Binance CEO Interview: Future of Exchange, Binance DEX, and BNB

So we finally cornered CZ. You had a very busy day. It's the second day of the Binance conference. How's it going so far? I think things are going great. The energy level is high. I learned a lot of stuff at this conference myself, so I think things are going quite well. Do you think that we are starting to be more rational right now? What do you think is happening? I personally think the crypto space actually now, today, is much healthier than you was a year ago. So we're actually much healthier than ever. There are tons of good opportunities to invest now. Contrary to at the all-time high, there were tons of bad opportunities to invest, and people invest in those. But I think today, right now, there's tons of really good opportunities. The valuations are good. We see now the guys who are still building today, they have really good projects. Even at the Hackathon, I talked to all six of the finalists, and all six of them, I just talked to them now again, for the next steps of different types of potential cooperation and how to make them into applications. So now there are really good projects going on. And you can see that everybody who's participating here, they're still very enthusiastic. And I think right now, there's like a conference every day. And the number of people going to conferences, the number of people working in this industry are increasing. So the industry is still going very strong, even though the price has dropped a little bit since last year. But if you look at two years past, if you look at more than two years ago, still like two years ago, it was like $300 for Bitcoin. So today's $3,000. It's not too bad at all. Now, we saw like fundamental changes in Binance. I saw a fiat exchange, you know, not just a binary. Now you're going beyond. So what's kind of the vision for Binance going into 2019? So I think I said a few times in different places where we do want to build 5 to 10 fiat on-ramps around different parts of the world, hopefully spreading out from different continents. So that's one of the goals for Binance this year, which is to get the fiat on-ramps markets as well. We see that that's a limiting factor for the industry growth right now. So we want to help the industry grow and attack the market. And so far, the Jersey market is just overwhelmed with demand. So that shows there's pent-up demand there. So at the same time, so fiat is one way. So right now, the way I view it is most of the money is still in fiat. So it's much larger than the crypto market cap. So we need to get the fiat coming in. On the flip side, on the other side of it, we are working on the decentralized exchange. So the Binance DEX will come out very soon. So what is the objective? Because you have a centralized exchange and a decentralized. Is it competing with each other? What's happening? So I don't think it competes at all. I think the people who use centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges, so there's three categories, really. So there are people who use fiat to crypto centralized exchanges. And that you can't really decentralize anyway, because the banking relationship, you can't do it. And then there are people who are using crypto to crypto centralized exchanges. Because there's very high liquidity, faster systems, etc. And then the exchange takes care of your security. You've got to rely on the exchange. Some people view that as less secure. Some people view that as more secure than doing themselves. And then there's the guys who want to control their own private keys, who want to be more anonymous. So most of the guys in the core community are heavy power users. And they're loud. They speak more. And they want to use DEX. So we see that not really competing. We're just offering different solutions to different people. And we always let the user choose. And we let the market choose. So if the market today, the market is now definitely choosing the centralized over decentralized exchanges, because the centralized ones are much bigger. So the market already... Faster. Faster. But I think everyone kind of has the same view that decentralized exchanges will be the future. So we want to provide those options and let the market decide. Can we see the same number of assets, like the ERC-20 tokens, that we are familiar with trading on the decentralized DEX exchange? Or is that going to be different? So I think over time, we will see more coins traded on the decentralized exchange because there's less control and it's decentralized. Initially, because the Binance chain is a native chain, on Binance chain, you can use your own tokens. So some of the ERC-20 tokens may convert to the Binance chain tokens. And we already have confirmation on a number of large projects who are doing that. They have to migrate completely from Ethereum onto Binance. Yes. So basically, if you're only using ERC-20 as a token, there's no real reason for you to stay on Ethereum. Whereas Binance chain, you'll get one second transaction confirmation. One confirmation is final. So it's a much faster chain and the transaction fees are cheaper. So there's a lot of advantages for them to move to the Binance chain, and which integrates a native DEX decentralized exchange. So you don't have to use a slower, more expensive decentralized exchange. So there's a lot of benefits for the tokens to migrate. If you're using some other feature of the smart contract on Ethereum that not token issue is related, then we don't support that on Binance chain initially. So then you probably have to stick with ERC-20. Right. So Binance chain will not be Turing complete whilst it will have features that are built in, but then it's not like Ethereum where it's absolutely crazy. Anything can go. Yes, absolutely. So that's exactly right. So the Binance chain is actually a very simple chain where to create a token, you don't write a smart contract. So you just specify a few parameters. You specify the token name, the token symbol, and how many decimals you have, and pay a small fee, or actually a relatively large fee initially. We want to block out the scammers. You pay a fee in BNB, and boom, you have your token. So it's much easier to use, much less programming involved. So because we don't have the smart contract, there will be no EVMs, virtual machines. It will be faster. So it's a much condensed special purpose chain. But we target one application. So I'm more of the application type of guy. I like to put things into real application use. But because it's faster, we think you'll handle a much larger capacity throughput. So hopefully more people will use it. Awesome. Right now, STOs are very hot. It's kind of the main jargon that we hear right now. So what's your view on STO? Would Binance have security tokens, or is that going to be something for you? Sure. So STO is definitely a very interesting space. But STOs relates very heavily to regulatory regulations. So we already have two regulatory licenses at different places with different partners. One of them is with a multi-stock exchange. So that's probably the most proper security license you could have outside of the US. So, but we are still not 100% sure what are we supposed to do, or what can we do, or can we not do with it? So we, and that's not our strength. So we're kind of waiting to see how other people do it. Once other people figure out what they do and cannot do, then we can potentially copy them shamelessly and then grow that. So that's a truthful answer. Let them step on some mines if they blow up, you know, and then we'll together work out how to make this work. It's not so much we want to avoid stepping on mines, just that it's not our strong point. It requires a lot of lawyers, a lot of guys in the regulatory space. So those guys will have better expertise in that area than we do. Binance is more of a technology shop. So, and the community, it was just technology driven. So we want to do what we do best. Awesome. So let's ask some like more personal questions. I've seen you a lot on Twitter a lot, you know, you're interacting with social media a lot more. What's the weirdest place you've ever used Twitter or Instagram? I'm not too sure. So I think I use Instagram, I use Twitter the most, right? So I just somehow got used to it. And then I don't, I don't really use Instagram that much because I don't, the repost feature is missing. But on Twitter, I just speak my mind. I just be myself. So I think my personality do come through Twitter. Sometimes I attack people. Sometimes I am very polite. Sometimes I stay away from certain topics. So I just be myself. And I think just having that interaction with the community, that's also a very good place for me to learn our user feedback. So Twitter, as much as salty people are on there, sometimes they get bad feedback. There's also a lot of good feedback. So yeah, I learned a lot from Twitter as well. I saw you have a tattoo. That's a real tattoo, right? So we have this here. So why did you choose to get a tattoo? Well, actually, so the tattoo conversation came up a couple of times, even on Twitter, but I was in Singapore with, where did he go? With Gareth and Luke. And Luke had already had a Bitcoin tattoo. And he said, he's going to get a coin market cap tattoo. Luke is the second guy from a coin market cap. So he's going to get a coin market cap tattoo. And then he's going to get a Binance tattoo. I was like, well, if he's going to get a Binance tattoo, what am I? I can't just sit around. So I said, okay, let's get a Binance tattoo. And then Gareth pitched in his hand and said, he's going to get a Binance tattoo as well. So the three of us went to a tattoo shop in Singapore. I got it like about a month ago. So now it's healed really well. I like it. You like it. Yeah. It's good to see the wall side of CZ. Get a tattoo. What's your next tattoo going to be? Actually, I'm okay with one for now. I think for me, the Binance logo is very meaningful. I think if you want to tattoo something on your body, it should be meaningful to you. So I never encourage other people to get the Binance tattoo, but I think when they want to do it, it's meaningful enough for them. What is the meaning of the Binance tattoo? Well, actually, the Binance tattoo itself has meaning, but it's very meaningful for me. So that makes sense, right? So Binance as a project is very meaningful for me. I think even if you change the logo tomorrow, this logo is still meaningful to me. So I'm okay with having it on my body. The Binance tattoo itself, it's symmetric, both horizontally and vertically. And it's actually got two squares on it. The two squares means the two, the business asks and they overlap. The overlap part is the center square. And then the other two squares, they form a chain. So you actually, the chains in the middle. Yeah, so the chains in the middle. And then, so there's a trade. And when you get trades going on, you can have a dex. So there's a lot of meanings inside this logo that people don't know about. So there's a story behind it. Yeah, so it's cool. It's grown on me. I like it. Yeah, but I don't think I'll get a second tattoo anytime soon. Okay, maybe, maybe we'll ask you in a year. We'll see when you get, when you get the tattoo. Yeah, maybe, maybe I don't have a single tattoo yet. So maybe any logo, any logo. Excellent. I'll tell you. So yeah, CZ, thank you so much for the interview. Thank you so much for being here. And I mean, keep everything awesome. All right, Mike, thank you so much for all the help and everything else. Thank you so much. Cheers, man. Thank you. Thank you.