BBW2025: CZ on Crypto Payments, Next-Cycle Opportunities, Life Perspectives, and More

At Binance Blockchain Week 2025, held in Dubai on December 3–4, Binance founder CZ participated in a group media interview. The Q&A covered topics such as crypto payments, digital asset treasuries, U.S. policy shifts, Giggle Academy, philanthropy, and more.

CZ emphasized that payments remain crypto’s biggest unresolved challenge, that successful Web3 founders must be product- and user-driven with long-term focus, and that while the DAT model is viable, its risk depends on management. He noted that renewed U.S. regulatory openness will unlock major opportunities, mainstream adoption requires regulatory clarity, infrastructure and enterprise integration, crypto is already improving financial access in developing countries, and education, philanthropy, and ecosystem development will be his personal priorities going forward.

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Why Crypto Still Hasn’t Truly Solved Payments

CZ: I think payments are the obvious one. In Bitcoin’s whitepaper, it’s described as an electronic cash payment system. Many people have tried to build crypto payment solutions, but so far we haven’t truly solved it.

There’s Binance Pay, BitPay, and many different projects working on this, but we still face a chicken-and-egg problem. One issue is the volatility of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We now have stablecoins, but ideally we want people to pay directly in crypto. The technology is there, but due to various factors, crypto payments still aren’t widely adopted offline.

One potential path is integrating with traditional payment rails-like the Binance Card. That’s why people liked it: you swipe a card, merchants simply see fiat, and users pay in crypto. Those crypto-fiat conversions work well. Unfortunately, we lost most of the Binance Card programs during regulatory crackdowns under the Biden administration. But now things are coming back, so hopefully in the next couple of years these solutions will regain popularity.

There are many different approaches to solving this problem, but payments remain one of the biggest unsolved challenges in crypto.

What Was the Original Vision for Binance and How Has It Evolved?

CZ: It’s very hard to predict the future. When we first founded Binance, my original goal was for Binance to become a top-10 exchange within three years — but it became the №1 exchange within five months.

At the beginning, we considered having a physical office, but we quickly realized that wasn’t a great idea. So we aimed to fully decentralize Binance in the sense of having no headquarters. Later, we discovered that this created problems with regulators, because regulators want to know where a company is headquartered. So we had to reverse course again.

There were many forces in the background pushing and pulling us throughout that journey. Today it’s quite clear that centralized exchanges are fully regulated entities — they need headquarters and offices. At the same time, on-chain solutions have become very popular as well. I believe both centralized and decentralized solutions will continue to coexist.

If we could go back in time, things would definitely be clearer the second time around.

What Types of Founders Will Succeed in the Next Cycle

CZ: That’s a very broad question, but I think the most important factor is being product-driven — founders who focus on building products that people actually use, and who truly understand users. Mission-driven and ethical founders will also continue to stay.

Crypto is highly volatile. We’re probably in a bull market now, but eventually there will be a bear market, then another bull market, and so on. Regulations in different countries also shift — sometimes positive, sometimes negative — and they oscillate over time. Founders who can persist through these cycles are the ones who will ultimately win.

So overall, look for founders who build real products, care about users, and are here for the long run.

If You Could Make a Wish, What Would You Ask for in Life?

CZ: If you only get one wish, even that barely feels enough. To be honest, I don’t think I have many wishes. I believe life is interesting precisely because it’s unpredictable. When you don’t know what will happen, you work hard, you strive, you deal with uncertainty.

If you play a game where the outcome is guaranteed, it’s actually less fun. It’s more meaningful when you have to struggle, be careful, coordinate, and perform well. Those challenges are part of what makes life enjoyable.

I do wish everyone has good health — that’s the most important thing, and it’s something we can’t fully control, even with good habits. Health really matters.

Other than that, the world is already a fun place. I also think that because we don’t live forever, we value our lives more. If you lived eternally, time might feel less important, and you might not treasure your life the same way.

If you have the chance to lose something, you actually value it more. So I don’t have many wishes — I feel I’m already very lucky. I’d just ask God not to put me in a long period of bad luck. I’m happy with where I am now.

Is the Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) Model Sustainable?

CZ: So first, I think the DAT model fundamentally works. It allows traditional companies-especially those that are not structured or permitted to buy large amounts of crypto directly-to gain exposure to crypto. Many companies and many CMOs are allowed to buy equities for corporate treasury purposes, but they are not yet allowed or structured to buy tokens. So the DAT model fills that gap.

Within the DAT space, however, there are many different types. Because MicroStrategy has performed so well, everyone wants to copy that model. But just because one internet company succeeds doesn’t mean all the others are well managed. Different DATs also have different fee structures from their management companies. In my view, the lower the fee, the better. DATs should be as simple as possible.

MicroStrategy’s model is straightforward: they simply buy Bitcoin. BNB, for example, actually has very high yield opportunities-not in the form of BNB itself, but through proper use of Launchpad, Launchpool, and airdrops, which can generate 10–50% annually. That return is excellent compared to traditional equity markets.

Other DATs, however, attempt to be more creative or add more “value,” such as allocating 10% of the company’s treasury to invest in various crypto assets. That becomes a fundamentally different business. They purchase a diversified portfolio of crypto assets, which introduces a different risk structure that depends heavily on the skill set of the management team.

There’s a lot of variation across the industry. It’s not that DATs are risk-free-they carry significant risk. Everything depends on the management team, the structure, and the underlying philosophy. But fundamentally, I think it is perfectly fine for a public company to buy top crypto assets, hold them, and benefit from long-term appreciation. Simply doing that creates substantial value.

Holding Bitcoin, in my opinion, is one of the best strategies available. It has outperformed 99% of startups and nearly every other investment strategy over the past 10–15 years. So even just a simple buy-and-hold strategy, executed by a public company, can generate significant value. The model works-but again, execution and management matter.

Sometimes when a trend becomes hot, it gets too hot. Everyone wants to launch a DAT, leading to overcrowding. Inevitably, some will fail, markets will cool down, and only the steady, well-managed ones will continue to grow over time.

After the Trump Pardon, Will the US Become a Key Market for Crypto Expansion?

CZ: First of all, I don’t have anything going on with the Trump family. I’m very appreciative of the presidential pardon because it allows me, and us, to operate more freely around the world-including in the United States. It is genuinely my intention to help make America the capital of crypto.

The US is actually an emerging market for us now. Over the past few years, under the previous administration, we tried to withdraw from the US as much as possible. We avoided having US-based access, we didn’t invest in the US, and we pulled back wherever we could. We do have Binance US, but it’s a very small business today. In 2023, on the day the SEC sued them, they had around 35% market share; today it’s near zero.

There were also banking access issues and state licensing issues. But now, as I understand it, things are fully open again. The US is an extremely important market. It leads the world in tech talent, AI, and many other technologies. But in blockchain specifically, the biggest players are not based in the US right now. I want to help bring many of those businesses back into the country.

Many US investors, especially institutional investors, currently don’t have access or exposure to projects in the BNB ecosystem, so we want to help with that as well. Everything is open on that front. I fully intend to support the growth of crypto businesses in the US-through investments, helping startups, and supporting BNB Chain ecosystem projects.

How Do You Maintain Mental Health Amid Public Scrutiny and Negative Media?

CZ: For me, it’s actually quite easy. I know that Binance — our platform and ecosystem — is helping hundreds of millions of people around the world. We provide financial access to people in remote regions.

We’ve improved financial access for many people, although I do see a lot of negative headlines online, especially from mainstream media. There will always be people complaining or accusing me of various things, but I also receive many thank-you notes. When I was going to court, I received around 230 letters of support. Reading those letters, I was almost in tears, because we genuinely helped a lot of people. And that’s only a tiny fraction of those we’ve supported. So there are always two sides.

When I look at online hate, I see two main categories.

There’s the mainstream media that pushes a general anti-crypto narrative: “crypto is bad,” “Bitcoin is used by illicit actors,” etc. Those narratives come from traditional institutions that fear new technology. In the US, for example — I’m not in politics — but you see people like Elizabeth Warren and some Democrats always attacking crypto. I don’t know why, because most Americans actually want crypto. That’s one group.

The second group consists of people who traded and lost money. When they make money, everything is fine; when they lose money, they want to blame someone else. I sympathize with their losses, but people must take responsibility for their own actions. No exchange can guarantee you always make money. Whether it’s stocks, startups, or anything else — there’s always risk. Not investing is also a risk, because you may never grow your wealth. It’s all about trade-offs.

Once you understand these fundamentals, things become easier mentally. I’ve gone through a lot — including going to jail — but I know that no users were harmed, no fraud occurred, nothing unethical happened. I was the only one who paid for my actions. So I sleep well at night knowing that I’ve helped many people.

Over time, you learn to mentally filter out the noise. But I do look for constructive feedback — when people say, “your product needs improvement,” or “you should integrate with this partner,” or “this feature could be better.” That kind of feedback helps us improve. I read those. But for people who are just complaining without substance — well, that’s just noise.

What Must Happen for Crypto to Achieve True Mainstream Adoption?

CZ: I think it’s a slow process. For mainstream adoption — meaning traditional finance users — the first requirement is regulatory clarity. Regulatory frameworks need to be much clearer in many parts of the world. I’m personally working with more than a dozen countries. We have a team that consults with governments, including Kenya, Pakistan, Thailand, and others. We help review regulatory frameworks and even conduct workshops to teach regulators how exchanges work, how crypto functions, and how the industry operates.

I’m also a personal advisor to several governments. But today, the number of countries with clear and forward-thinking regulations is still very small. The US is now becoming a leader, which is good, but it’s still early. Trump has only been in office for a year. The Genius Act has passed, and the Clarity Act is in progress. It will happen eventually, but early regulatory drafts are never perfect. They take time to evolve.

After regulations mature, banks also need to work with crypto businesses. Crypto itself is nothing magical — it’s simply new technology. But for adoption to scale, crypto must integrate with existing financial systems.

There are many practical issues that still need to be resolved:

● How should companies hold crypto?

● How should taxes be handled across different countries?

● How should crypto be treated in financial reporting?

How should auditors evaluate it?These things all need to be standardized. They’re not difficult problems, but they require time and coordination.

Right now, there’s also not enough development of crypto-based financial products. Crypto is still a relatively small industry — around USD 3–4 trillion — but it should be a USD 300–400 trillion industry. We’re still at a very early stage. Payments need to mature, and many more financial instruments need to be built.

Whenever a new technology emerges, mainstream adoption takes time. In 1995, people imagined video conferencing or virtual reality meetings — yet even today, VR meetings aren’t widely used, and video calls still have issues like “Can you see me? Can you hear me?” It takes decades for technology to fully mature.

Crypto is highly disruptive, so it will also take time — possibly generations — to reach its full potential. But it will happen.

How Can Crypto Deliver Real Value to Emerging Markets?

CZ: I think there are far more opportunities in developing countries. First, many of them lack established financial infrastructure. For example, reports show that in parts of Africa, banking penetration is below 11%. But smartphone penetration is rising quickly — 50%, 60%, even 70%. That creates a perfect environment where people can simply download an app and instantly gain financial access. In many of these places, the payment infrastructure doesn’t exist at all.

I read a letter from someone who said that in 2017, it used to take him three days to pay a bill — walking from his village to another town. With crypto, it takes him three minutes. That saves him three days every month. And now he has access to a new asset class where he can invest even small amounts. He started with $50, grew it to $300, and then to $1,000. For someone in a very poor country, a few hundred dollars is meaningful. His life improved materially, and he wrote me a very touching letter about it.

In many developing countries, the local currencies are unstable. They face high inflation or even hyperinflation. Bitcoin and stablecoins offer a hedge. That’s another tool for them. Some countries don’t even have their own currencies — they rely on the US dollar or others. When the Fed prints money during quantitative easing, those countries don’t receive any of that new money. They just get diluted. So using crypto can actually be beneficial for them.

Many developing countries also have very young populations. Young people love crypto. For example, in Pakistan, where I’ve been working closely, the average age is around 25. It’s a young, forward-thinking population, and they’re very enthusiastic about crypto. Now the government is starting to say, “We want to give people what they want.”

So ultimately, it depends on the country’s leadership. If leaders are forward-thinking and want the best for their people, I highly encourage them to adopt crypto. And we’re very happy to help. Awesome.

How Is Giggle Academy Progressing in Its Mission to Deliver Free Education?

CZ: First, it’s not a business — it’s a free education platform. I had a call with the team this morning. Giggle Academy is currently serving around 88,000 kids. Every week, the platform adds about three to four thousand new students, so it’s growing quickly.

The platform already has around 300 lessons and two to three thousand storybooks. Most of the content is available in English for now, with some limited Arabic support recently added. The storybooks are available through AI in 30 to 40 languages. They’re continuing to expand both the content library and the usability of the platform.

Right now, the AI interaction — especially speech recognition when kids talk back — is not very strong, so the team is working to improve that. The team has about 60 full-time members, plus a few hundred content contributors. For the first 8–9 months, I personally funded everything.

Later, we wanted to create an incentive mechanism for contributors, so we opened a donation page. Someone created a memecoin, and that memecoin ended up generating about $11 million in donations to Giggle Academy almost immediately. Now we’re figuring out how to allocate that funding to grow the platform further.

Overall, Giggle Academy is developing very well. It’s not a business — all education is free. If you have kids between roughly 2 to 6 years old, let them try it. The product is very sticky; kids come back to it. They learn vocabulary, phonics, concepts — all through games.

We need to expand to more languages. We started with English, but we realized you can’t simply translate English lessons to Chinese or Arabic. You have to teach each language in the way that language should be taught. So we need to rebuild each language curriculum from scratch, and we will.

Giggle Academy is also being deployed in nurseries in Abu Dhabi, at the direction of the country’s leadership. In a recent conversation, their leadership said the platform is fantastic and offered funding, but we told them funding isn’t the limitation right now — scaling deployments is.

We’d love to add Korean as well, but that depends on our capacity to produce lessons. Eventually, I want to make the tool capable of allowing anyone to create lessons themselves — true user-generated educational content. But building high-quality lessons with engaging animation that keeps kids focused is challenging. We’re still working on it, with AI technology playing a key role.

It’s a passion project for me. I spend a couple of hours each week with the team, while they run full-time on it.

What Social Causes and Charity Projects Do You Intend to Support?

CZ: I think money is not something we should hold onto — it’s a tool we should use. Money enables us to do meaningful things. Right now, education is the main social cause I’m working on. But honestly, I haven’t spent that much yet — maybe around one or two million dollars to support the sixty employees working on Giggle Academy. Then donations came in — about $11 million — but that’s not my money. That will be used entirely for the educational platform. When you’re doing something good, it’s actually not that hard to raise funds.

For my own wealth, I need to figure out how to deploy it effectively. When I was leading Binance, we had a full charity team and I could rely on them. Now I don’t have that team, so I’m looking to build one again — maybe just one or two people to evaluate different causes.

I’ve met many interesting people. For example, yesterday I met Bill McGlashan. He used to be a senior leader at a VC fund and also went to jail for a rather unusual case — something no one else in history has been jailed for, and about ten years before my situation. I got to know him during my own process. Now he’s working on a social project developing new soil microbiomes. Much of the world’s soil has lost nutrients due to chemical fertilizers and overuse. His work aims to restore soil health. He’s not trying to make money — it’s a nonprofit — but he has built a sustainable model around it.

That’s the kind of project I’m exploring. I originally said climate wouldn’t be an area I’d focus on, but the soil project is actually connected to climate. Fixing soil helps fix the atmosphere. Healthy soil can absorb around 30% of carbon from the lower atmosphere. This isn’t my area of expertise, but I meet people working on impactful projects all the time.

I don’t yet have a strict focus outside of education. For other areas, I rely on experts.

I’ve also donated privately to a prison support organization called Prison Professors. They focus on prison education and prisoner support. I donate through another organization, and they help orphans in Thailand, and other countries. So right now, I’m doing several smaller charity efforts across different fields.

I personally want all my donations to be on-chain, in crypto, so the entire flow is transparently traceable to the end beneficiaries. But not all beneficiaries currently know how to use crypto — which creates a practical challenge. If I restrict donations to crypto-only, the reach becomes very small. So we need a balance.

For now, I’m experimenting with different charity organizations to see which ones are efficient, which ones create real impact, and which ones we can continue working with.

What Will Web3 Look Like When One Billion People Are Using It?

CZ: I think eventually everyone will use it naturally. In that future, we shouldn’t even be talking about “crypto” or “Web3.” Talking about crypto would be like talking about TCP/IP — it’s the underlying protocol. Talking about blockchains would be like talking about network layers. Users shouldn’t need to think about any of that.

People should simply say: “I’m going to pay someone,” “I’m going to send something,” “I’m going to buy something.” Just like today, when we say “I’m going to Google it,” the brand becomes a verb. Ideally, the underlying technology becomes invisible. There should be no discussions about TPS, fees, gas, or any technical details that don’t make sense to mainstream users. There shouldn’t even be wallet addresses. You should just pay someone by their name.

We need to abstract all of that complexity away.

Right now, the technology — and the industry — is not there yet. We need to develop much better, far easier-to-use products. And it doesn’t need to be only through Binance; it can be through many different apps.

Eventually, I think the ecosystem will consolidate. Today, if you want to search online, you use Google — though AI is starting to compete with that. Network effects usually lead to one dominant platform. I expect something similar in Web3 over time.

That’s how I imagine the future.

How Do You View Binance’s New Leadership Structure, and What Will Be Your Future Focus?

CZ: I think it’s a very natural development. He Yi has always been a co-founder. She’s extremely strategic and incredibly hardworking. She’s deeply connected to the community — she’s active on Twitter and Chinese social media, very close to users, very product-focused, and very strategic in her thinking. She is genuinely one of the hardest-working and most resilient people I’ve met in my life.

She already had significant influence in the company. This new title simply formalizes what she has already been doing. I believe she will continue to perform very well. Responses so far have been positive. Western audiences may know her less, but in Asia she’s very well known. Even from Western audiences, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback. I think she’ll excel in this role.

CZ: She’s also nine years younger than me, which makes it natural. I became CEO when I was around 40; now she is reaching that stage. It’s a natural progression for her to take on a larger leadership role. Formally she carries the title now, but informally she has already been doing much of the work for a long time.

And she has very complementary skills to Richard. Richard has more regulatory background and is much smoother in English. English is still a limiting factor for her — though she’s improving. When you hear her talk, she still makes many grammar mistakes, but she communicates clearly and gets her message across. She’s also a very strong learner. These are all great qualities.

For me personally — when I stepped down as Binance CEO, I actually cried. When I wrote that blog post announcing it, it was 4 a.m. in Seattle, and I cried. It took me a bit of time to get over it. But after that, I realized: life is actually great. For almost a year, I had nothing I could do in the US — so I went snowboarding, kite surfing, and so on. When I came back and saw the company running well without me, I felt relieved. I realized I don’t need to go back to day-to-day management.

In life, we move forward, not backward.

Now I’m much more involved in ecosystem work — projects in the BNB Chain ecosystem, helping different founders, working more closely with Nina. This is actually the first time we met in person — literally the first minute — though we talk often.

We’re supporting founders through entities like YZi Labs, Giggle Academy, and I’m also helping governments adopt crypto frameworks. I’m increasingly working on the regulatory side, almost consulting for regulators on how to regulate the industry, which is interesting.

It’s good for me not to be in the day-to-day operations of Binance.com. That actually helps BNB Chain and the ecosystem grow. I enjoy what I do now. Binance’s team is strong, and people shouldn’t stay in one role for too long — turnover is healthy. It creates room for others to grow.

I think this transition is better for everyone.

Which Daily Habits Contribute Most to Your Success?

CZ: I think learning a little bit every day is important for success. Schools teach us basic skills like reading, writing, some critical thinking, and a bit of math — and that’s pretty much all we remember. Schools don’t teach entrepreneurship, negotiation, leadership, financial literacy, or how startups work. These are essential skills you have to learn on your own.

If you’re a professional — a doctor, a lawyer — you use a lot of what you learned in school. But for most of us, especially entrepreneurs, you have to constantly learn by yourself and learn from customers. You must keep an open mindset. Learning something every day helps you stay open, prevents you from becoming rigid, and keeps you aware of new opportunities.

Another very important habit is working hard while staying healthy. Entrepreneurship is physical — it’s not just mental. You need a strong body. You must build good habits: manage stress well, sleep well, eat well, exercise, and take care of yourself. You need to be able to work long hours — even 16-hour days — while remaining healthy. So I consider these things extremely important.

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