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

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

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

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

hired this year? How many users? And that number is going to blow your mind. On top of that, we talk about the macro environment where they're seeing users sign up, why bad monetary policy decisions are driving so many people towards crypto. And then we get into the nuances of running a global exchange, the number one leading exchange in the world. We talk about the situation with one of their employees, Tigran, out in Nigeria. Why is he being detained? And how can we get a U.S. citizen back from detainment? On top of that, we talk about CZ

and his recent release from prison. And then we get into all of the details of where Richard and the Binance team sees crypto going. This conversation is a peek into the mind of the leader of the number one exchange in all of the world. And so you're definitely gonna wanna pay attention. Here's my conversation with Richard Tang.

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

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Now go check them out, domainmoney.com slash Pomp. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Richard here. Richard, as CEO of Binance, I think one thing people may not really understand is just how big and how fast the company has grown. You all have over 200 million users and you continue to grow at an exponential rate. You're hiring thousands of people. Help us understand just what is Binance today? What are the business lines? And then how fast are you actually growing? Can you tell us any data that maybe people don't know yet? absolutely but first of all thanks for having me on the show and congratulations on your new book how to lead an extraordinary life i need some help on that front you need to give me some pointers i'm definitely going to read your book but uh first of all uh binance is continuing to grow from strength to strength uh you mentioned some figures so let me give you some data right so we have seen crypto adoption being very rapid i have a seven sign as you see we just celebrated set our seven-year anniversary in July this year.

So it's a relatively young company. Today, we have more than 230 million users globally, right? So the first 100 million users took us five years to onboard. The next 100 million users took us just north of two years, took us about 26 months to be exact, to onboard. And the 300 million users would be much faster. This year alone, we onboarded 50 million new users for the year to date. So you can see that pace of growth being very rapid throughout the world.

We continue to deploy. I mean, fundamentally, Binance is offering a crypto exchange. We are a platform. We allow users to come onto the platform, support users in their journey on that front. And we're very proud to have, you know, the deepest liquidity pool, which many users, especially institutions that are very sensitive to debt and breadth of liquidity, pays a lot of attention to. But also retail users,

users in the mid-tier. We serve our users in different parts of the clientele and users are fundamentally at the heart of everything we do. We are a user-first organization. We are very user-focused and we continue to strive on that front

and really thank everyone for their support on that. And then, Richard, when you think of those users, where are they coming from? Are they coming from developed nations, uh kind of you know growing uh nations are they coming from areas where uh the fiat currency is working not working um and then maybe even based on what geography they're coming from who are they

are these wealthy individuals are they you know kind of people who are looking for economic and social mobility well i can make a few general observation right and you can extrapolate the trend so we serve global users we are deployed in most countries around the world on a global basis right which is why we have 230 million users globally we have 19 regulatory approval globally making us the most regulated exchange more recently in very populous very big countries like india we have secured registration approval over there in indonesia we have gotten a full license and the list goes on right in early on in thailand kazakhstan so we are deployed globally on that front but as a general observation the pace of crypto adoption is the fastest where

you see slightly younger demographics compared to the rest of the world right so you know as as you can appreciate people in their 20s young adult people in the 30s they're much more tech savvy they know how to create things like whole wallet and if you look at data points throughout the world the young adults their first investment nowadays are not into stocks and bonds their first investment tends to be into crypto and they hold a higher proportion of crypto compared to stocks and bonds very early on in their life so that shows one trend that's one observation the second observation that we have is where financial inclusion is lower so if you look at places around the world with 20 30 financial inclusion meaning the part of the population

have no access to proper banking system which are extremely expensive for them the banks are are not onboarding them. The payment service provider are not onboarding them. They have no access to that. And crypto then becomes the very natural and very efficient means

for them to acquire assets, to make payments, both locally as well as cross-border in the lowest cost possible, right? Compared to traditional financial institutions that charge very high fees on that front.

So we see we have a fast pace of adoption for those segments. and crypto unlike traditional assets was first embraced by retail before slowly spread out to corporates high net worth and then ultimately institutions most asset class started from institution so it has gone the reverse direction but this year alone because of the etf approval firstly in the states and then in many other parts of the world from hong kong to australia to brazil and that list goes on right we are seeing very fast pace of institutional adoption as well

Well, so for year to date, the number of new registration on the institutions and corporates front, at least for us, we saw it almost doubling compared to last year. So we have seen very, very fast pace of adoption among institutions. Now that they have started to embrace it, they are coming in in a big fashion. Now, what's interesting to me is in some of the countries where you guys are seeing the fastest growth, monetary policy is very important. It's important in every country, but how much of an impact does, you know, bad monetary policy decisions, whether it is the devaluation of a fiat currency, hyperinflation, et cetera, drive growth? Do you see economic events occur in a country and then immediately see a large uptick in adoption in those countries? So is it? Absolutely. So is the combination of factors. Right. So, I mean, where financial inclusion is lower, normally crypto is the only means, as I mentioned. for payments for people to acquire assets as a store of value right they can't quite acquire

in other sense and in many parts of this these places uh where bad macro economic condition persists bad monetary policy persists again you see you know they tend to favor things like stable coins crypto i mean if you look at bitcoin itself vis-a-vis all the major currencies around the the world, it has outperformed all the other fiat currencies. I think if you look at major currencies around the world in the last couple of years, most of them has underperformed the US dollars, but Bitcoin has continued to grow from strength to strength. So those people in many parts of this country that hold on to stable coins, that hold on

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

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

front we cheer and we celebrate all new breakthroughs all new innovation we're very very happy and very supportive ultimately i think all of us are working in it together to create a very vibrant ecosystem a dynamic infrastructure a huge talent pool for the future and that's what we are working towards right so we work very closely the ecosystem on that front we and we want to continue to support innovation this is a very very important innovation going forward and we work with global governments not only you know community angels industry players but we work with global governments to stress to them to educate them the importance of blockchain of crypto in the future economy and if you want to support future economic growth support the different parts of the

ecosystem in terms of their continued value add the talent pool that's coming through this is a very important sector to embrace and embrace well support the innovative part of it while managing the risk aspect of it there's a growing interest and i think trend of companies putting bitcoin or other crypto assets onto their balance sheet does binance have any crypto assets on your balance sheet but we do uh so you know we are we are there since 2017 and we believe in this space as i mentioned we are always long-term uh we do hold quite a lot of crypto in terms of our energy on that front um but you know personally i think most of us are working in binance and working in the industry are really holders right so we we all are very bullish

this industry. And I think we conduct our actions in the manner of what we believe in operating this platform. When you say that you do hold crypto assets in your balance sheet, I'm assuming that Bitcoin is one of those assets, BNB is one of those assets. Can you talk a little bit as to kind of maybe the philosophy or the framework that you all go through? You mentioned being agnostic to what tokens get listed on the exchange. How do you all think about what assets go onto the balance sheet and whether you maybe you hold them or you know at some point you would sell them as as you appreciate um these are confidential information which i can't really go into details but you know a lot of you know even the fees that we charge are receiving crypto right

so uh rest assured that you know in our space uh any exchange that tell you that they don't have crypto i think uh that's not true given that we're on the topic of confidential information you wouldn't happen to be interested in telling me the revenue of binance or the profit of finance right yeah so i can i can share with you this right so we are very fortunate we are very blessed to be in the privileged position we have been operating in a profitable position since very early days right so six months into our operations after july 2017 uh we have became the largest crypto exchange globally and we kept that position since then so we are very fortunate but we're also very prudent in terms of fiscal management right in terms of managing our piano our balance sheet

our spending so unlike what you see in many other exchanges you know we tend to be very prudent physically on that front and i think our continued focus has been to build a very sustainable platform that's focused on the long term that continues to provide the best product features the operationally the most most resilient security wise the most secure platform for our users out there and those are things that we continue to invest very very heavily on it makes a ton of sense um the last question i'll ask kind of about the business is um there's a lot of investors who i think would love to be investors in binance the entity itself um that brings in into question, you know, can Binance be a trillion dollar company, just given the size,

the growth, the revenue, the profit? And or is there a world where Binance would actually try to go public, whether it's in the United States or elsewhere, to allow people in the public markets to get exposure to the equity of Binance as well? Well, certainly, I think we do hope that you'll become a trillion dollar company. I think all of us working in Binance, as I mentioned, we're working very hard the management team the core team or all the staff are working very hard to support our mission which is the freedom of money support our users in terms of their journey right and we look forward to global crypto deployment adoption supporting users wherever they are we also look forward to working very closely with global regulators as of now only one third of

regulators are regulating this space we are the most regulated so far in this space and And for those that are not regulated, we work with them on frameworks to really support their growth into the sector. So those are things that we continue to work on. At this point in time, we have no plans to go IPO, but as with all things in life, never send the effort. We will continue to evaluate our options to see what's best for all the stakeholders on our side to determine whether there's a path going forward.

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

But can you give us kind of some background information on Tigran and his situation and then kind of where we are at the moment and maybe what you think the potential solutions are? Certainly. So, for all of us that know Tigran, and I think most people that have been involved in the crypto industry long enough, know that he is a financial crime fighter all his life. He's very passionate about that front. So, he has been a functional expert visiting many countries on invitations around the world to impart knowledge how crypto is a traceable technology. How do you use this technology to trace illicit funds, fight financial crimes, right? So Tigran is, you know, one of the top experts around the world on that front. He used to work for IRS in the States.

He was invited to Nigeria earlier this year. He was promised safe passage. As I mentioned, he's a functional expert. He is not a key decision maker within Binance. He helped us. He was head of financial crime, and he really helped us work with law enforcement agencies around the world while we keep our back players and fight illicit crimes together. right so unfortunately he has been detained his health has deteriorated greatly he suffered from herinated this he's in pain he can't walk properly he's not given the proper medical care right so

we are very concerned that his condition will become permanent and we have been trying to appeal to the nigerian government to release t grant on humanitarian grounds let him go home let him get the proper medical care he needs let him get back to his family and friends and loved ones we have past issues with some governments and we have resolved in a very collaborative actions with all of them right be in the states india brazil thailand and that list goes on right and you know in many places in the world like brazil india thailand we continue to operate right after resolving those issues and we have conveyed those message very strongly to the nigerian government we are here we are collaborative we want to work with you and if there are outstanding

issues let's solve them there's no need to hold our staff because it sets a very bad precedent this it sends the chill down all corporates for any corporates that you have a disagreement with uh if you detain their staff that really sets a very bad precedent and many corporates will be very hesitant in terms of their corporate decision within the country in terms of future investment so that's not necessary i think the u.s government now is looking at this issue and hopefully we can get the house to approve a resolution to say that tigran is unlawfully detained in nigeria and please let him go home so you know hopefully the u.s government and we appeal to the u.s government to work through all the issues and get tigran released back home as soon as possible

what is the grounds that nigeria is holding him on well i think there are various i've set it up in my blog i've discussed this issue twice by now i think one of the earliest allegations was because of our operations there the naira devalue and i i try to debunk with statistics even after exiting in february the naira continued to depreciate and devalue right so is to prove that look this these are macroeconomic forces as economists who educate all of us on this front these are contingent to things that's happening in the country right um that's one and then the others i think there are certain allegations about uh failure to detect and prevent certain money laundering uh what we need are real facts right so these are all allegations we we again

if there are any outstanding issues we will work very closely the government's the resolve issue we investigate conduct due diligence and we have put very closely with global law enforcement agencies right so if you look at publications we have worked very closely with india enforcement agencies to bring wrongdoers to task scams, frauds. Same with Indonesia, same with Taiwan. We have gotten commendations from the

Attorney General's office in Taiwan to say that we are the most cooperative of all the exchanges globally, working with them to fight illicit crimes, financial crimes. And that happens throughout the world. In any given year, we receive close to 60,000

law enforcement agencies request. And we work very closely with them. We conduct due diligence on those transactions to see whether there's indeed something wrong with those transactions. And if there are, then we will do our utmost to really work with enforcement agencies to fight those bad actors in the marketplace. So again, let me reiterate our commitment, working with the Nigerian government, law enforcement agencies throughout the world. We are playing a very proactive

role with many agencies around the world to fight crimes on this front i saw the video of tigran it looked like he was kind of moving from an elevator to a courtroom and to your point about his health deteriorating obviously did not did not look good he looked very frustrated and you know i think anyone can kind of see that situation and and say hey if this was you know my brother my son my husband uh you know a friend um obviously uh you want him to uh to be returned uh home you know safely and quickly and so um you know we'll actually play the video so that people can see that and kind of understand that the severity of the situation is there anything that people at home can do uh to kind of help uh get the word out and or uh you know get this in front

of some of the politicians that potentially will be voting on this well if tigran is an american citizen as you said he deserves all the protection that us can provide he is a financial crime fighter that's his passion in life it's such an irony that nigeria detained him on charges they are not proven let him go home as soon as possible and if all of you can join in the effort lobby your local legislators add your voice to the movement to get him home as soon as possible to his loved one and family and get the proper medical treatment before it's too late to do so right that will be very very much appreciated we thank you from the bottom of our heart on that switching gears from you know kind of the situation with tigran another thing that

when i was asking folks you know what questions they had for you uh overwhelmingly everyone wants to know about cz who obviously is a pioneer uh in the crypto industry um he and binance both kind of settled uh with the us government in various forms and then uh cz spent uh about four months or so um you know detained and now he has uh recently been released uh my understanding is that he is not actively uh involved in the day-to-day management of binance but help us just understand you know kind of uh what binance's official position is on cz being released and and then also how you guys see his role moving forward. So we are elated, as with the rest of the community,

that CZ is home, safe. I think that's the most important thing on that front. Binance and CZ, we paid a very heavy penalty for some of the past mistakes we made. But I think what's very important for us is we acknowledge, we took it, we took responsibility for those similar to other major financial institutions around the world.

Binance is a very, very young organization. It's seven years old, right? So even financial institutions, there are hundreds, there are decades who make some of these breaches on this front, right? We acknowledge those. We make remedy, pay the heavy penalty. But what's very important is

we continue to invest into our compliance program and improve upon it and continue on our journey, pivoting very, very strongly. As I mentioned, you know, last year alone, we have invested 200 over million into our compliance program. And that's more than 30% increase compared to 2022, where we spent 158 million. And this year, that number will continue to increase a lot more. So we continue to invest in terms of global resources and compliance.

I mean, we want to build compliance into a competitive advantage on our front. If you think about it, we have the financial ability, we have the financial strength to make all these investments into compliance. As the world moves in the direction of greater compliance requirements, with greater regulations in crypto, that will be a very important competitive advantage for us because many of the smaller players may not have the financial strength or financial wherewithal to make some of these very important and heavy investments. So let me touch on that point first.

I think CZ has tweeted that he's back home, he's enjoying the moment, he's thinking of the future. I think some of the questions on that front is best to direct it to him. But on our front, at the Binance front, at the management front, at the board of directors, we are really focused on building the best platform for users, building a very sustainable platform for future growth. And we are very bullish for our future. That makes sense. And, you know, I think there's a lot of people who are very thankful for CZ and the initial Binance team kind of starting this business, really opening up access for many people around the world and obviously creating, you know, economic opportunity. And, you know, one of the things that I think is underestimated about this industry is just how much economic mobility it provides, you know, anyone in the world, regardless of education, or, you know, wealth, etc, can, with an internet connection, participate in the wealth creation that has occurred, and pretty stunning wealth creation that's occurred in this industry, which is, which is pretty cool.

Help me understand, Richard, what is the view going forward, right? Everyone is focused on kind of what Binance is today, but obviously you all have started to, you know, build things and launch things and do things outside of just the crypto exchange. And so how do you see Binance evolving and where do you see opportunity in the crypto industry over the next decade or so? Well, I think, I mean, I started getting exposure and involved in the crypto industry right around 2017, March. Binance was launched around July 2017. At that point in time, I was a regulator, right? So my thesis has always been this industry, crypto, is going to be the future of finance. But for it to go mainstream, you need two elements to get into play.

Firstly, you need clear regulations. It's only with clear regulations that, you know, users like players like ourselves, platforms, fund managers, know which are the parameters that we can operate in, right? And then secondly, users need those because they need to know what sort of investor protection provisions are there out there, what's the security standard they should look out for in terms of platforms, et cetera, et cetera. So that's one element. Second element, you need more institutions in this space because at that point in time,

2017, it's predominantly retail pay, right? And crypto adoption is less than 1%. Today, we're probably around 6% of crypto adoption. We are still very early days. i mentioned the pace of adoption is getting faster it's getting much more rapid more and more institutions are jumping on the bandwagon 2024 has been a landmark here with greater regulatory approval greater regulatory recognition attention around the world the etf approval i think is a big shot in the arm for many people and if you look at the top financial institutions in the world

top 100 top 20 all of them have a crypto agenda have a blockchain agenda you know many of them have trading desks now that trades crypto as well so that is a landmark shift um institutions coming in greater regulatory attention so the pace going forward is going to be much more rapid we envisage that many more financial institutions many traditional exchange jump onto the bandwagon on this front to offer different sort of products to tap the growing interest in this front the wealth planners the wealth advisors are going to advise their clients to increase allocation into this particular asset class right when the largest asset manager in the world black rock highlighted they went from larry finn went from a critic to a believer in this space i think that speaks volume

so you're gonna we're gonna see a lot more allocation a lot more new product features that's going to be introduced into this asset category we believe that many of these areas may not serve the needs of new players coming through right so if you think of traditional exchange uh the etf it serves certain type of users right probably people that takes a very long-term view trade as much because you can't effectively hedge your exposure at night when the when the exchange is closed or during the weekends when markets are moving if you are a trader if you want to take positions you can't do effective position thinking during those period of time so people then realize that you know exchange like ourselves offer them the 24 7 hour trading

you can take position effectively, hedge your position, and we offer a lot more product features, a lot more tokens compared to what some of these ETFs offer. So we are doing our best to serve all the different types of clientele coming through the value chain, from the institutions to your family, office, to corporates, to retail throughout the world. And all of them have slightly different needs in terms of what they're looking for. Many of the entities only trade majors, for instance. So what are things that they need in terms of product features on that front compared to family offices when they do allocation, et cetera. So we track user trends and preference very closely.

And user trends and preference tend to be different in different parts of the world as well. So it's how do we tweak our product offering in different parts of the world to the best of their needs as we continue to deploy in this space. And as you continue to see that world play out, how much of the future of Binance is what I'll call crypto native versus kind of legacy finance native. And I'll give you two examples. We see, you know, many firms on Wall Street, which most people would say, hey, these are legacy incumbent firms. They now are launching kind of crypto native firms. They may say, hey, let's tokenize treasuries. Let's go, obviously, and start to do

more and more things on a blockchain. We know JP Morgan and other banks are trying to figure out settlements of payments and things like that versus there are plenty of crypto firms that started out crypto native and they now are trying to become, you know, more legacy finance related. They're going away from kind of the hardcore crypto native type approach. And so, you know, maybe it's not an either or, but how do you see Binance moving forward, more crypto native or trying to kind of, you know, quote unquote, sophisticate and become more like an incumbent type financial organization? What's up, guys? I hope you're enjoying this episode, but I got a quick message for you. I just released my very first book. It's called How to Live an Extraordinary

Life. In this book, there are 65 life lessons that I've picked up over the years. These lessons will teach you about money, investing, relationships, work, health, happiness, and much more. In this book, I wrote letters to each one of my children, and I tried to share those life lessons with them. If you pick up this book, there's three things that I can promise you. The first is that it is very concise. The audio book is only three hours. You can listen to it on a long drive or on a rainy afternoon. The second thing is that you're going to learn something. It's worth the price of admission just for the lessons themselves. And then the third thing is it will make you think more deeply about your life and how you try to live it. So go pick up How to Live an Extraordinary

Life today. It's a quick read. It's very impactful. It's very concise, and it would mean the world to me for the support. Go check it out today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you buy your Books, hardcover, audio book, it all works. Thank you so much for the support. And I'd love to hear what you think about the new book. Let's get back to the episode. I do think that Binance at its heart will always be a crypto negative, right?

But I mean, the general trend will be there's going to be greater and greater convergence, right? So I can just give you a few examples on that front. So even as a crypto native firm, we have to respect the evolving compliance provision, the new regulations that are coming through, which is why we have set up a board of directors comprising seven directors, right?

Because regulators are more familiar with a traditional type of corporate setup. So when CZ was running the company, it's a founder-led, founder-run. He's the CEO of the company then. When I took over, I think one of the first things we have done is to move it from a founder-led run firm to a board-led operated firm, right?

So that is very different. The look and feel, I mean, is closer to what traditional financial firms are and what regulators are used to. It is a changing landscape. In 2017, when Binance was started, there are very little regulations, if any, that regulate this space. Today, we are close to a third. If you look at five years down the road, we probably cross half the jurisdiction having rules and regulations on that front. So, again, it's a trend. You can't reverse the trend.

what you have to do is to understand the landscape and then make changes according to accordingly to adapt to that as you mentioned a lot of crypto native firm now started to go into the track firewall right we've introduced with introduction of those products and a lot of track five firm are now introducing crypto products so you're going to see greater and greater convergence i think many firms are going to compete based on product feature what they can offer to their end clients, understanding user needs much better. And on that front, we firmly believe that we have a competitive edge. We stay very close to our user. As I mentioned, we're a user-first firm. Our users give us feedback and comments all the time, and we welcome them. And we do have a list

of running lists of issues and items that our users want. And we continue to push the agenda. I mean, look at Drop. This year, we continue to drop many new features, right? From things like From MegaDrop to Web3 Wallet to SuperEarn to pre-market spot trading for tokens to Binance Square. And the list goes on. Throughout the course of this year, we continue to push forth new features onto the platform. And these are things that users want. So we hear them. We work very closely with our community on that front to serve them to the best of our ability.

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

The company has very strong values, has very strong DNA, and we are guided to really support the crypto journey and agenda of many of our users globally, right? So that's at the heart of what we do. Certainly, we receive many proposals in different parts of the world.

At any one point in time, we are assessing a lot of different proposals that come to us. And it really depends on whether they fall in line with our thought process of how we see the world. and whether they add value to the franchise and enterprise, right? There are many directly into our line of business,

some adjacent lines of business, et cetera. But we continue to evaluate them, and where it makes sense for us to do so, we will pursue those opportunities. But at the heart of everything we do, we are running a crypto exchange platform, so we won't deviate very much from that mission of ours. That makes a lot of sense. My last question for you is everyone wants to know, you know, we're in a bull market. How high can all this stuff go?

Is this going to look like past bull markets? Or do you think that maybe something has structurally changed because there's ETFs and the large players are here? How are you all at Binance thinking about this? And really, it's a resource allocation, right? You don't want to get into a massive bull market and say, oh, we're understaffed in terms of engineering or customer support or marketing or whatever. So what are you all doing internally to prepare for this bull market and how big do you think it could be? So, Paul, I wish I have a question. I wish I have a price point to tell you by the end of this cycle.

But I do not have that. But I can tell you as an enterprise, we are very bullish for the future, right? And where are the data points on that front? This year alone, we have added a thousand new headcount for global deployment. We are going to add possibly another 600, 700 more, I suspect, before the end of the year. So we continue to recruit quite aggressively globally on this front. And that's really to support our global crypto deployment on that.

September normally has been a slow month for crypto. But if you look at what's happening, we went from a very high interest rate environment and you saw Fed rate cuts, right? because it appears that inflation is under control now. And a lower interest rate normally is a big boost for risk assets such as crypto. So we did not only see a rate cut in the US,

we saw a substantial rate cut coming out from China to boost economic activity. And again, that provided another boost. And October, November normally are much better months for crypto, traditionally speaking. I think another dynamic that we have not seen in previous cycles is institutions. The amount of institutions' money, if you look at what has been injected into the ETFs, the US ETF alone, is pretty substantial.

So this cycle, you see a lot more institutions coming through. They provide a different avenue for new liquidity, new user base coming through. And that will create greater dynamism for this industry. You're going to have much more users, different users of different sorts, a different duration in terms of their investments as well. And that's a big positive. It leads to a much more vibrant marketplace with different types of users in the marketplace. So we are bullish for the future.

And I think it pans out in terms of the, I mentioned this year alone, we have onboarded 15 million new users and that number continue to grow quite rapidly see a lot more institutions coming to us and the institutions are trading uh quite robustly as well so so we are we are pretty bullish for the future i uh i misled you actually have one more question which is can you run out of people is there an ability you have 230 million people you're growing incredibly quickly you know there's only about half of the world that has internet connection how many of those actually want to participate in kind of crypto um what do you see as kind of the total adjustable market or are there concerns that eventually uh you may run out of people to sign up our

aspiration is to onboard the next billion users right so i think in the first phase of growth you have a lot of crypto native you have a lot of web3 native the early believers are coming in So in the very early days of our journey, by now, I think you are seeing, you know, not the very early adopters, but people that are starting to see the trend of global institutions allocating into this space. And they say, hey, if the institutions, the smart money are coming in, there's something in there. If Larry Finn is saying that, look, this technology is here to say it's a very important technology for the future, then I think people sit up and take notice, right? Especially in the web tool world.

So we are seeing a lot more of the traditional players, some of the Trapfire players, people that are of, you know, slightly older age group. I think the early adopters are very, very young adults. And you see, you know, different profile coming through now. and our aspiration is to onboard the next billion users. That's a great place to end it. Richard, thank you so much for doing this.

Binance continues to be a leader in the space and you guys are growing incredibly quickly. You're giving access to hundreds of millions and hopefully billions of people in the future. And so we're cheering for you, but I appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. Thank you so much.

Thanks everyone for your support. And thanks for this. Thank you.