance use lost
• 34:52
  its banking access for a number of
• 34:54
  years, but Binance USA stayed
• 34:56
  afloat, stayed profitable throughout
• 34:59
  the period.
• 35:00
  It lost quite a lot of business
• 35:01
  during that period, but Binance US
• 35:02
  got its banking channels back
• 35:05
  and is now offering zero-fee trading
• 35:07
  on some of the major pairs.
• 35:09
  It has always been operating in the
• 35:11
  US, so now it's just expanding
• 35:13
  again.
• 35:14
  So, two separate platforms.
• 35:16
  So we just thought US is a special
• 35:18
  market, so that, you know, there's
• 35:20
  Binance U.S.
• 35:21
  Servicing that.
• 35:22
  Binance.com before 2019
• 35:24
  had some US users, we dealt with
• 35:26
  that.
• 35:27
  Now, you now, Binance US continue to
• 35:29
  operate globally.
• 35:30
  So that's pretty much the situation.
• 35:31
  I want to talk about AI.
• 35:33
  I mean, you've said a lot about AI,
• 35:35
  like generally AI agents will use
• 35:36
  crypto, but what AI does
• 35:38
  CZ use? Are you a chat GPT guy?
• 35:40
  Are you Claude guy?
• 35:41
  What is your AI of choice?
• 35:43
  I tried most, many of them,
• 35:46
  uh, actually I use chat,
• 35:48
  GPD, Claude, um,
• 35:50
  I try deep seek, but I actually use
• 35:52
  Kimi probably the most, uh
• 35:54
  it's, I just find it simpler, it's
• 35:56
  cheaper, it is faster, it works
• 35:57
  everywhere. I started my OpenCla
• 35:59
  when OpenClaw was,
• 36:00
  I actually found that pretty
• 36:01
  interesting. You can do, you can do
• 36:03
  some interesting stuff, but you
• 36:04
  couldn't do the stuff I tried to
• 36:05
  program to do.
• 36:06
  Yeah. Um, I tried a program to clean
• 36:08
  my Gmail, um because I usually
• 36:10
  don't use, don't use email, um.
• 36:12
  I just get spammed so much.
• 36:14
  But I couldn't program it so that it
• 36:16
  removes most of the spam.
• 36:17
  Because many of the spams are people
• 36:19
  I don't know who email me requesting
• 36:20
  for a meeting.
• 36:21
  And the AI agent always thinks all
• 36:23
  of those requests are really
• 36:24
  important. I'm like, no, those are
• 36:25
  people I don't know.
• 36:26
  So she's like, so
• 36:28
  I couldn't get that to
• 36:30
  work. So I gave up after a little
• 36:32
  while.
• 36:32
  So I use a
• 36:34
  variety of them.
• 36:35
  Not all of them are available in all
• 36:37
  countries.
• 36:38
  And not all of the available for
• 36:40
  all different types topics.
• 36:41
  And I used to pay quite a lot when
• 36:43
  the cloud coding was like a pretty
• 36:44
  hard. I was, I tried myself,
• 36:46
  but I let, I let those, uh,
• 36:48
  uh prescriptions, uh uh,
• 36:50
  subscriptions expire and I
• 36:52
  just now use the free ones and the
• 36:54
  free ones have like a quota limit.
• 36:56
  So when the quota, I reached a
• 36:57
  quota, limit, I switched to the next
• 36:58
  one. This also gave me exposure to
• 36:59
  multiple AI agents, which is
• 37:01
  actually good for me.
• 37:02
  Yeah, for sure. It gives you a
• 37:03
  better understanding of what's out
• 37:04
  there.
• 37:05
  If you think about the power of
• 37:07
  these tools right now and
• 37:09
  when you built Binance, how quickly
• 37:11
  could you have built Binace back
• 37:13
  then if you'd had like Claude or
• 37:15
  ChatGP and the most powerful models?
• 37:17
  I think it's definitely somewhat
• 37:18
  faster. I would say probably around
• 37:20
  20 to 50% faster.
• 37:22
  I would like maybe like 2x faster.
• 37:25
  But we can probably also do 2x more.
• 37:28
  But right now, with AI, it's still
• 37:30
  got to be, I would, say we
• 37:32
  still got be careful.
• 37:32
  We can't just let AI write code and
• 37:34
  deploy it. I think we can have AI
• 37:35
  write the code, help the coders
• 37:37
  write code, and the coder have to
• 37:38
  review every line and understand it.
• 37:40
  Otherwise, you can't maintain it.
• 37:42
  So you can just ask AI to change
• 37:44
  code here, change code.
• 37:45
  And then change his own code and
• 37:46
  just in a black box, especially for
• 37:48
  like a financial trading platform
• 37:50
  like in our crypto exchange.
• 37:51
  Yeah.
• 37:52
  Eventually, you're guaranteed to
• 37:54
  gonna run into issues that you don't
• 37:55
  want to run into in
• 37:58
  that way.
• 37:59
  I think the other thing that's very
• 38:00
  useful, especially given the sort of
• 38:03
  cloud mythos release is,
• 38:06
  I heard that tool is extremely good
• 38:07
  at finding vulnerabilities.
• 38:09
  They should probably make a version
• 38:11
  that's only allowed to look
• 38:12
  at one domain.
• 38:14
  Right. So like, you know, they
• 38:15
  should give the Binance team a
• 38:17
  version that's only allowed to look
• 38:19
  at Binance.com.
• 38:20
  So then it allows you to find your
• 38:21
  own vulnerabilities first before
• 38:23
  others do.
• 38:24
  So, um, I really hope they can
• 38:25
  release a version like that.
• 38:27
  Um, I think that will actually
• 38:28
  increase the security of this
• 38:30
  industry instead of decreasing it.
• 38:31
  But I guess, you now, there are now
• 38:32
  some politics involved there as
• 38:34
  well. Um, so, um
• 38:36
  we'll see how that plays out.
• 38:37
  It was very, I mean, like it was
• 38:38
  taken, I didn't even get a chance to
• 38:40
  play with it because we went and did
• 38:41
  a broadcast at BTC Prague that like
• 38:43
  the day afterwards, they switched it
• 38:45
  off for, you know, like all foreign
• 38:46
  nationals. But I wanted to ask you
• 38:48
  about that as well, because it's
• 38:49
  very telling about the centralized
• 38:50
  nature of, of, you know, these big
• 38:52
  companies that are running the
• 38:53
  anthropics and open AIs of the world
• 38:55
  have ultimate control and the
• 38:57
  governments have to step in and say,
• 38:59
  like, you can't do that.
• 39:00
  Similarly, you, can't, no one could
• 39:02
  have done that to the Bitcoin
• 39:03
  network if everyone was like, wow,
• 39:04
  this is too powerful.
• 39:05
  It's gonna give people freedom
• 39:07
  of money and sovereignty, switch
• 39:08
  that off. You can't switch off
• 39:10
  Bitcoin, but they could switch off
• 39:11
  those models.
• 39:12
  What do you think of the
• 39:13
  centralization risk right now with
• 39:14
  these tools?
• 39:15
  Yeah, I think, well, obviously AI is
• 39:17
  super centralized, right?
• 39:18
  There's like a handful of companies
• 39:19
  around the world.
• 39:20
  There's maybe five or 10 in the U S
• 39:21
  and another five or ten in the
• 39:23
  China. That's pretty close in
• 39:25
  their capabilities.
• 39:26
  The problem is though, like, look,
• 39:27
  you can, you, you can regulate and,
• 39:29
  uh, anthropic.
• 39:30
  Um, um, open AI will get
• 39:32
  there in a couple of months.
• 39:33
  Uh, DeepSeq will get their, in, in
• 39:35
  six to 12 months max.
• 39:37
  Um, and in fact, even today,
• 39:39
  yesterday, there was another article
• 39:40
  saying that, um there's a Chinese
• 39:42
  model that's very, that's very close
• 39:44
  to mythosis.
• 39:45
  Strength, right? That's like just
• 39:46
  weeks or like a few days away, a
• 39:48
  different government is going to do
• 39:49
  different things with it.
• 39:50
  And also people once, once it's
• 39:52
  very, you can, you, can block one
• 39:53
  product release, but you cannot, you
• 39:55
  cannot block, block that knowledge.
• 39:57
  So people from anthropic will have
• 39:58
  that knowledge though.
• 39:59
  Those guys are being head hunted by
• 40:01
  other AI companies.
• 40:03
  Somebody in the U S some may not be
• 40:05
  in the US and then different
• 40:07
  countries will try different things.
• 40:08
  Right? So you can't It's very hard
• 40:09
  to block knowledge.
• 40:11
  I think we actually need to
• 40:13
  have a proper way to regulate AI.
• 40:15
  Everyone's talking about regulating
• 40:16
  crypto, but crypto is far less
• 40:17
  dangerous.
• 40:18
  Right? Crypto is boring.
• 40:20
  It's just money.
• 40:22
  Um, so, uh, with AI is
• 40:24
  no, it's national security.
• 40:25
  It's, uh it, it, there's
• 40:27
  quite a lot of stuff involved.
• 40:29
  So, um, yeah, so I don't think it's
• 40:31
  an easy problem to solve.
• 40:32
  Um, but I do think that
• 40:34
  AI.
• 40:35
  But the fact that it's really
• 40:36
  centralized may actually reduce the
• 40:38
  problem a little bit, but the
• 40:39
  problem is though, the knowledge
• 40:40
  will get filtered out.
• 40:42
  Eventually, there will be
• 40:44
  many open, there are already many
• 40:45
  open source models, and many
• 40:47
  of them will clone that and then
• 40:49
  enhance it so that they get to
• 40:51
  a level that's pretty dangerous.
• 40:53
  I don't know how to solve that
• 40:55
  problem, but I think having
• 40:58
  more people with
• 41:00
  knowledge to it is better.
• 41:02
  This way, the- Overall, in human
• 41:04
  society, we were self-correct.
• 41:07
  Most of us are good, I believe.
• 41:10
  And then the few bad players who do
• 41:12
  bad things, the majority of us will
• 41:14
  fight against it.
• 41:16
  And eventually we'll get to a good
• 41:17
  place.
• 41:18
  And I mean, the one interesting
• 41:20
  aspect that I found for, for the AI
• 41:22
  conversation is obviously the amount
• 41:23
  of DeFi hacks that happened this
• 41:25
  year. And lots of the experts that
• 41:26
  I've spoken to literally said, this
• 41:28
  is because people are
• 41:29
  using AI tools to go and look for
• 41:31
  vulnerabilities and either patching
• 41:33
  them if they're good or exploiting
• 41:34
  them if their bad.
• 41:36
  Um, and Joseph Lubin was kind of
• 41:38
  saying to me that like, this is like
• 41:39
  the King's highway, you know, and,
• 41:41
  uh, these people are extracting
• 41:44
  attacks and, and battle testing
• 41:45
  the systems as we go.
• 41:47
  So. It's both good and bad
• 41:49
  at the same time, but do you ever
• 41:50
  worry that the binances
• 41:52
  of the world could have a terribly
• 41:54
  bad exploit because of the
• 41:56
  power of these tools, and what do
• 41:58
  you actually do to combat that
• 42:00
  as well?
• 42:01
  Yeah, I think there are multiple
• 42:02
  ways to prevent that.
• 42:05
  One is you want to use the tools
• 42:06
  yourself first.
• 42:07
  The other way is to have multiple
• 42:09
  layers. You don't put all the eggs
• 42:10
  in one basket.
• 42:11
  AI just makes it a bit faster, but
• 42:12
  AI also, as you said, makes it
• 42:13
  faster for you to discover your own
• 42:15
  vulnerabilities first.
• 42:16
  And then what you want make sure is
• 42:18
  you wanna engineer the system
• 42:20
  so that one hack doesn't drain all
• 42:21
  your wallets.
• 42:23
  So this is why you have hot wallets,
• 42:25
  you have other different layers, you
• 42:26
  have multi-stick,
• 42:29
  you use a variety of technology to
• 42:32
  separate things, and you have code
• 42:33
  wallets etc.
• 42:35
  Even code wallet may not be quantum
• 42:37
  proof, right? So at some point, you
• 42:38
  will have to upgrade your code
• 42:40
  wallet technology.
• 42:42
  So basically, there's nothing that's
• 42:44
  100% secure for permanently.
• 42:46
  You just have to keep up with
• 42:47
  technology.
• 42:48
  This is an advantage with larger
• 42:50
  platforms. Larger platforms have
• 42:52
  the investment resources
• 42:54
  to continue to improve.
• 42:56
  Whereas smaller platforms, due to
• 42:57
  the economy of scale, they may not
• 42:59
  have like a dedicated team of a few
• 43:01
  hundred people just working on
• 43:03
  security, right?
• 43:04
  So whereas, you know, a larger
• 43:06
  platform, it makes sense for them
• 43:08
  to invest billions of dollars
• 43:10
  in this area alone, which
• 43:12
  finance does.
• 43:13
  As long as you continue to make the
• 43:14
  investments, continue to keep up
• 43:16
  with technology.
• 43:17
  It's never a hundred percent, but
• 43:18
  you want to be reactive very
• 43:19
  quickly.
• 43:20
  Uh, many of the defy exploits,
• 43:22
  they're not, they actually pretty
• 43:23
  small amounts, right?
• 43:24
  They're like, no, not super small,
• 43:26
  but they're like a couple of million here.
• 43:27
  Um, 10 million here, 13 million
• 43:28
  there. Um, but this kind of tax is
• 43:30
  actually good for the industry
• 43:31
  because once those, those happen,
• 43:32
  you know, we learn about it and we
• 43:34
  say industry, we know how to respond
• 43:35
  and mitigate them.
• 43:37
  And what we don't want to say is
• 43:38
  that $1 trillion a hack, right?
• 43:40
  Uh, then you have to.
• 43:41
  Do many other things then that's
• 43:43
  not too good so but overall the
• 43:45
  industry will continue to grow
• 43:47
  or be more secure yeah basically for
• 43:49
  sure
• 43:49
  I wanted to talk to you about
• 43:51
  Michael Saylor and strategy.
• 43:52
  I think in the past two years, he's
• 43:54
  probably become the most
• 43:55
  influential person, definitely in
• 43:57
  Bitcoin.
• 43:59
  Well, you spent a bit of time away
• 44:01
  from the limelight, but
• 44:03
  it's been a fascinating story.
• 44:06
  And especially the last year has
• 44:07
  been, it's crazy how
• 44:09
  he's developed these different
• 44:10
  products that are built on Bitcoin
• 44:12
  and essentially just rolling out
• 44:13
  digital credit.
• 44:14
  And he recently said in an interview
• 44:16
  that If he had done it differently,
• 44:18
  he would have fast forwarded
• 44:19
  straight to STRC,
• 44:21
  you know, just the way that
• 44:23
  it's built. That being said, it's
• 44:25
  been trading as low as, you know 70
• 44:27
  ish dollars from
• 44:29
  its $100 cap.
• 44:30
  Are you concerned?
• 44:31
  And what are your general thoughts
• 44:32
  on SELA and his strategy
• 44:34
  behemoth?
• 44:35
  I'll be very honest, I took multiple
• 44:37
  attempts trying to understand
• 44:38
  stretch.
• 44:40
  I don't think I understand it fully.
• 44:43
  So I might not be authoritative,
• 44:46
  I might be qualified
• 44:49
  to comment on it in a deep way.
• 44:52
  I think many of these financial
• 44:53
  products are generally too complex,
• 44:56
  they're over-engineered.
• 44:58
  Right. So they typically rely on
• 44:59
  multiple levels of leverage,
• 45:01
  leverage, et cetera.
• 45:03
  When this type of products become
• 45:05
  too complex, it's very hard to
• 45:07
  understand.
• 45:08
  Yeah. A parts of it becomes black
• 45:09
  boxes, et Cetera.
• 45:11
  I think Michael Seller obviously is
• 45:12
  extremely smart and he understands
• 45:14
  quite a lot of the how financial
• 45:15
  public companies work,
• 45:17
  senior nodes and all of this stuff,
• 45:18
  which I actually don't really
• 45:19
  understand.
• 45:20
  Um, I've always been an entrepreneur
• 45:22
  type of guy, um, dealing with
• 45:24
  technology. So.
• 45:25
  Um, I can't comment on the product
• 45:27
  that much, uh, but there's always,
• 45:29
  there's a few other things I think
• 45:30
  are at play. So I think the product
• 45:31
  may be a bit over complex.
• 45:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:33
  Um, to the point where if I
• 45:35
  can't understand it, I'm not very
• 45:37
  smart guy, but I'm super dumb.
• 45:38
  It does worry me that if you're
• 45:40
  sitting here saying that this is
• 45:41
  over complicated.
• 45:42
  There may be a few other guys who
• 45:44
  don't understand that either, right?
• 45:46
  So and then but there's also
• 45:48
  the market perception where the
• 45:51
  The market either makes makes him a
• 45:53
  hero or makes them a villain.
• 45:54
  He's probably somewhere in between
• 45:56
  right?
• 45:57
  So Probably close to the hero side
• 45:59
  to be honest So I don't
• 46:01
  think he has any bad intentions I
• 46:02
  don't think has any and also the
• 46:04
  Market overreacted when his
• 46:06
  company sold 32 bitcoins
• 46:08
  Right. No, like they got to pay
• 46:09
  dividends. They got to, at some
• 46:10
  point he's going to have to sell
• 46:11
  some Bitcoin. Like the guy holds
• 46:13
  like what close to a million
• 46:14
  bitcoins now he's so 32 and
• 46:16
  the market reacts and people,
• 46:18
  people, people, people, people blame
• 46:20
  him. Uh, it might be like a
• 46:22
  coincidence. It might be a trigger
• 46:23
  either way, but you know, people
• 46:25
  overly harshly criticize them.
• 46:27
  Um, so I think we got to give them,
• 46:29
  we got it. We got to give them a
• 46:30
  little bit of tolerance.
• 46:31
  Uh, but from the stretch product
• 46:32
  perspective, I actually don't,
• 46:34
  don't really flee on them to how
• 46:36
  It's leveraged, et cetera.
• 46:38
  So I actually can't comment too much
• 46:39
  about it.
• 46:40
  But it is very interesting that
• 46:43
  he has taken Bitcoin
• 46:45
  as the underlying collateral to
• 46:46
  build very complex financial
• 46:48
  instruments.
• 46:50
  But the overall thesis is that
• 46:51
  Bitcoin is highly valuable because
• 46:53
  it's decentralized and you have to
• 46:55
  do the proof of work in order to
• 46:56
  create new coins and run the network
• 46:58
  in a completely decentralized way.
• 47:00
  And it's great for an
• 47:02
  individual, it's good for a business
• 47:04
  to hold as an asset as well and
• 47:06
  you can build digital credit on top
• 47:07
  of it. And I just wanted to get your
• 47:09
  thoughts on that thesis as well.
• 47:11
  Yeah. My rough understanding
• 47:13
  of him is he has the implicit
• 47:15
  assumption that Bitcoin
• 47:17
  over time will continue to rise in
• 47:19
  value, which I agree with,
• 47:20
  but Bitcoin is highly volatile.
• 47:23
  So using Bitcoin as an underlying
• 47:25
  asset to build
• 47:27
  leveraged products, it's
• 47:29
  going to cause this problem where
• 47:30
  when Bitcoin is doing well, he's
• 47:31
  doing really well.
• 47:33
  When Bitcoin is at
• 47:34
  a 50% correction right now.
• 47:37
  And this is like pretty tame, to be
• 47:38
  honest. Like in the old days, in
• 47:40
  2017, 2018.
• 47:41
  Bitcoin can drop 80%, right?
• 47:44
  So no, it can swing pretty
• 47:46
  wildly.
• 47:47
  And Bitcoin can't drop like 50% in
• 47:48
  one day back then.
• 47:51
  So overall though, the trend is
• 47:53
  clear, but it's gonna be like this.
• 47:55
  So Bitcoin might not be the best
• 47:57
  asset, as an underlying
• 47:58
  asset for leverage, to build
• 48:00
  leverage products.
• 48:01
  That's based on my limited
• 48:02
  understanding. I don't know all the
• 48:04
  intricacies of how he's engineered a
• 48:05
  stretch.
• 48:07
  I didn't look into, like he
• 48:09
  actually tried to explain to me
• 48:10
  once, in a 15-minute interval.
• 48:12
  Um, no, he was, I think I
• 48:14
  was speaking on stage first and he
• 48:15
  was speaking next and we had like an
• 48:16
  overlap. He was trying, he, was very
• 48:18
  passionate to explain to me then,
• 48:20
  but I, in 15 minutes, I just
• 48:22
  couldn't grasp it fully.
• 48:23
  Um, I nodded my head a lot, but you
• 48:25
  know, um, uh,
• 48:27
  there's a lot of intricacies in this
• 48:29
  type of, uh financial products.
• 48:30
  Michael is not some guy who's just
• 48:32
  going to go out there and like, you
• 48:33
  know, make a fake, a scammy product.
• 48:35
  Um, I think, uh, my, my.
• 48:39
  He's a reputable guy,
• 48:41
  he's a Bitcoin diehard, and
• 48:44
  he and I both believe Bitcoin over
• 48:47
  the long run will do well.
• 48:48
  But short-term volatility is very
• 48:50
  high, so I don't know how that
• 48:51
  affects those products.
• 48:53
  I understand he hosts a lot of
• 48:55
  dinners with different people and he
• 48:56
  takes his time to explain to
• 48:58
  them. So Michael, give CZ a call and
• 49:01
  explain to Stretch.
• 49:02
  No, no, no. He did spend like 15, 20
• 49:04
  minutes with me and, um,
• 49:06
  and at the time I thought I
• 49:07
  understood it, but when I looked
• 49:08
  back, I was like, I still, I
• 49:10
  don't really understand, but I also
• 49:12
  think what you said is really
• 49:13
  important. He does spend the time to
• 49:14
  educate people about Bitcoin, which
• 49:16
  is a huge, um, which has
• 49:18
  a hugely important thing.
• 49:19
  It's a net positive for sure.
• 49:20
  He's definitely positive.
• 49:22
  So I think right now Bitcoin is down
• 49:23
  and everyone's like, you know, happy
• 49:26
  and they will find places to vent.
• 49:28
  And here, unfortunately, right now
• 49:30
  is that vent.
• 49:31
  At different times, I was that vent
• 49:32
  for a little bit here and there as
• 49:34
  well. It just happens.
• 49:35
  Yeah, it does happen.
• 49:36
  Um, I want to just keep it on the
• 49:38
  vein of that's now.
• 49:39
  And, uh, obviously, uh CA
• 49:41
  industries and, uh was,
• 49:43
  was incubated, I think, by easy labs
• 49:44
  or you had an investment there and
• 49:46
  that was a BNB based stats.
• 49:48
  And, you know, I had a talk
• 49:50
  with their team over the last year
• 49:52
  or two to kind of talking about
• 49:54
  the value proposition of a B and B
• 49:56
  based that.
• 49:57
  There was a lot of drama around
• 49:58
  that. I don't know if you want to
• 49:59
  talk a little bit, um, today about
• 50:01
  that and how that has ended now,
• 50:02
  but. Or just general thoughts on
• 50:04
  alternative debts as opposed to a
• 50:06
  Bitcoin treasury company?
• 50:07
  Sure, sure.
• 50:08
  Again, my understanding on BNC,
• 50:10
  the BNB treasury company,
• 50:13
  is a pretty high level and pretty
• 50:15
  high level. I don't know all the
• 50:16
  details.
• 50:17
  My understanding is EZ Labs
• 50:19
  contributed about 100 million
• 50:21
  US dollars in BNP,
• 50:22
  which is about 20% of what they're
• 50:24
  raising, just
• 50:26
  to get them going.
• 50:28
  We did vet the team, we
• 50:31
  thought this is good for BNV, it's
• 50:32
  good that they will turn
• 50:34
  help get other investors to
• 50:37
  hold. Treasury, which buys B&B,
• 50:39
  right? So, um, we thought that was a
• 50:41
  good thing. Um, but I think during
• 50:42
  the process, there were a couple of
• 50:44
  different, there was a public company,
• 50:45
  there was another consulting company
• 50:46
  managing a public company, they were
• 50:48
  signing deals among each other, um
• 50:50
  that resulted in a lot of, um
• 50:51
  uh, benefits for the people
• 50:52
  involved, uh, they'll basically,
• 50:54
  uh paying themselves out of this
• 50:56
  public company.
• 50:57
  Uh, we felt that, and also the
• 50:59
  people who were involved were having
• 51:01
  multiple roles in multiple public
• 51:02
  companies. So as soon as they
• 51:04
  did a B&E DAT, I had friends telling
• 51:06
  me this two That's a picture of a.
• 51:08
  Bitcoin BDAT to some other guy.
• 51:09
  We're like, okay, this is supposed
• 51:10
  to be a CEO of this public company.
• 51:11
  There were some issues like that.
• 51:13
  There were debates back and forth.
• 51:14
  I don't know all the details, but
• 51:16
  luckily I think they did reach a
• 51:17
  resolution and there were some
• 51:19
  costs, but I think in the grand
• 51:21
  scheme of things, the cost
• 51:23
  is low, so it's better
• 51:25
  some guy got paid a little bit.
• 51:27
  And we solved the issue.
• 51:28
  Right now, a couple of guys from the
• 51:30
  EZ Labs team is going to step onto
• 51:31
  that board. Initially, I kind of
• 51:32
  want EZ labs to remain a minority
• 51:34
  investor and not having to deal with
• 51:36
  a public company et cetera,
• 51:38
  but their stock price dropped below
• 51:40
  one nap, meaning
• 51:42
  that the stock price is less than
• 51:44
  the BNB value they're holding, which
• 51:46
  is not a good situation.
• 51:47
  It's not good for the investors.
• 51:49
  So a couple of guys on the
• 51:51
  EZ Labs team volunteered to step
• 51:52
  in to try to fix it.
• 51:54
  And they are now on, I believe they
• 51:57
  have a resolution already.
• 51:58
  So they're kind of on their way to
• 51:59
  fixing it.
• 52:00
  Which I think I got actually got
• 52:02
  quite a few investors saying thank
• 52:03
  you to me on that.
• 52:05
  I'm like I didn't do very much Yeah,
• 52:07
  so a couple of the labs team
• 52:09
  also Co-invested in the
• 52:11
  BNB DAT so they use their own money
• 52:12
  to co-invest and that's actually one
• 52:14
  of the reasons I wasn't too worried
• 52:15
  About about this situation.
• 52:17
  I know like they they have skin in
• 52:19
  the game So and they did work very
• 52:21
  hard to fix it.
• 52:22
  So I'm okay.
• 52:22
  Great So actually didn't spend that
• 52:24
  much effort on it,
• 52:26
  but I think it's a good outcome to
• 52:27
  see And hopefully those will
• 52:29
  continue to
• 52:31
  manage much better than before
• 52:33
  and this will help the B&B
• 52:35
  ecosystem.
• 52:35
  Let's talk a little bit about
• 52:36
  competition in crypto.
• 52:37
  There's right now, in my mind,
• 52:40
  a handful of protocols
• 52:42
  and companies that are driving
• 52:44
  real value and that is evident by
• 52:46
  the users that they have, the
• 52:48
  revenue on fees that they're
• 52:49
  generating and just the, you know,
• 52:51
  general usage on either on chain or
• 52:53
  on platform.
• 52:55
  Hyperliquid is probably one of the
• 52:56
  biggest, right?
• 52:57
  Binance, Slash Yourself, et cetera,
• 52:59
  Setup, Asta, but I don't even wanna
• 53:01
  talk about Asta. I wanna talk
• 53:02
  hyperliquide and get your general
• 53:03
  thoughts on hyperliQUID.
• 53:04
  I know you spoke to both the
• 53:06
  CoinDesk team and Alex Horn from
• 53:08
  Galaxy about this, but really your
• 53:10
  general thought on hyperliquide
• 53:11
  because I think there are a lot of
• 53:12
  parallels from what you built with
• 53:13
  Binance. Like a really amazing
• 53:15
  piece of technology that works
• 53:17
  really well and that's why Binance
• 53:18
  was successful is you can trade on
• 53:19
  Binance with deep liquidity, it was
• 53:21
  fast, it was cheap.
• 53:22
  It worked.
• 53:23
  Hyperliquid has given us a new
• 53:25
  alternative of that.
• 53:26
  Yeah, I got a lot of comments
• 53:28
  from my last
• 53:30
  comment on hyperliquid.
• 53:32
  Well, number one is I think multiple
• 53:33
  solutions in the space is good.
• 53:35
  And that's just a fundamental
• 53:36
  principle.
• 53:37
  And as we said, if you only have one
• 53:39
  L1, which is Bitcoin, and
• 53:41
  Bitcoin is pretty hard to evolve,
• 53:42
  right? Every time you want to change
• 53:43
  the network, you got to get
• 53:44
  consensus in the community.
• 53:48
  You may result in a fork.
• 53:49
  That's just not good.
• 53:50
  Um, so.
• 53:52
  So, to some extent, it's better to
• 53:54
  have other L1s
• 53:56
  around, they have different
• 53:57
  experiments, you have EVMs, you have
• 53:59
  other solutions,
• 54:01
  and to improve the speed, stability,
• 54:04
  accessibility, et cetera.
• 54:05
  So again, as I said about
• 54:06
  HyperLucid, I think they did some
• 54:08
  really interesting innovation.
• 54:10
  But their solution is fundamentally
• 54:12
  different from a CEX.
• 54:13
  They don't have KYC.
• 54:15
  They claim that because the
• 54:17
  wallet, you deposit it to a smart
• 54:18
  contract and that's decentralized
• 54:20
  enough.
• 54:21
  Again, I'm not going to judge on
• 54:22
  that, so I'm not a legal expert.
• 54:25
  It's a small team controlling the
• 54:26
  protocol.
• 54:27
  And they have very full control over
• 54:29
  the protocol, to the point where
• 54:30
  they can set Oracle prices,
• 54:33
  they have special privilege accounts
• 54:34
  that don't get liquidated, et
• 54:36
  cetera. And the source code is not
• 54:37
  open. It's black box source
• 54:39
  code. But with AI, you can reverse
• 54:40
  engineer quite a lot of it.
• 54:42
  So it's an interesting space they
• 54:43
  created.
• 54:44
  I hope they continue to be
• 54:45
  successful.
• 54:46
  I think the space needs multiple
• 54:47
  players, multiple solutions,
• 54:49
  multiple areas.
• 54:50
  If they continue to be successful,
• 54:52
  other people will copy it.
• 54:54
  It doesn't mean that in each
• 54:56
  new niche, they can only be one
• 54:57
  player.
• 54:58
  There's thousands or even millions
• 55:00
  of centralized exchanges.
• 55:01
  There will be millions of perp
• 55:03
  dexes.
• 55:04
  There will millions of prediction
• 55:05
  markets.
• 55:06
  Of course, the strong networks, the
• 55:08
  top big few, will occupy most
• 55:09
  of the market.
• 55:11
  But it also doesn't the first move
• 55:12
  will always be the winner.
• 55:14
  It also doesn' mean any winner will
• 55:15
  always stay. Industry changed, times
• 55:17
  changed.
• 55:18
  Finance have lasted for like nine
• 55:20
  years, being the number one
• 55:21
  centralized exchange.
• 55:22
  They don't work hard, they may not
• 55:24
  be able to keep that. Things change
• 55:25
  pretty quickly.
• 55:26
  Yeah, so anything can change.
• 55:27
  I think the more choices
• 55:30
  we have in the industry, the better.
• 55:32
  Look, I will say that your comment
• 55:33
  was fair.
• 55:35
  That was, you know, obviously picked
• 55:36
  a part on CryptoX about them
• 55:38
  potentially being in, you, know,
• 55:40
  walking a similar line to kind of
• 55:41
  what you, you walked was,
• 55:44
  testing the boundaries and moving
• 55:44
  quickly and operating in the
• 55:46
  space. They operate without KYC,
• 55:49
  puts a target on your back,
• 55:50
  especially when you have a huge
• 55:51
  amount of users, right?
• 55:53
  Yeah, I think what they're
• 55:55
  doing is similar in that sense, but
• 55:57
  like the environment today is very
• 55:58
  different from the environment nine
• 55:59
  years ago.
• 56:00
  Yeah, nine years in 2017,
• 56:03
  2018, there was very little crypto
• 56:05
  regulation. There was no genius act.
• 56:06
  There was no clarity being
• 56:07
  discussed.
• 56:08
  There's no MECA, there's no very
• 56:10
  few countries are giving out
• 56:11
  licenses.
• 56:13
  The landscape today is the legal
• 56:14
  landscape today's very different.
• 56:16
  There is still quite a lot of lack
• 56:17
  of clarity, but the clarity we have
• 56:18
  today is much, much more than we had
• 56:20
  eight, nine years ago And there are
• 56:22
  cases, though, against BitMax.
• 56:24
  There are cases against me.
• 56:25
  My case was very clearly,
• 56:27
  I went to prison for having
• 56:29
  weak, for Binance having a weak KYC
• 56:31
  program.
• 56:34
  And HyperLiquid had no KYC.
• 56:37
  So now there are much clearer
• 56:39
  precedences established where
• 56:41
  before it was like, we don't know,
• 56:43
  yeah. Before it was, like, no.
• 56:44
  Is Bitcoin a commodity or
• 56:46
  a security? Even that today is not
• 56:48
  clear, but there's a lot more
• 56:49
  discussions at the SEC, CFTC
• 56:51
  level. The situation's a little bit
• 56:52
  different. But again, I'm
• 56:55
  not a lawyer, so I don't know how
• 56:57
  they're arguing about, oh, because
• 56:59
  you're depositing through a smart
• 57:00
  contract, that's decentralized.
• 57:02
  I'm sure how strongly that
• 57:04
  will work out.
• 57:05
  I still think like you said it
• 57:07
  genuinely, right?
• 57:08
  Like just be careful guys, because
• 57:10
  from experience I got in trouble
• 57:11
  doing this.
• 57:13
  Yeah, so, and I also said like, this
• 57:14
  is, this isn't, this is a thing
• 57:15
  Binance would never, like as a
• 57:17
  shareholder, I would never, if
• 57:19
  Binance does this, I, I would have
• 57:20
  to oppose very strongly.
• 57:21
  So, um, yeah.
• 57:23
  Um, but, you know, uh, but I
• 57:24
  actually hope that they succeed.
• 57:26
  Yeah. Because if they succeed, that
• 57:28
  means anybody who using, using a
• 57:29
  smart contract for a deposit and
• 57:31
  withdrawal, um then no,
• 57:33
  then, then that's, if that's
• 57:35
  decentralized, if that's
• 57:37
  verified as decentralized, then
• 57:39
  that's great. Um, I think that
• 57:40
  offers a much more a higher
• 57:42
  degree of freedom of,
• 57:44
  of, yeah, of.
• 57:45
  Of exchanges.
• 57:47
  You mentioned first mover advantage,
• 57:49
  do you think that Aster can catch
• 57:51
  up with hyperliquid?
• 57:52
  I was not, I'm an advisor to Aster,
• 57:54
  but I don't advise on their
• 57:56
  compliance aspects because
• 57:58
  I actually specifically covered that
• 57:59
  out.
• 58:00
  But I think anyone can challenge
• 58:02
  anyone.
• 58:03
  The word is not set.
• 58:06
  And just because someone's a leader
• 58:08
  today doesn't mean they'll always
• 58:09
  lead.
• 58:09
  But that guarantee Aster will be
• 58:11
  hyperliquid? Of course not, right?
• 58:13
  So they will have to execute really
• 58:14
  well. As long as you execute well,
• 58:17
  there's usually room for you, yeah.
• 58:19
  What do you think about prediction
• 58:20
  markets?
• 58:21
  I think prediction markets are
• 58:22
  pretty interesting.
• 58:23
  So far though, I think, prediction
• 58:24
  markets, there's a lot of discussion
• 58:26
  that was pretty hot for a while,
• 58:28
  come down a little bit, but still
• 58:30
  pretty hot, especially given the
• 58:31
  World Cup going on right now.
• 58:34
  So, but so far though prediction
• 58:35
  markets historically has
• 58:38
  never been that big.
• 58:39
  It's big, it's interesting,
• 58:42
  but it serves a useful purpose.
• 58:45
  So I think having a prediction
• 58:46
  markets on the blockchain is
• 58:48
  actually very interesting and that's
• 58:49
  more transparent.
• 58:50
  More verifiable, et cetera.
• 58:52
  And that provides, actually
• 58:54
  that provides predictions, very
• 58:56
  accurate predictions for outcomes
• 58:58
  that previously had to rely
• 59:00
  on pools and which
• 59:02
  are much less accurate.
• 59:04
  So I think it's a very
• 59:06
  useful thing to have.
• 59:08
  And it seems that at least
• 59:10
  the US regulators today
• 59:13
  are pretty supportive
• 59:15
  of it. So I that's a really good
• 59:17
  thing, yeah.
• 59:18
  Yeah, they're fascinating.
• 59:19
  I mean, I come from sports
• 59:20
  journalism background and I had, you
• 59:22
  know, sports betting platforms
• 59:24
  sponsoring me when I went and
• 59:26
  covered the Rugby World Cup.
• 59:27
  So I see a lot of similarities
• 59:28
  between the two, but there are quite
• 59:30
  big differences between how
• 59:32
  a prediction market works and a
• 59:34
  sports betting platform works
• 59:36
  as one.
• 59:37
  And that also, again,
• 59:39
  speaks volumes for.
• 59:40
  Why there has been so much interest.
• 59:42
  And just very simple things like
• 59:43
  polymarket and culture, those
• 59:45
  prediction markets for the US
• 59:46
  elections were very much
• 59:48
  calling the right outcome
• 59:50
  of the election when you watched
• 59:52
  American TV and it was probably
• 59:53
  telling you a different story.
• 59:54
  Exactly, exactly.
• 59:55
  It's fascinating.
• 59:56
  We've been talking about it for
• 59:58
  about an hour, CZ, so I think we'll
• 59:59
  start wrapping things up.
• 1:00:00
  I just wanted to talk to you at the
• 1:00:01
  end about Bitcoin because I'm
• 1:00:03
  a very passionate supporter and
• 1:00:04
  advocate for Bitcoin.
• 1:00:06
  You've got a fascinating story of
• 1:00:07
  how you got into Bitcoin, right?
• 1:00:08
  Some people advised you to get into
• 1:00:09
  Bitcoin and then you were just
• 1:00:11
  orange-pulled harder than most
• 1:00:12
  people. You sold your house, you
• 1:00:13
  went into Bitcoin.
• 1:00:14
  Where do you see Bitcoin today?
• 1:00:16
  Where do see it going in the future?
• 1:00:18
  And yeah, what's your general
• 1:00:20
  outlook from here?
• 1:00:22
  I'm extremely bullish about Bitcoin.
• 1:00:24
  I think so far Bitcoin has followed
• 1:00:26
  the four-year cycle pretty closely.
• 1:00:28
  And so now we're in a crypto winter.
• 1:00:30
  It's retraced like 50% from the
• 1:00:31
  all-time high, but we've seen this,
• 1:00:33
  like, I've seen this personally four
• 1:00:35
  times before.
• 1:00:36
  And so we're like, this is the
• 1:00:37
  fourth cycle.
• 1:00:38
  And also in this cycle, a lot of
• 1:00:39
  money got sucked into like, you
• 1:00:40
  know, AI.
• 1:00:42
  AI is great.
• 1:00:43
  It's moving really fast.
• 1:00:44
  It's growing really fast, but
• 1:00:45
  there's a lot AI companies, not an
• 1:00:46
  AI super centralized.
• 1:00:48
  So only a handful of companies will
• 1:00:50
  be successful. And I'll And
• 1:00:52
  not every startup will
• 1:00:54
  make it there.
• 1:00:57
  So, and AI is gonna need money.
• 1:00:58
  Well, AI today does not help us to
• 1:01:00
  buy plane tickets or book
• 1:01:02
  hotels.
• 1:01:03
  Very soon you will, and it's gonna
• 1:01:05
  need the money.
• 1:01:06
  It's gonna, well, we still need a
• 1:01:08
  better money system.
• 1:01:09
  Our money system's not going away
• 1:01:11
  because of AI.
• 1:01:12
  So blockchain is gonna stick around.
• 1:01:13
  And also verification is not going
• 1:01:15
  your way, all right?
• 1:01:16
  So blockchain's not just about
• 1:01:17
  money. Anything that requires
• 1:01:18
  verifiable proof can be done on the
• 1:01:20
  blockchain. Land title rights,
• 1:01:23
  I don't know, citizenship,
• 1:01:25
  IDs, all of that stuff
• 1:01:27
  is going to need blockchain.
• 1:01:29
  I think AI is just going to speed up
• 1:01:30
  the development of blockchain.
• 1:01:32
  So right now we're in
• 1:01:35
  winter. We've been through many
• 1:01:36
  winters.
• 1:01:37
  In winters everybody complains,
• 1:01:39
  but long term nothing changed.
• 1:01:40
  The blockchain industry will
• 1:01:41
  continue to develop and we'll
• 1:01:43
  be fine.
• 1:01:44
  Was there any reason why you never
• 1:01:46
  just went full Bitcoin maxi and
• 1:01:48
  Bitcoin only?
• 1:01:49
  Well, actually,
• 1:01:51
  I think Bitcoin is great.
• 1:01:52
  I'm a very strong Bitcoin supporter,
• 1:01:54
  but I think if only Bitcoin,
• 1:01:56
  the industry will actually progress
• 1:01:57
  slower.
• 1:01:58
  So Bitcoin network is congested,
• 1:02:00
  it's saturated, right?
• 1:02:01
  So the block size is full
• 1:02:03
  all the time, back 10 years
• 1:02:05
  ago. That's why we had the block
• 1:02:06
  block size war, all of this stuff.
• 1:02:08
  That's why Ethereum took off and
• 1:02:10
  then Ethereum was congested.
• 1:02:11
  Um, and then, you know, that's why,
• 1:02:13
  you know, BNB Chan and other, other
• 1:02:14
  blockchains took off.
• 1:02:15
  If you would just, if we only had
• 1:02:17
  Bitcoin blockchain, we're all trying
• 1:02:18
  to innovate on it, we actually much
• 1:02:19
  more limited, right?
• 1:02:21
  To upgrade the Bitcoin protocol,
• 1:02:23
  uh, requires quite a, quite a bit.
• 1:02:25
  And the Bitcoin protocols quite
• 1:02:26
  limited in the amount of, uh
• 1:02:28
  programmability that you can do with
• 1:02:29
  it. It's much harder, et cetera.
• 1:02:31
  And that's what I have this many
• 1:02:32
  other block chains that are
• 1:02:33
  innovating. So I think this actually
• 1:02:35
  moves the industry faster overall.
• 1:02:37
  Um, so.
• 1:02:38
  And then Bitcoin can copy many of
• 1:02:40
  the innovations back, you know, the
• 1:02:41
  Bitcoin ordinals, et cetera.
• 1:02:43
  So they, uh, so I think it's having
• 1:02:45
  a million blockchains is probably
• 1:02:46
  not necessary, but having like 10,
• 1:02:48
  20, 30 blocks, or even a
• 1:02:50
  couple of hundred blockchain
• 1:02:51
  innovating is probably a good thing.
• 1:02:53
  The couple of hundreds are already a
• 1:02:54
  long tail, so many of them will not
• 1:02:56
  do stuff, but every now and then
• 1:02:57
  somebody will have a new idea.
• 1:02:59
  Um, and it'd be quite hard to
• 1:03:00
  implement that on existing
• 1:03:01
  blockchain. I wouldn't say the more,
• 1:03:03
  the more blockchained the better,
• 1:03:04
  but having some more block chance
• 1:03:05
  will allow more innovation.
• 1:03:07
  So that's why we support multiple,
• 1:03:08
  yeah.
• 1:03:09
  I, at BTC Prague,
• 1:03:11
  had a great conversation with a
• 1:03:13
  guy called Professor Giovanni
• 1:03:15
  Santassasi, and he
• 1:03:17
  essentially has created a
• 1:03:20
  Bitcoin power law chart that
• 1:03:22
  plots Bitcoin on a power law that
• 1:03:24
  predicts its price and value over
• 1:03:25
  time. You've often had very good
• 1:03:27
  sort of takes on the price
• 1:03:29
  and the value of Bitcoin, And he was
• 1:03:31
  kind of saying to me, by at least
• 1:03:32
  2023...
• 1:03:33
  2033, we should have $1 million per
• 1:03:35
  Bitcoin. So quite a fairly
• 1:03:37
  conservative estimate.
• 1:03:38
  And even further along, he thinks
• 1:03:40
  that there is a ceiling at which
• 1:03:41
  Bitcoin will just not be worth more
• 1:03:43
  in a dollar term.
• 1:03:45
  Do you often think much about the
• 1:03:46
  valuation of Bitcoin?
• 1:03:47
  And do you think it
• 1:03:49
  devices.
• 1:03:50
  Well, I applaud the people who can
• 1:03:52
  predict a particular price at a
• 1:03:53
  particular time.
• 1:03:55
  I think that's super difficult.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah. Um, I think you can predict,
• 1:03:57
  predict a particular price, uh,
• 1:03:59
  but I just don't know when, um,
• 1:04:02
  but 2033 is about two
• 1:04:04
  cycles away, right?
• 1:04:05
  So 2029, uh 2025 was like
• 1:04:07
  a bull market.
• 1:04:08
  2029 2030.
• 1:04:09
  So that's two cycles.
• 1:04:10
  Um, the last cycle, I think we got
• 1:04:12
  disrupted by the, you know, the war,
• 1:04:14
  the, like the election, everything
• 1:04:15
  kind of.
• 1:04:16
  That was a weak cycle.
• 1:04:18
  Bitcoin only went 2X.
• 1:04:19
  Previously, it's done 10X in the
• 1:04:21
  2017 cycle.
• 1:04:23
  If we go roughly by like
• 1:04:25
  3 to 5X per cycle,
• 1:04:28
  it can get pretty close to a
• 1:04:29
  million.
• 1:04:30
  But this is pure speculation.
• 1:04:33
  Are you surprised that it's been
• 1:04:34
  like diminishing returns every every
• 1:04:36
  cycle and do you think that's
• 1:04:38
  natural?
• 1:04:38
  There's also some natural arguments
• 1:04:40
  for that. Well, there's some
• 1:04:41
  arguments for that that's natural
• 1:04:43
  or valid.
• 1:04:45
  As the total market cap
• 1:04:47
  gets larger, the volatility
• 1:04:48
  decreases.
• 1:04:49
  So each rise may be
• 1:04:52
  less than the previous one.
• 1:04:53
  But I think the counter argument to
• 1:04:54
  that is Bitcoin is nowhere near
• 1:04:56
  saturated.
• 1:04:57
  The current people holding Bitcoin
• 1:04:58
  in terms of wealth is
• 1:05:00
  probably less than 1%.
• 1:05:01
  So we're not at a saturation point
• 1:05:03
  yet. So the demand for Bitcoin
• 1:05:05
  or for crypto in general can be
• 1:05:06
  significant.
• 1:05:07
  So I thought the last cycle was a
• 1:05:08
  bit weak. It was only 2X.
• 1:05:11
  Hopefully the next cycle fixes that.
• 1:05:13
  If the next second goes 5X, then
• 1:05:14
  you'd be like more than, I don't
• 1:05:16
  know, 50, 60,000 or 600,000.
• 1:05:19
  And then you only, the next I call
• 1:05:20
  after that, the 20, 33 cycle after
• 1:05:22
  that only, only needs 2X to
• 1:05:24
  get to a million.
• 1:05:26
  Totally possible.
• 1:05:27
  Well, I'm not saying that it will happen.
• 1:05:28
  It's totally possible.
• 1:05:29
  I think we'd all like to think it's
• 1:05:31
  going to happen and more than
• 1:05:32
  anything, just to accumulate as many
• 1:05:34
  sats as possible.
• 1:05:36
  CZ, thank you so much for taking the
• 1:05:37
  time to chat to us today.
• 1:05:38
  My final question is, after
• 1:05:40
  all of this is said and done and
• 1:05:42
  you're kind of changing lanes and
• 1:05:43
  doing things, what do you want to be
• 1:05:44
  remembered for going forward?
• 1:05:46
  Well, actually, I know a very simple
• 1:05:47
  answer. Um, uh, I think president
• 1:05:49
  Trump called me the crypto guy.
• 1:05:50
  Yeah. I want to be remembered as the
• 1:05:52
  crypto guys.
• 1:05:54
  I love that.
• 1:05:55
  Well, CZ, the crypto guy, thank you
• 1:05:57
  so much for joining us today.
• 1:05:58
  And if you have any burning
• 1:05:58
  questions for CZ please leave them
• 1:06:00
  in the in the comments of the live
• 1:06:02
  stream. Maybe you'll have some time
• 1:06:03
  later tonight to get to them.
• 1:06:04
  Thank you very much for watching the
• 1:06:05
  launch of The Starting Block.
• 1:06:07
  This is The Block's new show.
• 1:06:08
  We'll be live every day from 8 30
• 1:06:09
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• 1:06:11
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• 1:06:12
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• 1:06:13
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• 1:06:14
  If you are in Europe, please come
• 1:06:16
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  news section. We'll have a market
• 1:06:18
  update and every day we'll have a
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  hot seat interview with a big
• 1:06:21
  newsmaker or figure in the industry.
• 1:06:23
  We're looking forward to
• 1:06:24
  entertaining you.
• 1:06:25
  Thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:06:26
  Like and retweet this live stream so
• 1:06:28
  everyone can hear the latest from
• 1:06:29
  CZ.
• 1:06:30
  Thank you so much for having me,
• 1:06:31
  guys.
• 1:06:32
  I'm really honored. I actually did
• 1:06:34
  it.
• 1:06:34
  This was our first episode.
• 1:06:35
  Thank you so much. This is it.
• 1:06:36
  Thanks CZ.