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Changpeng Zhao (Binance): “Cryptocurrencies will be everywhere”

2022-04-25T04:16:13.142Z


The founder of the Binance platform, one of the richest men in the world, speaks to EL PAÍS during his trip to Madrid: "Many think they are late to cryptocurrencies, but this is only the beginning"


Changpeng Zhao doesn't know how much money he has.

It seems hard to believe, but that smiling man in a yellow sweatshirt, shaved hair and glasses who crosses alone —without an entourage of bodyguards or communication consultants— the threshold of a room at the Wizink Center in Madrid has an estimated fortune of 65,000 million dollars, according to

Forbes

.

If he were Spanish, he would be the richest in the country, above the almighty founder of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, but the creator of Binance, the most used platform in the world to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, is a discreet Canadian born in China 44 years ago .

Casual and youthful in appearance, he is uniformed very much in the style of those rising stars of Silicon Valley, with his signature name printed on the chest, who are trying to change the world with the help of technology.

And everything indicates that he is succeeding: the North American magazine raised him this month to the 20th position among the richest on the planet, practically tied with Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).

And he is the only one on the list related to cryptocurrencies.

He finds out because he reads the news, but he claims he doesn't know how much he really has.

The accounts are not easy to make, because most of his wealth comes from his position as owner of Binance and, to a lesser extent, from some investments in cryptocurrencies that change in value every day.

He, too, is not particularly worried about it.

“I'm financially free, so I don't have to worry too much about my lifestyle, which, on the other hand, is pretty basic.

I don't have anything fancy,” he explains.

He has recently bought, yes, an apartment in Dubai, where he lives for a good part of the year —in the summer he escapes to Europe to escape the heat—, although he claims not to have any villas or mansions that he could easily afford.

“I think the difference between having 100 million and 1,000 million is almost nil.

I also don't know if there is a difference between having 74,000 or 96,000 million.

I see more importantly what positive impact that can have on society.”

In the best North American philanthropic tradition, Zhao, who during his time in Madrid gave EL PAÍS the only interview of his trip to Spain, plans in the future to donate or invest more than 90% of his fortune in growing companies.

His money comes from cryptocurrencies, but the vast majority is not directly subject to their price.

Every time a user buys or sells on its platform, Binance receives commissions in return, so the more transactions there are, the more it earns, regardless of whether bitcoin or ethereum rises or falls, to name the two largest digital currencies.

A round business that, unlike other markets, works without interruption 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Zhao, known as CZ in the world of cryptocurrencies, is, however, a complete unknown outside of that universe.

Tomorrow he could sit in the center of Puerta del Sol and surely only a handful of people would recognize him, possibly young people.

The pull of him between them is undoubted.

At an event in Madrid last Tuesday, 300 of them crowded with an invitation to listen to him – with some familiar face among the attendees, such as little Nicolás.

Among small investors he is something of a guru: he has 5.6 million followers on Twitter who read him for clues as to what is next.

Attendees at the conference of Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, at the Wizink Center in Madrid, last Tuesday. KIKE PARA

In his diagnosis of where cryptocurrencies are now in their short lives — bitcoin was launched in 2009 — Zhao is aware that they have not yet unleashed their full potential.

“They haven't replaced traditional money yet, but they make it much easier to raise funds from anywhere in the world, they allow you to sell art at much higher prices than traditional galleries through NFTs because you can reach a global network. , also access loans with better interest rates, and facilitate cross-border transactions and micropayments.

I believe that by the time today's 15-year-old teenagers have turned 35, cryptocurrencies will be everywhere.

People will use them to pay for coffee or in supermarkets.

But that is something that will happen in the medium term.”

For now, its extreme volatility remains its greatest weakness: how can a merchant accept payment in a currency that may be worth 10% less tomorrow?

But if its price eventually stabilizes and money decentralizes, then do commercial banks have reason to worry?

“It is a new technology.

I don't think they should worry about her, but they should adopt her.

It is like the case of bookstores.

Should they have worried about the internet?

In theory, no.

They should have embraced it and launched an e-commerce portal on their own to avoid competing with Amazon.

Now the same thing happens.

Commercial banks should adopt this new technology.

If they don't, then maybe they should worry."

The way in which Zhao discovered cryptocurrencies has its history.

He first heard about them in 2013 during a poker game with Bobby Lee, head of BTC China, and investor Ron Cao.

The crush was instant.

He worked in a couple of companies in the sector to get to know the guts of the new technology.

He sold his house for bitcoins.

And in 2017 he set up Binance.

Five years later, he is in the top 20 world millionaires, an acceleration rarely seen.

His company today has 118 million users in 180 countries and has 5,000 employees on its payroll.

The ceiling may be far off if Zhao's vision of the industry is correct.

“Many think it is too late to get into crypto and wish they had done so sooner.

But you can't change the past.

This is just the beginning.

The adoption of cryptocurrencies is around 3% worldwide if you count the number of people who have some.

And their share of people's wealth is even lower, they probably have 10% of their money there, so maybe only 0.3% of the wealth is in cryptocurrencies.

If you don't like them you don't have to stay, but I think they are the future of money and the industry

fintech

”.

The role of regulators seems key in its expansion.

And while countries like China have banned cryptocurrencies, Zhao sees a favorable change of heart in his meetings with financial supervisors, whom he often meets with during his trips.

“Four or five years ago cryptocurrencies were not taken seriously.

They saw them as too small an industry that could disappear.

They now understand that this is a technological evolution that is not going to go away.

Cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

And not only that, they are the future of money, so they want to regulate this industry, which is very positive for us.”

In the Chinese restriction, he perceives the same interest as in his prohibition of platforms such as Facebook, Amazon or Google: to create his own version of virtual currency that prevails over the rest.

In this case,

digital yuan

.

Unlike the American Coinbase, one of its major competitors, Binance has not gone public.

"We're not short of money, so we don't see the need to do it to raise funds, but we're not ruling it out in the future," he says.

The growth of cryptocurrencies has also spawned dangers.

Many young people without sufficient financial culture have launched to buy without taking risks such as scams,

hacks

or high volatility: today thousands of different digital currencies can be bought, and there are not a few that are born with a purely speculative objective, without any value behind, which sometimes culminates in the loss of all or a good part of the investment.

Zhao admits the problem, which he blames on a lack of financial education in schools, although he believes that, as one of the biggest players in the industry, they too should do more.

It is one of the pending subjects of an agenda dedicated almost entirely to cryptocurrencies.

Zhao calculates that his work absorbs about 16 or 17 hours a day, and out of that maelstrom, in his little free time, he only finds some space for his family and to go to the gym three or four times. a week.

As one of the technological men of the moment, he has exchanged messages with the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, or that of Tesla, Elon Musk, two billionaires also involved in the world of cryptocurrencies.

“It is very promising that they are inside.

I hope more entrepreneurs will join,” he says.

And after finishing the interview he sits alone on a sofa in the corner of the room, perhaps ruminating in his head the talk that in just a few minutes he is going to give to those 300

crypto fans

.

Source: elparis

All business articles on 2022-04-25

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