Changpeng Zhao, or simply “CZ”, is CEO of the crypto world’s most influential, fastest growing, highest grossing and most pioneering asset exchange, Binance. With 200k Twitter followers and an estimated net worth in the region of $1.39 billion, Zhao is a force to be reckoned with. Binance’s charismatic CEO spoke candidly earlier this week at the Blockchain Partners Summit, offering an overview of the current space, the outlook for centralized and decentralized exchanges, and his personal take on the present and future of crypto.
Zhao commented that he felt, in the short term at least, centralized exchanges still have a key role to play in crypto. As things stand, he said, traders tend to prefer the involvement of a trusted party to manage the exchange. He suggested that centralized platforms enable a wide choice of assets, offer high liquidity, and allow anonymous trading. He did acknowledge, however, that hacking and fraud has proven to be serious issue. Decentralized exchanges will, he contends, need to address the cost of delivery in addition to these key issues before they can offer serious competition.
The Binance CEO also took the opportunity to comment on the role of initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the space, saying that he felt many projects were seeking to raise too much money at a very early stage of their development. Smaller ICOs, he said, could reduce the risk to investors and stabilize the markets rather than bringing further FUD into the space.
Zhao furthermore commented on the role of governments in the crypto sector, commenting that he felt many countries would seek to develop their own national blockchain-based currencies in the future. He anticipates far more coins entering the space in general, rather than far fewer as many in the community might expect.
Zhao’s previous career included a period at the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Bloomberg before he moved fully into the world of crypto. He worked for a time at Blockchain.Info and then as Chief Technology Officer at OKCoin which was, at least for a period in 2016, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange by volume, handling some 16 million Bitcoin per month. It took him only eight months to grow Binance into the world’s largest crypto exchange.
