The $110 Billion Dollar Man - Binance Founder Opens Up | PBD #797

President Trump, give me a pardon.

"Who cares about getting a pardon? I'm labeled as a felon."

Binance founder sentenced to 4 months in prison.

"You could tell they were interested in targeting a guy like you."

The timing is coincidental. Today, the US is pro-crypto. The White House pledged to make America the crypto capital of the world.

"You're not making friends with the Democratic Party."

"That's crazy."

"Your tweet was one of the reasons that caused them to go out."

"Don't think those were my exact words."

"There it is. That's the tweet. He was the biggest guy giving money to them. You just took that money away."

Sam Bankman-Fried arrested.

"Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto. Do you think there's a chance that it's him?"

"U."

"In their eyes, would China look at you as they made you because I look Chinese? I'm part of the CCP or anything like that. That's completely false."

"You make it seem like anybody can start a company and get to 100 billion."

"I'm a normal guy."

"You're not a normal guy."

"I don't think I've ever sat in a Lambo yet."

"Stop it."

"Guys worth $100 million, give or take. Never been on a Lambo. Enjoy today's conversation with the one and only CZ."

CZ, great to have you on the podcast.

Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.

I told my guys, I said, "Listen, I noticed everybody was going in the cigar lunch to meet you." I said, "You better not ask him for a loan. You better not go." So, you want a donation or a loan from this guy? Cuz the first thing they found, what's his net worth? Is he really worth $110 billion? That's what that's the first thing people want to find out. And you're like, "Yeah, you know, he's a pretty rich guy." But it's funny. I got all these things I want to go through with you with your story. I was telling you earlier how your story is a movie. They could turn it into a movie at any time and I hope it turns into a movie because you've lived an interesting life. But you did you fly in from UAE?

Yes.

Okay. Is it true that you guys just got attacked or you got bombed yesterday by Iran at a couple oil facilities?

Uh I don't know where they attacked, but as we were leaving, there were missile alerts and the flight was on, off, on, off.

When you were leaving?

When we were leaving. Yeah. So just on my way to the airport, like no, the flight was off and then 20 minutes later, the missile warning was cancelled, well, was resolved, it was on again and then it was off again and on again and then, yeah, so that's how we fly and we we wait. So just before we were supposed to take off, there was off again. We said, well, let's just wait for 20 minutes. It was it was uh yeah, so and then we had a 20-minute window. The plane.

What did the pilot say? The pilot say, "Hey, we don't know. Are they given a safety protocol or no? Hey, we're going to take off. It's going to be fine. It's going to be a long flight. We're going to be okay. There's going to be a little bit of turbulence." What warning did the pilot give?

So, the the pilot's just waiting for the like the the pilot's just following instructions. So, whenever there's a warning, they cuddle everything into this into a safe room that's like in the middle of the airport away from glasses, windows, and stuff like that. And whenever the the warning is off, you say, "Well, you can board the plane." And then you fly off. And it was actually no turbulence. It was a calm day.

Turbulence. It was a calm day.

No turbulence.

Did you, did you were you worried while you're taking off or No, you were you?

I wasn't worried.

Not worried. Okay.

So, like 99% interception rate. Uh, and super safe. Um, yeah, it it is worrying because that missile flying in, but it's super safe.

So the living there yourself, you feel safe living in UAE in Abu Dhabi. You do.

Very safe.

When you think about all the things that you can't you can buy with money. You can go to a restaurant, customer doesn't, you know, the waitress doesn't give you good service, you can buy the restaurant and say, "You're no longer here. You have that kind of money." You can, you can go to a sports game, you don't like the team's management, you can make a massive offer the next day and buy an NBA team or an NFL team. But when it comes down to security, living at a place, what what made you pick UAE out of all the places to live in?

I mean, it is the safest country in, well, safest country in the world. Um,

You believe that?

By far. Yeah. Yeah.

Tell me why. Um, you can, if you drop your wallet on the street, um, and it has like, not, I don't know, 3,000 bucks in there, you walk, you come back in a week, it's still there. Uh, you'll find it and people who find it will return it with the cash in there. Uh, there's zero, basically zero crime. Uh, there's no petty crime, no big crimes, etc. Uh, and the fiscal security on the street translates into financial security, fintech. It's just very well-run. Um, and uh, uh, and also the leadership of the country is very pro-business. Uh, very, very smart, very, very uh calibrated, um, extremely um visionary. So it's one of the best places to be. Yeah.

Do you, do you think about the importance of like, what level of importance do you put on where to raise your family on the the strength of the military of that country in today's turbulent times that we have? Do you say, "Man, I wish UAE had a stronger military or no?"

Um, well, I think I was actually surprised that how strong the military of UAE is. Um, I didn't know until there were like missiles flying in and they were intercepting it. I was like, wow, that's pretty cool.

Um, and I didn't, like, you have to think about it, right? How much do you have to prepare that in advance to be able to intercept that many missiles coming in? Uh, and takes years and years of preparation. So, there's foresight there, uh, that's really hard to match. Um, I think UAE does rely very heavily on US support from, uh, based, uh, from milit, from military, um, equipment, technology.

They rely on us for that?

I think so. Yeah. Um, so they're a very strong partner for, for the US. So I think they, they do quite well there. Um, and then, uh, uh, but other than that, I think the, just, just the country is very, very well-governed. Um, if you have sensible leaders, you have like smart leaders that are fair and that wants the country to grow instead of growing their own pockets, then you, you have a pretty good country. Yeah.

I saw a stat the other day and I wonder how you answer this one. In the 70s, uh, in the S&P 500, it showed that, you know, 85 to 93% of the wealth was tied to tangible assets in 1970.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if somebody was a billionaire and they lived in a state, they ran a business, they couldn't move to another state or they couldn't move to another country because it's tangible asset, wealth that they have. Today, we've gone from 85, yeah, 85 to 93% back in the days to now it's the other way around, 92% is an intangible assets. Patents, you know, brands, you know, Bitcoin, crypto, AI, all this stuff that they're building. Moving forward, do you think this is going to be a threat to countries that don't know how to handle small business owners or big businesses? That person can say, "Great, I'm going to go move in UAE. I'm going to go to Singapore." How do you view that with how much of the wealth today is tangible instead of intangible?

I think that's a great point. Um, I think, uh, I agree with you 100%, which is,

Right now, if you look at the wealth today, it's IP, it's technology, it's crypto. Um, they have no borders. Even with like, IP and technology, there's some country limitations, right? So, if you run an IT, like say AI, you're running in the US or you're running in China, you're still kind of confined to those countries. Whereas in blockchain, in our industry, crypto, there's no borders. Um, your Bitcoin is yours, no matter where you are. Um, you fly to a different country, you don't even make a transfer, that crypto stays with you, right? Um, and also technology startups. Uh, we're seeing a lot of technology companies amassing very high valuations, and those are the big, big drivers for this econ, for economies of countries and the world that can be based anywhere. So, and, um, this is good and bad. Uh, so now countries with favorable regulations, with good leadership, good regulations, good environments will attract this top talent. And talents are very mobile now. Like, you, you get educated in one country, you can move to a different country very easily. Um, and you learn your skill, you know, you can also work remotely for like, you know, Binance has remote work, 5,000 people working remotely. So, all of this is possible now.

In how many countries? The 5,000?

I don't really know for sure, but more than 100 countries, I would say.

You have 5,000 employees working for Binance?

They're all remote.

In 100 plus countries? Everyone's remote?

Uh, pretty much everyone's remote. So, um, I don't run Binance anymore, but no, this is, this stat is pretty public.

You still own 90% of it, though.

Uh, no, actually, I, I'm a large shareholder, but not 90%. So, um, quite a bit less than that.

But you still have majority control, though. You're above 50.

Uh, I h, I'm, um, I'm the m, I'm the, I'm the single largest shareholder. Uh, so.

Majority.

Yes. Yes.

Okay, got it. So, even though after all this, which we'll get into, even though all that stuff happened, they said you couldn't be CEO. Still, as a majority shareholder, do you still carry a lot of influence?

Uh, influence, yes, but I don't run the company. I, I don't, I don't try to, I don't give them instructions. Uh, but, you know, my shareholder rights are intact. So, I'm a share, I'm a shareholder. Um, so I get shareholder information. Yeah.

Yeah. That's pretty wild. So, 5,000 employees, 100 plus countries.

You know, you're a thinker. When I watch you in interviews and things you say, I've watched you with Peter Schiff debate on the way you brought the kilo of gold. You're like, "Here, here, let's split it." You're trying to kind of make the point of, uh, the difference between traveling, airport. Um, why, why live in UAE? Why not live in America? Why not, you know, from the outside yourself? Because America's always been known as the land of all opportunities, you know, the place to be for entrepreneurs. Do you, as an outsider, you're not an insider, do you view America as the greatest country to live in today, moving forward, as an entrepreneur?

Okay, I'll give you a very blunt answer. Um, I think since, um, the last one year and a half, I think America is probably back to the best country to, one of the best countries to, uh, to, to live in. Um, but during the Biden administration, it was one of the worst places to live in. I think I, I basically just tried to stay as far away from US as possible during that time. They were very hostile on crypto. They were very hostile on our industry. So, I just wanted to stay as far away as possible. So, it was, it was not possible to run a crypto business in America before. Uh, I think now it's, it's more possible. Um, so I think in the last year and a half, we're seeing the reverse, we're seeing a 180-degree reverse, reversal, which is great for the US economy, I think.

Now, would you consider ever coming down here and living here, or no, you're happy in UAE?

Um, I think right now my lifestyle's pretty set up and I, it's not, not easy getting US passports, etc. Um, so, um, I, I'm pretty content where, where I am, but I think we will want definitely want to do more business and invest more in the US.

So, if I'm a friend of yours, I know, and I, I know you do some mentoring as well for some of the founders that you work with, and if I ask you, I said, "Look, I got a bunch of different places to live in in crypto space. Should I go build my hub out of, uh, America, or should I build it outside of America?" What, what advice would you give me?

I think today, I would, I would say definitely do, uh, do have a presence in America, but you may want multiple presences because, um, the, the crypto regulations today are country-specific. CR, uh, US regulations doesn't service the rest of the whole world, actually. Um, I think UAE is actually the one of the very few places that offer global crypto licenses for crypto exchanges.

Right. So, and that's fairly new as well. So, we're, we're, we're still at the early stages of this, uh, regulatory, um, frameworks in different countries. And US, I think, is progressing extremely well, extremely quickly. I think there was some progress on clarity act even last night. Um, and, uh, so, uh, but I think, yeah, US is definitely the one of the places to be. But I wouldn't say, um, uh, I always have a global view on business. Uh, I wouldn't focus on only one country. Um, I think we're living, as we said before, we're living in a world where the country borders are much fuzzier in terms of technology, in terms of digital, uh, assets. So, uh, have a global view, um, instead of a, we, we no longer need to do business in one country, then expand to another country, then expand to another country. We can, no, you, you can, you have, you can, you can, you can do parallel progress.

So, even if you did get a passport to come down here, you would still choose US, UAE today?

I think today, my life is pretty set up in the UAE right now. I would probably just stay there. Uh, yeah.

I, I wonder again, the whole point with me is, do countries realize what's going to happen to the future of these wealthy entrepreneurs who their assets are intangible that they can no longer bully them with regulation because they got 200 other countries that would love to have them? Maybe not all 200 of them, let's just say 100 of them, they can go to have a decent life. And then 10 countries that are very competitive for business. Say UAE, Singapore, some of these countries you can go to. I wonder if, as bad as it is today, we see reports of people leaving California with the whole wealth tax. I don't know if you're following that closely or not. And we see what they're talking about in New York. And a trillion dollars left New York and California during co, California just lost another trillion dollars. And their net migration rate report came out that they're even losing more people now. And they want to offer this 5% tax, billionaire tax on the couple hundred people that I have there. I wonder if they're going to realize how horrible of a move this is long term because you can go anywhere today. I wonder if they'll figure that part out. What do you think?

Uh, well, what I hear is a lot of companies are moving into taxes in the US, right? I don't know the details, but generally, at a high level, I think high taxes, um, doesn't work that well. Um, when you can, when you impose high taxes or high transaction fees or just generally high cost for doing business, a business moves away. Um, basically, you're, you're, you're taxing on a much smaller volume. You actually get less net tax, I think.

Uh, or less net fees or income or revenue, how, whatever you call it. Um, the concept is about the same. And as you said, um, the, now the 200 countries, they're kind of actually competing for favorable regulations for businesses, favorable environments for businesses. Um, so, yeah, I do think that that, that place, that, uh, that, that, that consideration is definitely in play. Uh, so it's not, it's not like, you know, the business won't move and you can just tax the hell out, hell out of them. When you increase tax from like, I don't know, from 1% to to 10%.

Yeah. You, you might, you might have less tax income. Yeah. It's, it's not that straightforward.

It being close to Iran. What is your opinion on what's going on with Iran?

Well, I didn't follow geopolitics that closely before. I'm just like a business guy doing crypto, etc. Uh, um, but after the, after the war started, um, I'm really not, well, I live in a country that was attacked by Iran. Uh, UAE did not initiate any attack. And, and UAE was the most missile attacks from Iran out of all countries. I think it's just because of the physical proximity because they're just across the water. Um, but even being attacked, being the most attacked, they didn't retaliate, right? So, UAE held back. They probably could, but they didn't. This, this goes to the wisdom of the country leadership. But living there, seeing missiles flying overhead, can't make me support Iran, right? So, um, yeah, so I, I'm, I'm against all wars. Um, I, and also, I, based on my limited understanding, the fact that Iran hit every country in the Gulf is a bit crazy. Um, I wish the war will stop soon. Um, I wish people come to the, to the census. Uh, so, uh, um, and also, I, based on what I'm reading, it's just like, there's no leadership there, right? There's no leadership in Iran. Um, it's very chaotic. Um, I really wish, you know, we can help put, or like somebody puts order in there, and then, um, people can move on to to build businesses.

You think it's unified the Gulf States like against Iran?

Uh, I'm not too sure. Uh, I'm not an expert on this topic, but it doesn't seem to be super unified. I think everyone has different opinions, right? We see UAE like, you know, withdraw from OPEC, uh, uh, which is pretty significant. And also, which is pretty strategic. Um, so, there's some diff, I wouldn't say everything's aligned. Um, you have multiple countries, you have multiple personalities, you have multiple people involved. Um, it's a dynamic environment. Again, I'm not an expert on this kind of.

No, I, I asked that because if you're also not a regular guy, though, you, you know, you have a lot of money, you have a lot of influence, you build one of the fastest growing companies to billion dollars. At the time, it was the fastest. The total amount of money transactions that's been done in Binance, I saw $125 trillion dollars. I think I saw a number like that. So, it's not like you, you know, you founded just a regular company. It's a big company with a lot of influence and compliance. Uh, and I know when you're saying not all the Gulf States, UAE, Saudi, Saudi dictates prices for oil. So, this probably not happy that UAE left and Qatar left in 2019. I was just wondering what your opinion would be on that because safety matters.

Uh, at this phase. So, going back to it, your story, fascinating story, you know, before everybody learned about you with Binance, at the time, I think you guys went from zero to billion the fastest out of any other company that we had. And then reports came out. You on Twitter, you have a massive following when it comes on to Bitcoin. The comments you've made, the stories of you selling your house for $900,000, all of that. But for some of the audience that maybe doesn't know, before you became the business tycoon that you are today, how does the story begin?

Well, we trace back, right? I was born in a fairly rural village in China. Um, I grew up there, moved to a city, uh, when I was 10, and then moved to Canada when I was 12, and then I did high school, uh, there. Um, I did high school in Vancouver, and then, um, uh, started college in Montreal, uh, in McGill. U, didn't graduate there. Um, I went, did four years, and then my, my intern boss gave me a job. Then I delayed and delayed, um, and I never went back to McGill. I started working, um, and then, um, I worked in, uh, Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, um, and then, um, where else? Uh, Singapore. Um, so, um, I started with an, as an IT guy, um, and then turned into an entrepreneur. I worked at New York in New York in Bloomberg in New York. Um, so, I was always in the sort of fintech, fintech field. Um, so, um, and then I started a, a company. I was a junior partner of an IT company. I started a company with six other, uh, older guys, um, in Shanghai in 2005. Did that for eight years, and then I came across Bitcoin in 2013. Um, and then I was like, "This is the, this is the, this is the future technology." So, at that time, it was actually pretty interesting because, um, I think there's three big technologies in my life. There's internet, there's blockchain, and at the time, I didn't know what was next, right? At the time, I thought the next one was going to be like 10, 15 years later. Now we know it's AI. So, I think this is the three big technologies in my life. Um, when the internet was happening, I was too young to really do anything meaningful with it. Um, in the blockchain, uh, when blockchain is happening, we know we got lucky. We founded a platform that's, uh, that's impactful, that's useful. And then, so, yeah, that's kind of how I came to be, yeah.

If I was in high school with you, say you're 14, 15 years old, who were you in high school? We're in a class together. Who's CZ?

We're in a class together. Who's CZ? I was a normal kid. I was a big geeky, uh, I played a lot of sports. Um, and, um, I was like, you know, Asian kid in in Canada, um, that played volleyball, um, that, um, just normal kid. Nothing, I wasn't super smart. I wasn't super, um, I wasn't the best in in any academics. I was pretty decent in math and science, um, a bit weaker on the literature, like, you know, English, French. I was very, very bad in French. Uh, uh, yeah, so, but I was a normal kid, yeah.

Did, did people, did you know you're going to do something special? Like, was there something where, like, one day I'm, were you a driven kid or?

No, no, no. It was, it was not, it, no, it, like, there was no indications I was anything special. Um, I was just a normal kid. Yeah. I, there was never any indications, "Oh, this guy's going to build a, you know, billion-dollar company," even.

Were you a dreamer? Would you dream about one day, you know, I'm going to do this, make my family proud? Was there any thoughts like that with you?

No, I didn't have any of the. I wanted to be successful. Uh, I wanted to do, I wanted to do well, but I never dreamed of being a billionaire or like, you know, run the largest crypto exchange. Like, that's just never, like, you know, um, I, I just wanted to like, you know, have a, I want to be financially, uh, successful. I want to have a successful career. I want to build a good life. Uh, I want to, I always worked hard. Um, so, but it was, it was like, I wasn't dreaming like, "No, I want to be the worst," I don't know, whatever ranking that, just, that's not. That wasn't you. Yeah.

So, I don't know if you read the book, "Accidental Millionaire." Uh, uh, it was a book written about, uh, Apple, uh, about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. It was, I think it's a former employee that wrote it. It's a little bit of a disgruntled guy that was saying bad things about him. Uh, there's a different copy of it. If you go to "Accidental Millionaire" and you put Apple, just go to images, you'll see which one it is. Apple. That's the one right there. Um, then they wrote a book called "The Accidental Bill." Yeah, if you notice, it's only got 11 reviews. This came out in '87. It's actually a very good book for somebody in the space.

Lee Butcher was actually a very good book I read. Then the book came out called "An Accidental Billionaire."

And that was written, I think, about, uh, uh, Mark Zuckerberg.

Who, you know, he became a billionaire. And I don't know what they call it. What's a 100 is what? Centi is a hecta is 10.

Centi.

Centi, right? So, you're an accidental centi-millionaire.

I'm not sure. I'm, I'm not sure I'm centi, to be honest. Um, I think the Forbes estimates are a bit off. They're too high.

Okay.

Yeah. Uh, but yeah, um, kind of accidental. Yeah.

And how did it happen when you, because I know the story when you sold your property, if you want to share that story, when you sold the property and you bought all Bitcoin, what got you to the point of saying, "I have to, I have to be able to get into Bitcoin?"

Um, I started learning about Bitcoin in 2013, right? And, um, at the time, I was like, what, 36, 37? Um, and then I was like, "Okay, this is, this is the future technology. This is bigger than the internet." Um, and when the internet was happening, I was too young. So, I was at 36, 37ish, I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by. Uh, so I said, "Look, I just got to get involved in this, in this, in this new technology, uh, uh, field. I, I don't know what I'm going to do first. Uh, I, I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'm going to buy bitcoins first." Uh, so I sold my house, sold my apartment, and bought Bitcoin. Um, so that was like pretty clear to me. That was a very long-term conviction.

What did you? Is this a $900,000 apartment?

Yes, this is a $900,000 apartment.

And when you bought it at the time, what was the average price of Bitcoin?

Average price I got in was about 600. I bought it, I got payments in installments, right? So I bought it at 800, 600, 400. So average.

So if we do six, uh, uh, we do $900,000 divided by 600 times 81,000, you're looking at $121 million, give or take.

Something. Yeah. Just, yeah. About 100 million.

Selling a $900,000 apartment turned into $121 million.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The average person listening to this thinks that's crazy, but what made you say this is what I'm going to be doing? That's a pretty bold decision to make. That's a big risk to make.

Uh, what, uh, well, number one is I saw the clear future of the technology. I don't know what it's going to be like exactly, but I know it's going to grow. Um, so.

What made you say that? What made you? Is it a paper? Is it a white paper you read? Is it someone's paper you read or?

Back then, there was much less materials about it. Um, there was a white paper that I read. There was a forum called bitcoin talk.org. or, um, that I spent a lot of time on. And then, uh, going to conferences, meeting meeting the people, the community made a huge difference. And also doing the first transaction with Bitcoin when, when, when you, when you install your own Bitcoin wallet and you realize, well, wait a second, this, this is a network. I can send money to anyone, full control, there's no bank involved, there's no other fees involved. It's instantaneous. Um, so once you realize that, it's like, this is a technology for the future. Not only did I just sell the apartment, um, I quit my job to look for a new job in this industry, right? So, most people will say like, "No, those two combined are pretty high risk." But I think, as I know, as I, um, detailed in the book, risk is, um, risk is not based on the action, it's based on your individual circumstance. For me, my risk tolerance is at the time was high because I know I can get a job if, like, Bitcoin went to zero, I can get a job in a bank. I can, I can get a job on Wall Street again.

That confidence came from what? Your just pure skill set and knowledge?

Yeah. Yeah. So, I like, you know, by the time I, I learned by Bitcoin in 2013, between 20, between 2001, 2005, I was working in Bloomberg in in New York. Um, and so I was doing entrepreneurship for eight years afterwards. I thought my, you know, experience and everything else have increased. My value should have increased.

At the time when you sold your apartment and you quit your job, how much did you have in liquid cash? Uh, did you have some money or?

Not very much, because I put most of my cash into the company that was like, that was working before, and the rest of the cash was in the apartment. Less than half a million bucks.

Oh, way less. Uh, actually, probably much less. Uh, the, the apartment money was pretty much all I had.

The reason why I say this is, it's not like that was a, you made the decision because you had a couple million dollars in a bank from a previous exit. No.

You're not rich at this time.

No. No. No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So.

That's, that's a risky decision right there. But you trusted your ability on the way to work and the skill set that you had and the knowledge that you had.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I didn't need the $900,000 to maintain my lifestyle. Got it. I, I can work for income that will maintain, maintaining my life.

And you were a minimalist even at that time.

Yeah. I wouldn't call myself a minimalist. I'm just pretty basic, right? So, um, I wouldn't, like, you know, if you look at my table, it's got all kind of camera gadgets. I wouldn't, like, minimal, like very clean. That's, that's how I like think of minimalist. I'm just a normal basic guy.

Got it. Okay.

I don't do anything fancy.

So, when you found out Bitcoin, was it like a 3:00 in the morning aha moment? You're calling your friend, "Wake up, John. I got to tell you something." And we're going to do something special. Did you have a, did you have a moment like that, or was it gradual?

Uh, well, a friend told me, uh, a friend, uh, Ron Tal told me about Bitcoin, uh, over a poker game. It was a very friendly poker game. And then, um, afterwards, I spoke to another friend who, um, who's his name is Bobby Lee. Uh, he was just about to join.

Bobby Lee?

Yeah, he was just about to join BTC China, which is at the time.

Not the comedian Bobby Lee?

No. Uh, different, different. Not.

When I think about Bobby Lee, all I think about is Bobby, the whole old bomb thing.

Uh, not this guy. Not this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so, um, there was a couple friends who were like, who were around me. Uh, they were getting pretty serious into Bitcoin. I was like, "Okay, let me, let me learn about this a little bit more." Yeah.

And so from there, is it, you know, inviting friends over, "Guys, we're going to go do this. We're going to go do that." Or no, it was more, "I got to go find a company to work for" at the time?

Uh, at first, I spoke to a bunch of guys. Um, we tried to do a few different businesses, like, so, like, basically, like, "Let's, let's do this and that." We, I talked to a couple friends in, uh, Taiwan, who used to work for TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor.

Manufacturer.

Manufacturer. Yeah. Right. Basically, all the Nvidia chips, all the AI chips, 80% of the world chips are manufactured there. Uh, we wanted to do a Bitcoin mining, uh, chip, uh, or mining machine, uh, but that didn't materialize. Um, it involves a lot of logistics, which are not my specialty.

How close did you guys get to executing that?

Uh, not very close. We discussed business concepts. We had like, maybe even a business plan, but we didn't pull the trigger. Um, I did a couple, like, Robo, like, um, uh, uh, Bitcoin ATM machines. I actually sold a couple, uh, and but that also didn't, um, grow. Um, and then I said, "Okay, well, instead of trying to do a startup, let me try to work for a company first." And I bump into a few guys at, uh, Blockchain.info, and then I joined them for like, a few months.

Big company, small company, startup?

Very small company. I jo, I joined as the third person there.

And who were the, were they players? The other two guys, were they players in the Bitcoin space?

Uh, well, the founder, yeah. The founder is a 20-year-old kid who wrote a website that attracted 20 million, uh, uh, uh, users.

Wow. At the time, he was 20?

At the time he was 21, 22. Yeah.

And how old were you at the time?

I was like, 30. I was 36, 37.

So, 36, 37-year-old goes works for a 20-year-old to build a website with 20 million users.

Uh, well, he already built the website. I was just helping him, really. Um, yeah, so I, uh, yeah. So, um.

Did you go in as an equity position player or no? Just a, uh, uh, regular person?

No, I joined without much equity. Um, I was, I have an earnout to earn the equity, but I didn't stay that long. Uh, I didn't stay more than a year. So, I didn't have.

Did he end up becoming a major player? Like, is he a known guy in Bitcoin today?

Uh, no. Become very successful or?

No, he, um, his name is Ben Reeves. Uh, he's the founder of the company, but he sold his shares later on, uh, for a few, at least a few million, uh, probably double-digit millions. But then he, he's a very low-key introvert, so he stayed out of sight.

Yeah.

Got it. Ben Reeves.

Yeah.

Is that part of blockchain.com?

Uh, they, I think they later, they later renamed to blockchain.com. Um, yeah. Uh, this page doesn't talk about Ben Reeves, but Ben Reeves, Ben Reeves is a founder. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So.

Benjamin Reeves, Peter Smith, and Benjamin Reeves. Got it. So, what did you learn from what he did? So, now you're working there. What, what did Ben do? Cuz you're not there for too long.

Yeah. Yeah.

How long were you there?

I was there for eight months.

And during that eight months, was it an accelerated learning curve of finding out everything with Bitcoin?

I learned a lot, actually. Um, number one is, um, the community is very dynamic. Um, so this guy, Ben Reeves, uh, he, his only marketing was based on one thread on bitcoin talk.org, which is a bulletin for, like, a virtual bulletin form.

That's what brought 20 million people?

Yeah. And then, um, um, and then, um, also, uh, blockchain.info at the time didn't have a company. Uh, they don't use bank accounts. They don't have an office. They pay everybody in in Bitcoin. They pay all the, you know, when we grown to like 18 people, we just, the company just paid every month, sent some Bitcoin to all the employees, and it's up to them to how, how they handle that Bitcoin, those bitcoins. They didn't have an office. Um, uh, they didn't even have the company back then. Uh, so it's just like 18 people working together. Well, and they're still growing. So, I learned a lot of different stuff, uh, about, uh, blockchain, about crypto during that time.

Yeah.

Got it. So, the whole, uh, your idea of not having a headquarters, kind of come from the experience here that you don't need it?

That definitely contributed to, like, when early on in Binance, I said, "Look, um, we don't need a headquarters." Uh, we, uh, we can pay everybody in crypto. Yeah.

Got it. So, then from there, eight months later, what do you do next?

Um, I actually joined a, um, a, a Bitcoin exchange in China, um, uh, OKCoin at the time, and then I learned a bit about, like, how exchanges operate. Uh, exchanges were actually much closer to what I know best. Um, I've been dealing with trading systems, um, uh, quite a lot. So, um, yeah, so, uh, actually, Hi hired me into into OKCoin. Yeah.

So, that's, uh, uh, OKX. And then how long are you there with them?

I was there also just under a year. Uh, under a year.

Yeah. So, yeah.

So, this turned into a big company. They got 5,000 plus employees. This is San Jose, Cal. How big of a company is this?

I think there are about two to 3,000 people. Maybe 5,000. I don't know. Uh, I haven't, uh, but they're, they're still around. Um, they're, they're, they're decent-sized exchange. They're probably about, uh, I would imagine like about 10 times smaller than Binance.

10 times smaller than Binance.

Yeah. Even, even Coinbase.

I saw the numbers. Even Coinbase is what, a third of your size?

Uh, depending on how, how you calculate by trading volume, they're, they're, they're much, much less than than that. Um, but by, um, uh, Bitcoin reserves, they're probably about a, I actually don't know the numbers on top of my head anymore. Uh, by Bitcoin reserves, they start, they, Coinbase has a, has a, has a decent Bitcoin reserves. They started early.

Got it. So, from, from that company, you go to, from China. How much longer after that do you start Binance?

So, I left that company. That took, uh, it took me another, uh, I left that company in 2015, and it was two years later in 2017, I launched Binance.

So, at this point, when you're leaving and you're working at these different companies, what, what is, are you sitting there saying, "I'm eventually going to start something? I'm eventually going to start something," or that's not even on your mind right now?

So, in 2015, I said, "Look, I'm going to do my own startup, right?" So, I, and I actually wanted to do a, a Bitcoin exchange. Uh, basically, very similar to what Binance is. Um, but then, uh, the team I assembled, we only had tech guys. Uh, and we don't have a marketing team. We don't have a, and I wanted to do a Bitcoin exchange in Japan, and none of us speak, spoke Japanese. So, we, I tried to raise money from VC investors, and they said like, "No, there's no way you can do this Bitcoin exchange thing, but you can provide the technology for Bitcoin exchanges." So, we pivoted to a technology company, uh, providing exchange systems to other exchanges, and we did that for two years. And then was 2017, uh, we said, "Well, there might be a chance that we can pivot, uh, uh, to, uh, running a Bitcoin exchange ourselves." So, 2015, we tried to do, we tried to do a Bitcoin exchange, uh, but we were not quite ready.

Pre-'17, are you a known player in the crypto world and the Bitcoin world?

Uh, I think I had a bit of a reputation by two, by 20, uh, 2017 because back then.

What would people say about you? Who was CZ pre-starting Binance? Like, if somebody came up, like, right now we talk about Ben Reeves.

If somebody said, "Hey, CZ in 2017, pre-Binance," what would they say about CZ?

They'll probably say like, "CZ is a technology guy, um, uh, been involved in the crypto industry relatively early, um, and, um, worked, you know, being a fairly, you know, a senior position in a wallet company, senior position in an exchange company, and then built his own business as a technology exchange service systems technology company." That's probably what people would say, yeah.

Okay. And so from there, now you have a reputation. Are you at a point that if you start something, people want to work with you?

Uh, generally, yes.

So, now you start Binance. Yeah. When you start Binance, what, what were some of the big early meetings you guys had? Like, do you, do you think about the meeting that everybody has seen with Jack when he's doing Alibaba and he's there with, you know, five, six, seven guys? I'm sure you've seen this video. It's not black and white, but it's old video where you can tell it's not a. Did you have a meeting like that where you said, "Guys, here's what we're building?"

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a meeting like that. Um, we said, "Look, we're going to, let's build this thing called a crypto, crypto exchange, right?" Uh, and pull the guys into a room and says, "This is what going to, what we're going to build." And I told him, "Look, uh, I've been for the last, I don't know, 17 years in my career, I've always been working on exchange systems, and now I think this is the time to build it. If I don't do this, uh, I'm going to keep thinking about this for the rest of my life, right? So, if I don't do this today, I might try again two years, five years, 10 years later. So, it's something that we have to do sooner or later. And now might, might just be the right time to give it a shot." Uh, none of the other, uh, people objected. Everyone's like, "Yeah, let's, let's go."

Was everybody in?

Everybody was in.

So, nobody's like, "I don't know, CZ, whether you're going to be able to pull this off." Nobody doubted you.

Uh, on, on my team, nobody doubted. Everyone's just, "Okay, um, sounds good. Let's go for it." Um, and, uh, but when I try to, when I try to raise money from VCs, no one's, no one invested. Like, everyone's like, "No, no, the exchange space is too crowded." Um, there's too many exchanges out there already. You can't do it.

Um, so that's the VC investors. And then we did an ICO, initial coin offering.

I saw that.

And then everyone wants to buy the ICO.

This is the $15 million or something?

Yeah, this is the $15 million ICO. It was like, so it was like a stark contrast. So.

And it's $15 million. Am I correct when I say it gave 4,100x return?

Uh, yeah. Uh, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So.

So, if somebody would have put a dollar, it's worth 4,300. If somebody would to put $1,000 into it, 4,100x would be what? $40,000, $400,000, $4.1 million?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even more, like, depending on on the BNB price at different times. Yeah. Yeah. But it was, but at the time, it was just crazy because we had a white paper, and people were willing to give us $15 million for about half of the total supply of the coins.

Did anybody give money that was a player where you're like, "Oh, wow. That guy is willing to give us money." Was there any players that got in?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Who were some of the big names?

Um, uh, well, they're all crypto guys, right? So, um, this, this guy, his name is Shen. Uh, he runs, um, uh, what's his company name? Invictus. Uh, he, he did a couple different companies, I think.

China or Japan?

Uh, he was in China at the time.

He was in China. Okay, got it.

And, um, so he, when I, when I asked him, he just told me, he just told me that, "No, CZ, I'll give you this much money." This is before he read the paper. He, this is before he read anything. He just said, "Oh, CZ, you're going to do a project. I'm going to support you." I think he sent me, I want to say like, a hundred ETH.

Uh, at the time was, I don't know. I forgot the price, but, you know, he gave me like a couple hundred thousand. Just, that's pretty wild. So, so you people have your back. People are believing what you're going to be doing. They're sitting there, you know, they're, they're believers of what CZ is going to be doing. At what point was it when you're like, "Guys, this thing's off to the races. We built something special." When did that happen?

I think it was about a month after launch. Um, so we launched in July 14th, 2017. Uh, a month after launch, we were like, we were growing. Um, uh, the first three weeks, the BNB price was actually underwater, was below the ICO price. So that was like a high-pressure period. And then about a month later, but a week, the next week, uh, BNB price went 29x, right? This is like 29, 2900 times, in one month. 2900% in in one week. In one week. In one, in, in, in the fourth week. And then that's when I was like, "Okay, this thing might work." Uh, if it stays. And also our, we look at our user growth, um, on the platform, the users were growing like this. So they were real users with real trading. And then it was about, I, I forgot, it was like maybe two months, three months in. I asked our finance, like, "You know, how are we doing financially?" The guy said, "Well, we're making a couple hundred Bitcoins." Like, like I thought that number was wrong. I was like, "There's no way we're making that kind of fees." Couple hundred Bitcoins back, back then, Bitcoin were maybe like $3,000, or not like $100,000 today. Uh, well, not like $70, $80,000 today. Um, but like, but yeah, it was like a couple hundred Bitcoins, uh, on, on, on revenue. I was like, "There's no way that's correct." And so we double-checked the numbers. We're like, "Okay, then we got this correct. Well, then we got a, we probably got a viable business."

Wow. 200 Bitcoins a day?

No, no, no, not a day. Like over, over a period of time.

Over that, that few weeks that you're talking about?

Yeah, over like maybe one or two months. I, I don't, yeah.

And you know in your mind that's a lot at that point. Like, things are starting to pick up for us. $600,000, right? 200 Bitcoins at 300 at, uh, $3,000. Am I saying it correctly? $600,000.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think so. So, so things started growing. And then how long did it take you guys until you got the billion-dollar valuation?

It took, so, I don't know when the valuations, but we probably, we are one of the fastest companies to reach $1 billion in profits. I think that took about a year.

Profits took one year?

Yeah.

Not rev.

Not rev. Not rev. So it's profits.

Uh, yeah. Well, at the time, profits and rev is pretty similar.

Uh, because your margins are so...

Uh, because our team is small. Uh, our cost is low. Um, at that time, our team is very small and, uh, so, yeah, so that, that's when, yeah, that's about a year, a year.

So at that time, who are the major, who are the top five biggest players in crypto, Bitcoin in 2017, 2018?

Yeah, there was a Poloniex, which was the biggest. And then later on, Bitfinex became big, the biggest by the time we launched. Um, who else? Uh, Coinbase was up there, but not the biggest. Um, there was a BitFlyer in Japan, who was like, you know, pretty big, the biggest for, for a while. Um, Bitfinex was, was, was the biggest for a while too. Uh, who else? Those were kind of like the three or four players.

Got it. So a billion dollars in profits. Did, did you yet sense that you're making enemies? Or no? Everybody's good with you guys? You're not getting weird phone calls? People are not upset at you? Other people are not experiencing envy? Or did you start experiencing enemies?

Uh, we started experiencing jealousy even from day one. Uh, even before, like, just from day one we launched. Um, people were like, people were like, competitors, other exchanges were somewhat hostile, but that's just competition, right? So that's just business competition.

Nothing dirty?

Uh, some of them are a little bit, you know, borderline, right? So, uh, there's a lot of smear articles that are sponsored by our competitors, which is great for us. Which is great for us because we're, we're a new platform. We couldn't afford the advertising money, and they were talking about us. Um, so, yeah, so there has been like, you know, attacks, what we call FUD, uh, fear, uncertainty, and doubt, basically false news, um, from even from day one. Um, but, uh, but that's, I thought, I thought that was just business competition. Um, the regulatory scrutiny came much later. Um, the regulatory scrutiny came like 2020, like three, four years later. Yeah.

The year one where you're going zero to a billion in profits, and you guys are getting, "Oh my god, we got 200 Bitcoins." What are you talking about that? What is your schedule look like year one?

Oh, that was the year one was crazy.

Give me the schedule. What does it look like? What are you doing?

I basically would go home to sleep, uh, from like 2:00 AM to about 6:00 AM. Uh, like that's returning home and leaving home, right? So that's shower and sleep in between. And then I will probably take a nap in the office, like around 2:00 to 2:00 to 3:00 PM, somewhere around there, like depending on who's in, who's, what meetings we have. Uh, and the team probably did the same, uh, very similar stuff for like, basically a year. Um, uh, the whole team was in the office the whole time. Um, the office is very high, like very, like very loud. It's just buzzing with energy, just people yelling over each other. It's like a flea market. Um, so, yeah, that was like the first year, and, um, it was just constant issues, constant, uh, constant stuff happening. Yeah.

Do you miss that?

Actually, some part, some part of me does. Um, there's a, there's a feeling that people really miss. It's like fighting with, fighting in the trenches with your comrades, with your teammates. Um, that, that's a very rewarding feeling. Uh, it's a very strong social connection. But honestly, I don't think my body can handle it now. Right.

When you tell the story and you, you go through a phase like that, the average person, they won't believe it when you tell them the story.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Most people cannot imagine how hard we worked.

Were you ever hospitalized for anxiety, for exhaustion? Were you ever experiencing like dehydration where you had to go and, you know, get yourself IV?

Uh, no, I have not. But other people on our team have.

On your team?

Yeah. Yeah. Other people on our team. So, I, I, like, I tell people, like, entrepreneurship is a physical, uh, demanding activity. It's not, not just mental, it's a physically demanding activity.

Um, uh, our CTO still uses eye drops to this day. From those days, he got an eye infection. He had to use eye drops. He still uses that.

Till today?

Till today.

So he's still there?

He's still, he's no longer CTO now. He, but he's still there. He's one of the co-founders.

Who, the original people that were there, is it fair to say they're all financially successful beyond wildest imagination? They all are success. They're all, and you guys are all friends still? You guys have relationships together? That's a beautiful thing about building something like that.

And 80% of them, 80, 80% of the co-founders still with the company. Uh, I'm actually one of the persons that, you know, back and, yeah. And also, um, even the people who left were friends. Um, so, um, my co-founders made money. Uh, so there, there's a saying like in the ch, especially in the Chinese communities, that, you know, I have been a pretty good leader, that, you know, I treated my people well.

That's good. Yeah.

And, and, uh, by the way, would you consider yourself Chinese? Like, if somebody asks you nationality, would you say, "I'm Chinese"?

Uh, no, I think I'm definitely like, so I'm either Chinese, right? By blood. But my thinking, my way of doing business, my mental process is much, much more, um, Canadian, US, even.

Canadian, US?

Yeah. Like, I think my, I think my English accent is more US-centric, even though like, may not be perfect. Um, but, um, the way I think and I do business is much more US capitalist, um,

Western ideology?

Western ideology, freedom, freedom-driven, um, etc. Yeah.

So let's go back to Binance. So you, you're at a billion. You're starting to get some articles being written about you. You're getting some enemies coming to you. Uh, uh, at this point, has Sam Bankman-Fried started anything or nothing yet?

No. No. He started way later. He started 200. Earliest I met him was January 2019. Yeah.

So, so you start '17, you don't meet him till '19?

Yeah. Yeah.

And does he have a name in the market? Like, do people know who he is or nothing yet?

No. Uh, when I met him, I didn't know who he was. Our, our client, our client manager tells me, "Alameda was a pretty decent trader or pretty big trader on Binance." Like, "Okay, who's Alameda?" "Okay, I'll go shake his hand."

Got it. And that was Alameda was him?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So in the market now, by 2020, who is, who is Binance? By 2020, Binance has been the biggest crypto exchange for more than three years. So, people just view Binance as the largest crypto exchange.

So, but at that point, back to back to back, you're King Kong of the space?

Uh, I wouldn't say King Kong. We have the largest. Well, Binance was the largest centralized exchange. Um, but there's like decentralized, there's blockchains, um, there's other things, uh, there's stablecoins, there's other businesses in the, in the ecosystem. The criticism that some people give is, and I wonder, of course, it's a strategy when it's the zero-fee strategy that you had.

How did you guys, what was your thinking behind that? What prompted you to say, "We're not going to charge a fee"? Here's how our approach is going to be, and, you know, the market's going to react to it. How did that idea come about?

I think it's a very simple business idea where, um, you want to, you want to provide, you know, a large amount of value, and you only want to realize a small portion of it. So you want to provide 10, a value of 10, and hopefully only take five for yourself. If you can do that consistently, people will do a lot of business with you. The people, your customers will come to you, and you will grow quickly.

Why didn't others do it? If it's such a simple thing, why didn't, why didn't the other guys do it?

I think a lot of people have in their heads that they want to maximize their cut on each transaction. What you want to do is actually, you want to minimize your cut on each transaction and you want to increase the number of transactions that you, you, you multiply the, the scale.

Many people just don't can't handle it. Many people just want to like, you know, "I want to take the maximum that's possible that's ours."

But if, but for example, if you, if you look at some of the largest businesses, Google. Uh, Google makes fees on advertising, but they provide a lot of free infrastructure in, in the internet space. Um, the time clock that we use is probably synced by with a Google time server, and that's completely free. Um, the DNS services that, you know, is completely, completely free. So they provide a lot of infrastructure to run the internet completely free. They just make money from advertising, like from some ads.

And now the ads, the coverage is more spread across different products. But for years, they only advertised on search. Like Gmail was no ads, um, Google Maps was no ads for years, right? So, but they were able to make enough money to sustain themselves. We had the same. We were in a very lucky, for same, fortunate problem, situation where our revenues from a small amount of business from a few businesses was able to sustain us to provide more free services to everyone so that we can grow the industry, we can grow the crypto industry. And, um, so if you can, if you provide a value of 10 and you charge only two, and you can sustain yourself and you can scale, your business will grow really fast. So, uh, many people don't realize that you actually want to charge the minimum fee that you, minimum cut, so that you are sustainable and hopefully you can scale. If you can do that, you'll make way more money than you charge eight or nine.

So where's the real money made with Binance?

Uh, trading fees, actually trading fees.

Just trading fees? Like trading when people trade, we charge a small commission, or Binance charges a small commission. That's, uh, yeah.

Comparable to others? How, how much lower are you compared to others?

Uh, I think compared to some, especially some of the US players, we're probably 20x lower. So.

20x lower?

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, uh, in some places. So, um, uh, yeah. So, uh, we, we like we provide, we provide the, we probably the, the lowest fees, uh, in the non-US markets. We don't have access to, like, that fee. We don't have access to the, to the US markets yet. Yeah.

Got it. So 20 times less?

Yeah.

Than competitors. So that got the world to come to you. So then you have volume. Did other people try to replicate that model as well?

People do. People, people try. Yeah.

To make it a zero fee, like a very low fee?

People try. People even try to compensate, like pay users to trade on them. People tried all kind of different models.

Have has anybody succeeded, uh, uh, as, uh, wildly as you guys did coming out?

Uh, no. I would say no. Um, this, the fees is important. Fees is one part. There's other parts like, you know, how you protect users. How, um, how good is customer service, um, how well you do things overall. How good is your technology? Um, there, there's multiple things in play, but fees is important, I think.

So can you give me some numbers? Because when I, when I look at the numbers that I pulled up with what you guys have done, some of these numbers are, are wild when you look at the stats. So lifetime trading volume, $125 trillion. Total users, registered users globally, 280 to 300 million registered users. At peak, you held 70% of market share during zero-fee promotions. Closest competitor, uh, by bid, only 8% of market share. Revenue estimate, $16 billion to $20 billion in 2024, 2025. Two and a half times Coinbase. I mean, I can go through a lot of these numbers. It's insane what some of the things at peak promotions, 85% of the total weekly volume was zero-fee market share skyrocketed from 50 to 70% when you announced the zero-fee Bitcoin trading, uh, uh, on July of 2022. Some of these numbers are staggering.

At what point were you, when did the company's valuation hit $100 billion?

Oh, actually, I don't even know what I'm not sure if that happened yet. What, what was the, what was the biggest milestone you guys celebrated? What was something where you, even you, were shocked by it?

I think we, uh, well, Binance generally counts number of users. That's probably the easiest milestone. Trading volume. Yeah, it's pretty easy to count as well. Uh, valuation, Binance is a private company. Uh, I don't think Binance has ever done a deal, had a raise, or had a...

The numbers you will hear about is $100 to $300 billion. But to you, it's a private company. So you don't even know what it's worth.

There's no transaction at those valuations. So those are estimates by third parties. But, um, the company has never raised money at those valuations. Um, so, uh, yeah, uh, but the thing we, for me personally, as a, as a shareholder, not, not running the company anymore, I just, I just look at the user numbers. I just said, "Look, then they put, they published that publicly." So, you know, 300 million, 315 million, um, those are good numbers to, to, to serve, to service users.

Where do you think it can go in the future? I know you're not running it. What do you think it can turn into?

Um, I think, well, the CEO, Hi, just announced that the target is three billion, uh, users, users, as the next target. But I don't, I don't think that's the ultimate target. That's just the next target.

What do you think would be the ultimate target?

I think, well, everybody on the planet should use money. And, oh, that's, that's humans. And then they are AI agents. And that's going to be, all of us should be, should have thousands, each person should have thousands of AI agents. So in the future, we may count humans plus agents. I don't know.

Each of us should have thousands of AI agents?

Working for us. Yeah.

Working for us?

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, uh, they can edit this podcast video for you. They can buy your, your coffee. They can, I don't know, uh, book your trips, hotels, flights. Yeah.

You just fired 15 people here, CZ. These are nice people here. You're talking. I mean, what are they?

They're, they're, they're going to use their agents to do the work for them. And then they're going to, you're going to have more podcasts. So, uh, uh, if you have 5,000 employees, not you, but you're the majority shareholder. Binance has 5,000 employees today in 100 plus countries. How many AI agents do you guys have?

Uh, actually, I don't know how many agents they use. Um, one number I just heard very recently, um, is, um, this just came from an anecdotal conversation. I think I, I think I heard they pay like $10 million, $10 million per month on AI fees.

Per month?

Per month.

Binance is paying $10 million a month in AI fees?

It's just like, you know, tokens. Yeah, AI tokens. Yeah, that's what I heard. I, I have, this is, I heard like a second, third kind of information. I didn't verify it.

Very interesting. And what do they use that? What do they do with that?

I don't know for sure, but I would, I would suspect, I would think that it's, uh, probably a majority on, uh, developer, like coding, you know, uh, I don't know if they use cloud code or some other AI code. Uh, probably just coding is a big part. Customer support is a big part because, uh, customer support is also language interactions. Um, yeah, I think those probably the bigger two. Um, I, I do encourage them to like, you know, um, use more AI for risk monitoring, risk control, compliance, all of those areas can use, uh, AI, but I'm not sure if the models are very mature, um, yet in those areas. I don't think there's a lot of training, a lot of data, etc.

What do you think maturity looks like in 5 to 10 years? Like, you, you know, when language learning model chip came out, like this, life changed for everybody. Teachers didn't know how to react. Universities like, "Wait a minute, this is a perfect paper. What are these spaces for? Who wrote this paper?" Right? Everything was a disruption, right? What is life going to look like where companies in 5 to 10 years have tens of thousands of AI agents? What do you think is going to happen?

I think we're going to see a lot more, a lot more faster progress. And so I always believe that technology is a tool that increases productivity, and that leads to faster evol, faster, um, progress of our civilization. Hopefully, we don't get overrun by AI, um, you know, that become sovereign, etc. But I think before that, we're going to see like a dramatic increase in the, in, in productivity and progress. So we should be able to discover drugs much quicker, um, cure diseases. Uh, we should be able to discover new materials that are lighter and harder and stronger, and we can go explore space. Um, we should solve many of the problems we can't solve today, um, both economics and, you know, we, I think we, we'll just progress faster. We can build, we can build applications much faster. We can write software much faster already. Uh, so we, we, we are seeing much better apps, much more apps. Um, so, yeah, so I think our productivity is just going to increase.

What, what, uh, when you do a SWOT analysis and you're talking about, you know, AI and AI agents, what's the threat long term with AI?

Well, obviously, if AI becomes like, you know, self-conscious and they want to compete, or, or they don't even have, they don't even have, they don't even have to compete with us. If they just pursue a goal that we get in the way, and they just want to, you know, move us aside, then that's the risk, right? So, uh, we just need to figure out how to build AI safely. Um, which is difficult, I think, because of the competition right now.

Yeah. How do you do that? Because if, if we, if we as a society run as a higher regulated environment, where maybe China's not running in a high regulated environment, and they kind of lose control of the AI, what could happen? If some people get a little too aggressive, will there be, you know, a moment where there'll be world AI regulation that everybody will deal with?

Um, I have a, I have a slightly, I'm not sure if regulation is the cure. I think it's one of the solutions that will help. I think the industry itself has to self-regulate. Well, self-regulate. I think by the time regulators figure out what's going on, it's the problem's already occurred.

That's right.

Right. So, um,

Speed is too slow.

Regulators are always reactive, right? So, they, they see a problem, then they try to fix it, and they are very, they're very slow. Um, whereas the interest, industry players, they, they're, they're competing. This is, this is a multi-hundred billion dollar companies competing for business, right? China, US, maybe other countries as well. Um, they have significant drivers to push progress to the max. Um, so, but at the same time, I, long term, I do hope the positive forces will win. So it could be like, you have a bad AI, then you have to make a good AI to combat it.

Potentially. Who knows? Yeah.

Got it. So, you're going to have the bad AIs, which will naturally happen, the evil, the villain,

The enemy.

The enemy. And it will produce more good to take over the bad and fight against it.

I think so. Uh, I think in any industry, there's always going to be some players that are unethical, bad. There, there's always going to be a few bad apples.

Yeah.

But by and large, I think the, uh, our, our society overall, we are around because we are overly, we have more positive forces.

So that's, that's, I have a pretty optimistic view on humans, our civilization.

When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast. We had the choice to make it cheap. We chose neither. Instead, we chose Tuscan, Italy. We chose true Italian craftsmanship, each pair touched by 50 skilled hands. We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail. And we chose the finest quality at every step. Introducing the future looks bright collection. Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary. Rather intentional, luxurious, timeless. Do you remember that conversation between Jack Ma and Elon Musk where, uh, Jack Ma is like, you know, humans, you know, AI can't do anything that we're doing? And they're kind of have... Do you remember that exchange between the two of them? Rob, can you find that? It's a short clip between two of them.

Uh, uh, is this the one? Jack, humans or computers are smarter? Yeah, maybe start a little bit. Let's just see how quickly it gets into. Let's, let's see if we can get any of it. Press play when, uh, go ahead.

Basically, there's just a smaller and smaller corner of, of what, of intellectual pursuits that humans are better than, um, computers, and that every year it gets smaller and smaller and and soon we will be far, far surpassed in every single way, guaranteed. Is there a reaction from Jack Ma to Elon? See if there's a part where he reacts.

So we used to think like, for example, being good at chess was an example of a smart human. I mean, right now, your cell phone could crush the world champion at chess. Literally.

My view is that, um, computer may be clever, but human beings are much smarter.

Yeah, definitely not.

Clever is very academic, is knowledge-driven. Smarter is experience-driven. Computer is smart, is clever, but it's human being. We invented a computer.

Okay, you can pause it right there. Who, who do you agree with?

Um, I'm not too sure to be honest. Uh, I take a, I don't take binary views on on this type of things. I take a more gradient, balanced view. I think there's a, somewhere there's multiple aspects to it. I think as we will see...

This is a tough spot for you to be in because Jack Ma, you know where he's at, and then Elon. I'm actually curious, your thoughts on this. I think we will see increasing intelligence capabilities from AI, right? They can solve more and more problems, and they can compute, uh, the computational, uh, the computational power is going to increase. They can do more and more complex things. I'm not sure about the emotional or what do you call it, the human, um, the, the sympathy, well, the sort of, um, what do you call, emotional aspects of it. Um, I think AI so far is not sentient. Uh, they don't, they don't have consciousness. Um, they're probably not sympathetic to to a lot of the human emotions, etc. They may, they may be able to mimic that, uh, AI may be able to mimic that, but I don't think they come the true, uh, human feelings. Um, and I think humans can use AI, uh, with this increased intelligence. Um, humans are very adaptable, right? So, also based on business success, business success doesn't come from intelligence alone, right? Smarter people don't build large businesses. Um, they, there's a lot of, uh, fairness, ethicalness, EQ, a lot of other things that, uh, interesting.

Right. So just being smart doesn't mean you be, you have more money.

Right.

That, that just doesn't, the work doesn't work. So the point there is, just because AI is smarter than human doesn't mean their EQ and empathy is going to help them retain people. So somebody may argue that and say, "They don't need people. They don't need to have EQ because they're talking to other AI agents." You don't need to tell them how amazing they are. You don't need to ask them how their wife and husband and kids are doing because they don't need that validation. So makes drama a little bit easier. You don't lose efficiency because somebody's in a bad mood because you didn't give them a high five that morning. So that argument may be made against humans.

No.

It can be. It certainly can be. Uh, so AI may be more efficient and less dramatic and less troublesome to manage, etc. Right. So, uh, that is possible, but I don't think they replace humans, uh, in in that sense.

You don't think so?

I don't think so in the short term. Uh, and I also think that, uh, we will find, we'll, we'll find the proper safety guardrails against it. So, uh, there might be some, no accidents, there might be some damages, there might be some problems, but I think over the, over the long run, we will find the guardrails.

So future looks bright in your life?

I think so. I'm always open. I like it. By the way, if you were 20 years, if the, the 35-year-old, uh, uh, CZ, who was working crazy hours, those 12, you know, the 12 months that you guys went zero to a billion in profits, if he's the 35-year-old today in today's market, what industry are you entering? What are you doing? How are you, you know, what software are you using? What technology are you using? Where would you get into today?

Well, I think for me, I would still get into the same, same industry. I think you got to, you can't just chase every hot industry. You have to, you have to do what you do best. You have to do what you're good at, what interests you, and what's valuable for others. You got to find the intersection of those three things. And those three things doesn't change overnight. Um, for a young person, you know, you can learn about blockchain or you can learn about AI. Both are good. Um, so I wouldn't change what I, what I would do. Uh, but I would change the way I would, I would do it a little bit. I would be, I would be much more focused, uh, much less distractions, and just with hindsight, right? You will know like, "Okay, you got, I can be so much more focused instead of getting distracted in a lot of different places," etc. Yeah.

Got it. So, internet was first, blockchain was second, AI is third. What do you think is going to be fourth?

I don't know. That's very hard to predict. Uh, like, for example, before ChatGPT came out, like AlphaZero, AlphaGo was there, right? I like, I was, that wasn't a big industry. Uh, but then ChatGPT came, that was suddenly, "Okay, all this AI things happening." Before, before that, uh, you know, Sam may know, but I didn't know. Uh, so, uh, I have to wait for it for it to happen to see what's next. And what's next probably going to be another, I don't know, another 10 years away.

You think the next is going to be another 10 years away?

No, I, I don't know for sure. I'm just saying that roughly, right? I don't know for sure.

Is at any point we could wake up and something new is, we're like, "What? Wait a minute. What is the quantum, um, you know, uh, uh, computing?" And, you know, it's going to take this long to build it. And all of a sudden, what if they do it faster? What could that turn into? So who knows what's going to be taking place.

Yeah, it could happen tomorrow. So, yeah, true. It can happen. So, it's a safer answer to say it could happen tomorrow. But, so let's go back to, uh, uh, Binance. We're talking about, uh, um, SBF, when the conversation came up, Sam Bankman-Fried with FTX. So, at one point, you guys did have a relationship together, right? The two of you?

Uh, well, we had a, we had an investment into into FTX. So, there was...

Was there ever a relationship or no?

Uh, no. Uh, I wouldn't, uh, well, we known each, we met each other. Uh, we had each other's contact, and, but I wouldn't call it a very close relationship. I probably talked to him less than 10 times in total.

Did you guys ever break bread, just the two of you?

Uh, we had, we had some, we had one meal together.

Just the two of you?

Just the two of you.

What was that like?

This is when he was seeking investment from Binance, right? So, uh, uh, uh, and, um, we just chatted. No, we just tried to get to know each other a little bit better, etc. We had, we had one meal together, uh, just the two of us. When you walked away, what was your, what was the feeling you got from him?

The feeling I got is he was very high EQ.

High EQ?

Yeah. He's very...

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, he, he knows what to say, uh, to, he, he knows to, he, from this is the impression I got from him, uh, he knows what to say, when to say it, in front of whom, in, in what circumstances, he will say the right stuff. He was very respectful to me. He was saying all the right stuff, like, "We're going to collaborate. We're going to build this. We're going to help to grow the crypto industry. We're going to solve, we're going to, uh, help the regulatory, uh, evolution." He was saying all the right stuff that, you know. Yeah.

Did you walk away saying, "I like this guy. I trust this guy. Sounds like a good player."

Uh, we worked, actually, after, after that, that, that meal, uh, we actually declined to invest. Uh, that, I think that was in summer 2019. Uh...

Where was it at? What were you guys in the States?

Uh, actually, I, for, it was somewhere in Asia, I think. Okay. Yeah. So, um, uh, I think Singapore, somewhere. But we actually turned, like, he wanted the investment from us. We actually turned it down. Uh, and then he came back in November, um, to our CFO at the time, and he, uh, he made a much improved offer, and then we, we invested.

Yeah.

Why'd you take the meeting the first time he came? Was he already a player? Was he somebody that was a known guy?

At that time, he was one of the larger traders. He was a VIP trader. Alameda was a VIP trader on Binance. So, like, the VIP manager is like, "Well, give him a meeting, right? I usually don't, don't meet with VIPs, but he has a specific proposal. He wants to build a future exchange. He wants to build FTX. He wants us to invest."

And this is where you guys put $2 billion into it?

Uh, no, no, no, no. We, we put, we're putting much less money into it. I think we, if I'm mistaken, not mistaken, we probably put a couple hundred, well, no, sorry, couple million dollars into it.

And this is way early on?

This is early on. Okay. I think we got close to $2 billion out of the deal when we exited, um, at the time. And then we held them in FTT tokens. Part of it was in FTT tokens, which went to zero now.

Oh, and that's why they're soon, uh, uh, Binance for, I think $1.76 billion or whatever the number is, right?

They, they, there is no ongoing litigation. So.

So...

Between them, though. You're not involved in that litigation?

I'm not too sure. I don't think I'm, I don't...

But you haven't gone to court. So...

I, my lawyer is handling it. I actually, but my lawyers did, did advise me not to, you know, talk about ongoing litigations.

Yeah.

Yeah. If I remember correctly, your tweet, or the decision was one of the reasons a lot of people said that caused them to go out, cuz you came out and he said, "We're out. We're not doing anything." You were speaking to Sorcin, if I'm if I'm not mistaken, right? From, uh, you, you got on, uh, Erin Sorcin, you guys are on MSNBC or CNBC, and then you said, "No, I don't feel good about it." You made some comments, "We're out." And then from there, everybody said, "If CZ doesn't feel good about it, there may be something going on." You, the crypto billionaire who helped expose SBF and solve this, calls him one of the greatest fraudsters in history and accuses media and thought leaders of being manipulated. Those are pretty strong words right there. Who said that, by the way? Rob, is that...

Don't think those were my exact words.

Can you go a little bit lower? In Fortune, "Meltdown. SBF is one of the greatest fraudsters in history. He is a master manipulator when it comes down to media and key opinion leaders." He wrote in a tweet, "SBF perpetuated a narrative painting me and other people as bad guys. It was critical in maintaining the fantasy that he was a hero."

Can you click on that Tuesday with link to see if... I don't think I would call him that. I don't think I said all of those words.

Good for you that you know whether you said that or not.

It's just, it's just not, not...

Why would Fortune write something like that? Go right there. Keep going. L. Rob is critical in maintaining his people is one of the greatest fraudsters in history. Oh, there it is. That's the tweet. He's a master manipulator when it comes on to media and key opinion leaders. Is that your Twitter account or?

No.

That looks okay. This is an actual Twitter page, right? Okay. That, okay, that does look...

So you don't, you don't remember it? You were pissed off that day?

I normally would not use that kind of language. So, that, that was...

That was pretty strong.

That was, that was strong. That was strong.

What, what got you to the point of saying something like that about him?

Uh, okay. I think... Can you scroll back up on top on that tweet a little bit more? Uh, because, uh, it would be good to get some context here. I think this is probably a tweet I was responding to accusations of, uh, yeah. So this is a list of wrong narratives I've seen recently.

So, list of wrong narratives I've seen recently. One, "CZ wants to be the savior of crypto." Crypto doesn't need saving, crypto is fine. So, "FTX was killed by XYZ." No, FTX killed themselves because they stole billions of dollars of user funds. Period. "SBF has good intentions but just made mistakes." Lying is never good intentions. Go a little bit lower. Rob. "CZ's tweet destroyed FTX." No healthy business can be destroyed by a tweet.

However, there was a tweet that may have...

Uh, Caroline's tweet, 60 minutes after mine on November 6th, shows data that it was real cause for people to dump FTX. Caroline said, "But if you're looking to minimize the market impact on FTT sales, Alameda will happily buy it all from you at $22." Go a little bit lower, Rob. She gave her floor price away. "SBF perpetuated a, uh, narrative painting me as other people. It was critical in maintaining to fantasy that he was a hero. SBF is one of the greatest fraudsters."

Okay. So that's where you said that.

Uh, okay. Okay. Okay.

All right.

Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, I guess that was a pretty strong language. I normally would not say that, but, uh, uh...

You don't remember this?

Well, I don't remember the whole thread, right? So, like, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of details in that thread. Um, it's not like one, one, one single message.

And this is 2022. So it's not like ChatGPT wrote that tweet. That's you writing that tweet.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This, this, this account is operated by me. So, yeah. Yeah.

Uh, okay. So why, why such aggressive language towards him?

I think at the time, I guess a lot of people were saying that, you know, my tweet somehow killed FTX, right? Which I said, "Look, that's not, that's not true." Uh, as I said here, like, a tweet...

I actually really like the answer. A tweet cannot destroy a great business.

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So, uh, I think there was a sequence of events here, right? So there was a CoinDesk, uh, reporting, and then there was, that was on like, you know, early November, November 3rd or something.

Mhm.

And then, um, our finance people asked me like, "CZ, like, you know, we still have hold the FTT tokens, should we sell?" So I write a tweet, I said, "Yes, we should sell." And then our finance team moved the tokens, uh, on the blockchain.

And people saw it, and people were asking questions. And then our finance team says, "Maybe you want to put a tweet out there saying, like, look, you want to clarify that we're, we're selling." So, um, yeah, so this is a tweet that, you know, I wrote. We said we, um, and, uh, I said, "We're going to sell our FTT tokens, and this is the place where we got them, and people can track it on the blockchain." I said, "We're going to sell them over many months, right? We're going to sell them slowly, not to, uh, have market impact." So, um, and many people blame me for causing the FTT...

You don't think you had any influence over it?

Um, I think...

Your voice carries a lot of weight, especially at that time.

Yeah. But this also, I think my weight, my voice carries weight. Uh, but also there's a balance between being transparent and just doing this quietly, like we just sell our FTT tokens quietly without letting the market know.

Well, I actually, really, I, I like the approach you took. Hey, here's what we're doing. It's being honest with the market. Your customers are seeing what you're doing.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a negative impact on FTX.

Uh, it, it probably does have some market impact. Um, but again, I think, uh, many people have tried to sell BNB tokens, which is our token, well, which is the token that, you know, we're building.

Um, but again, if anyone selling can kill, can kill, can kill your business, you don't have a business, really, right?

No, that's a good point. So now, now let me ask you, so this makes me think about something else. So at that time, reports came out, one report said that he gave $40 million to the Democratic party. Then another report said he gave $70 million. Then a federal prosecutor came out and said it was $100 million that he gave up to a bunch of different people, by the way, on both sides of the aisle. So it wasn't like it was only one side. Uh, were you... Yeah.

The federal prosecutors alleged that Sam Bankman-Fried used over $100 million in stolen FTX customers to make political donations ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Were you doing anything like this at the time yourself?

No. Uh, we couldn't donate. We're like, no, we're, I'm not a US citizen. Uh, so, uh, political donations are not possible for me.

Right.

Political donations. So, so did anybody from the Biden administration come up to you and say, "Hey, if you give this much money, we'll let this go." Did you, did you get anybody knocking on your door, saying, "Can you support our political campaign by sending some Bitcoin, by sending some this?"

Uh, not that I'm, not that I know. Uh, I don't think that hap, I don't know any of that.

You don't know any of that?

Didn't happen with me.

Didn't happen with you? No.

So you don't remember a phone call? You don't remember an email or a text or anybody coming to you?

No, no, no. No one asked, no one asked us for donations. Yeah.

So, do you, do you sit in the back of your mind and, cuz right afterwards, how much after this did the government start knocking on your door to start saying, "Hey, we noticed Binance is doing XYZ." How soon after this did they come after you?

Um, I, I think this, I think was like, the timing-wise is very coincidental. Uh, right. So, uh, but yeah, I mean, we were outside of the US. I didn't make a trips to to Washington D.C. at all. Uh, Sam Bankman was making all those trips. So no one asked us to even donate. We also foreign, I'm, I'm not a US citizen. I'm a Canadian, right? So, um, um, yeah, so we didn't get asked. But I think that's definitely, I don't know if there's any correlation, but it definitely the timing is coincidental. We got a lot more scrutiny, um, from the US SEC, from the other US agencies on us. Of course, you just took away one of their biggest though. He was the biggest guy giving money to them.

You just took that money away. You're not going to be making friends by doing that.

Again, I don't think I took them away. Um, his business crashed.

I get what you're saying. No, but in their eyes, they don't look at it that way. In their...

Eyes, what are you doing? This guy's giving us money. Knock it out, you know, knock it off. And so, they probably immediately wanted to target you because you put their biggest backer out. So, you're not making friends with the Democratic party.

Well, yeah. Well, this happened end of 2022. By early 2023, uh, uh, uh, BUSD, what we call the Binance USD stablecoin, was shut down. Uh, and then June, I think, USC sued Binance, Binance US, myself.

23. 23. So, six months after this.

So, six. So, then there you go. So, then that makes sense. So, so six months after this, they come after you and they come after Binance.

Pretty much. Yeah. And and this was around the 100,000, what is it? The, the transactions with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with, you know, with who is it? Al-Qaeda? No, I'm sorry. ISIS. Is that is that what caused it?

I actually don't even know what those transactions are. But yeah, uh, there was, there was negative articles about those things.

Yeah. Because there was something that I think I saw chief compliance officer saying in an email thread that, hey, these guys are making such little transactions, they can't even afford to buy an AK-47. Something like that. Uh, uh, in an email exchange with a compliance office, they show the picture. It's public right now, so it's not like I'm reading anything that's not public.

Yeah.

So, at when they, when they first approached you, at what point did you know this is real? 'Cause I'm sure when you're big, like, you know, we're, we're small. I've been running an insurance company for 20 years. We get lawsuit stuff that comes up and you're like, "Okay, yeah, we have, let's call this." But sometimes you get something like, "This is serious." When did you know this was serious?

Early 2023. So, I think it was January, February 2023. Um, my legal team says, "Look, the, the DOJ wants to, uh, the DOJ has a case and they're pretty serious and they want to, they want to, they want to get to a, well, they want to get to a deal." Um, so that's 2023 was when the negoti.

And so he, his team is reaching out to your team.

Yeah. I think, uh, he, like people like, probably are three or four levels below, uh, what was.

And did they at all reach out to you in 2022?

I think there were some communications with the, with the, with our teams in 2022, but I think the, the, my involvement with the US DOJ negotiations started kind of in 2023.

Okay. So, and then, you know, so when that comes in, you're starting to see their team, you know, three, four layers down there coming to you. Is it, CZ, man, this is, this is urgent, man. We got, this could be very nasty, very ugly.

At this point, is it getting, is it public already? Is the entire market reacting to it? Is the market writing about it or not yet?

Not yet. It was, uh, most of the negotiations were done privately. Like the market didn't know about it and, um, yeah, it was done privately.

Do you, do you feel the negotiation with them and your legal team was fair? Did you feel that there was some animosity? Did you feel some things that was unfair? How, how did you process it when their team was working with you?

Um, fair or not, I think it's very subjective, right? So, um, on the receiving end, you always feel a bit, um, uh, uh, a bit, um, unfair. Uh, but, um, they were extremely aggressive. Um, and the comment I heard most from my lawyers were like, "No, they, they've never seen a case where a government takes a BSA, Banking Secrecy Act violation, this, this aggressively."

Yeah. So.

And what was it about? What was the main premise of the case?

Uh, at the beginning, my personal thought is, u, well, they said, "Well, Binance violated the BSA Act, which we, I, I don't, I don't dispute, right? We had US users in the first two years of our operations when we started in, you know, in Asia and we were like a, a technology platform." Um, so that part is fine, you know, uh, and they really tried to say, look, Binance facilitated terrorist financing or facilitated actively facilitated illicit transactions. You, Binance never does that. I never does that. I never do that, right? It's not, it's not my business. It's not, it's not in my interest. I'm not here. I don't even facilitate good transactions myself at scale, right? So I don't handle like, no VIP one wants to do, I don't know, $10 million buy. I handle it myself. We have a platform, uh, that people use. So, um, uh, so that, those allegations, uh, were, I think, was quite extremely unreasonable. Um, and to some extent, I think they were just hostile towards crypto and we're the largest player in crypto. Yeah.

Got it. So, so facilitating was the issue. And I think if I saw the number, it was $8 billion is what they said the total number was. And if we say $8 billion, 8 billion on 135, 125 trillion dollars of money being moved. 8 billion may sound like a lot of money, but 8 billion on 125 is not a lot of money. It's not like it's going to impact your revenue in a major way. So, you know, one could speculate and say, "All right, they were targeted." No, that shouldn't have happened because, you know, when whenever you're dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah and, you know, whatever, Al-Qaeda and ISIS, you probably shouldn't be looking the other way and compliance should look at it. Uh, did you, did you eventually after that create some controls that now triggers when something like that happens? Like, will you be able to tell or can somebody still be able to create transactions without you guys catching it?

Uh, well, I think, uh, I'm no longer running Binance anymore. Um, but I think they have a very, very strong compliance program. Uh, the compliance program is pro, probably stronger than any bank in the world. Uh, the thing is though, as strong as that is, no compliance program can be 100%. Right? So compliance programs rely on third-party tools like, you know, Chainalysis, uh, to, to do the blockchain analysis to detect the transactions and sometimes they're slow. Sometimes, like, you know, when you call them today, when the transaction's happening, they say it's not a problem. And then 10 days later, when that address interacts with other addresses, then they label that address as bad, right? So you can be slow. It can be like a days later that, you know, the, the label the.

Banks still deal with this all the time. Chase deals with this with this all the time as well. So no matter how good of a compliance you create, you're going to go through it.

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so as you, like, no, there's no way to block it 100%.

Um, but if you look at the percentages of, of, of what we call bad or illicit transactions, it's much lower in crypto. In crypto, like, I think Chainalysis's own report, Chainalysis is a third-party blockchain analyst, uh, uh, compliance tool that all the US agencies use, right? So their own report says, um, only 0.41%, 41% of the transactions in crypto may be illicit, whereas in traditional finance, like, you know, this two to 5%. So this is like two orders of magnitude difference, right? So, um, uh, yeah, so the, the percentage of transactions in, in crypto are much, much less in terms of illicit transactions. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, and I saw this. That's very good to know because the market to be able to say on what some of the banking are doing. You guys are more secure than them. I'm sure it also brought more highlight on getting compliance tighter. But Garland comes out in a press conference and he's bragging about the fact that you're paying the biggest corporate fee or fine for $4.3 billion. And then you think the company paid 4.3, and I think you paid 50 million or so, and then you did four months, uh, where you went away, right? This whole thing. Rob, do you have that clip of Merrick Garland when he's announcing this? Did you ever meet Merrick Garland or?

No, you guys have never had any interaction.

No.

So, you're not in texting mode. You guys don't text each other.

No, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting when he did this to to brag about it. So, when this is going on, is it having a negative impact on Binance's business itself?

Oh, yeah.

It is. So, you're seeing customers going away to a different place when this is going on?

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And how big was the impact?

Uh, I would say, well, on Binance, it's hard to measure, but we, Binance lost most of the, uh, banking rails, both globally and, uh, Binance US lost it, complete, all the banking rails in the US. So, Binance US actually became a crypto-to-crypto only business. It doesn't have US dollars.

Put that to numbers, like the audience knows. How much revenue did you lose? How much dollars business was lost?

Binance US lost probably 99% of the revenue.

90. And how much is that? How much is that revenue?

Uh, I think, uh, well, I, I'm not, I don't know. I don't have the revenue numbers off the top of my head. Binance US raised around in 2021 at a 4.5 billion valuation. Uh, they probably lost 99% of that value at one point.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. So, so it was a real impact to the company.

This is, this is real dollars.

Got it. And so, you know, and so when that happens, Rob, do you have the part when he says it or no? 'Cause it's like a, you know, it's a, you know, when he, the way he says it, you can tell he is celebrating.

That he hurt somebody. He's celebrating that he hurt somebody. Uh, but you're saying in, in, because earlier in the podcast when we started, I asked you about living in America versus living in UAE. You said if I, if you ask me this in 2022, no, US wasn't a place to live. Now, last 18 months, America is a much better place to live than it was, you know, few years ago, three years ago. Why, why would you say it's different today than?

I mean, today, US is pro-crypto. Um, and President Trump gave me a pardon. So, it's 180 degrees different from, like, you know, 2021, 2022. We were, we were like, you know, dealing with negotiations with a very hostile DOJ. Um, and US was clearly, and not just us, right? SEC sued a bunch of other, uh, uh, uh, crypto companies. There's probably more than like two dozen, uh, uh, lawsuits from SEC and some of the US, many of them are US companies too. So, um, uh, yeah, so the environment is just a very different environment. Um, yeah, um, hopefully, like, you know, I think, but to credit of the US, the US Constitution. I didn't realize this before. I thought like, you know, for the next 20 years, I'm just not going to set foot in the US. Uh, but here I am. Um, so the US Constitution baked in a self-correcting mechanism, right? So every four years, there's a, there's a, there's an election. And you can be very wrong for the four years, and then there's a point where people can vote. Um, so, yeah, this amazed me, actually.

That the Constitution here in the States.

The Constitution. I think I think the Constitution of the United States is a very, very, uh, strong piece of paper. And that's probably strong, even stronger than the Bitcoin paper.

That's powerful. So, so then, but, but to get the context of dates, right? So when do you go away? When do you get the pardon?

So, I, uh, I arrived in US, uh, November 21st, 2023. Um, and then I was supposed to be sentenced, going through the court. I was sentenced on April 30th, 2024. I went to, I think I, I self-surrendered to prison on May 20, May 30th, 2024. I got out of prison on September 20, September 27th, 2024. So, did four months there. And then I think, uh, in October 21st, 2025, I got the presidential pardon. Uh, so, yeah.

So, a year later.

A year later.

And, but what is the big deal about getting a pardon though? You're later. Like, what does it do? What benefit that? You're not a US citizen. You don't live here.

Who cares about getting a pardon? Why was that such a big deal?

It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Um, without, without a pardon, I'm labeled as a felon. So I have a criminal record, right? And then, um, especially in my industry where, you know, we deal with finances, we have to get financial licenses. Uh, my ability to, what they call the fit and proper, as a UBO, ultimate ultimate beneficiary owner, is significantly impacted. That means I cannot be a shareholder of, of many of our businesses and or, or we will limit our ability to get licenses. This is not just in the US, this is global. Um, and in the US, even more. Uh, after the pardon, you know, this, this goes away. It's a full, unconditional, no pardon. Um, and, uh, yeah, so the, the pardon is the big deal. I, with a pardon, I, don't get, we don't get the fines back, but that's, but still, it's a big deal that we, we get our name cleared.

Got it. So it helps you out for licensing and the way US qualifies you. The rest of the world will pay attention to it. So it kind of opens the market up for you that if you choose to get back into business, you can.

Uh, yes. Yes.

Okay. Can, but you have to step down as the CEO of Binance.

Uh, yes. When I step. Yeah. Yes, that's true.

What can you do? What can you not do with Binance?

Uh, I actually have a legal opinion from my lawyers. Uh, but basically, my largely, uh, my shareholder rights are intact. Uh, but now, given the pardon, I believe like, no, I have a lot more freedom. But, um, I still don't run Binance. Uh, so, uh, yeah, so, and also the company still, uh, have two monitors on them, etc. Uh, so there's still some limitations, but largely, I, now, nowadays, I don't, I don't, I don't actually don't really want to run Binance either. So.

Could you, like, if they, if after getting the pardon, could you now go back and be a to Binance or you couldn't do it legally?

I think there's still some restrictions around that.

Is it permanent or is it, is there a time on it?

It's, uh, I actually need to check with the lawyers. Uh, but, nothing's really permanent in, in my opinion, but, um, uh, but I believe that there's still some restrictions today.

So, in 5 years, would it be a, would it be an impossible thing that we get news that says CZ makes a comeback and he's the CEO of Binance? Is there a possibility that that could happen?

A very small possibility. I, I think even if.

You don't have the itch to come back at all?

Even if I could, pro, like, Binance has very strong leaders now. Uh, they, they run the company much better than, you know, than if I would, if I were to go back. I view myself more of a zero to one kind of guy, where from like one to 100, there are other people who are.

To say that, that's not easy to say. Most people don't have the. That's why you're not an ego guy, though. For you to be able to say that, the average guy can't say something like that.

Uh, I'm not a, I'm a normal guy. Like, I'm not. Yeah.

You're not a normal guy, you know, to say, you know, zero to one, you know, and you're not a one.

Uh, yeah.

Very few founders can say that. Uh, it, I think it's my personality, right? I like create things, whereas running things, you know, you have to be structured, you have a lot, a lot of, you know, there's a lot of structure, a lot of bureaucracy. When I see like, you know, even, even if sometimes I hear about what's happening in Binance, and I, there's a bureaucracy that drives me nuts.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. I, I can only imagine that, but it's probably got to be also a little bit, uh, relieved to not have to make any decisions. You're free.

Yes.

They have to do it. You're free. You're doing your own thing and, you know, they're going to have to run the company and you still are majority shareholders. So if the company goes to half a trillion, you, you, you're going to be benefiting from it. So that's a good place to be. So, okay, so this happens, you're off. By the way, did you ever meet with the president? Have you and the president ever met or no?

No. Uh, the clo, I saw him in person in Davos where he was on stage and I was in the audience. We did, we didn't say hi. We did, I didn't get.

What year was this?

Uh, this is last year. This is Davos last year.

Oh, this is Davos last year.

Yeah. Yeah. This year, actually. It was in January, right?

This is the one where Newsom was standing on the side and didn't let him give one of the talks. The controversy there. Did, did you see Newsom?

No, I didn't. I didn't see Newsom.

Did any of the Democratic guys approach you and recognize you? Did they come up to you?

No, I, at least they didn't talk. They didn't come and talk to me. Yeah. I was only there for one day. I was only there for like.

No. Did you speak or was it just a networking dinner conversations?

I was there for a dinner and I spoke on stage for a little. I was on a panel and then, um, uh, and then I had the Andrew Sawkins interview with CNBC. So I did those three things. I, I flew out.

Is this it? This is I'm a free man. Binance Ratuna. He was a.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was those outside. So the sun, the sun, like my glasses.

Glasses look good on you, buddy. I got to tell you that. You look good with those glasses on.

It's the same glasses.

Is it? Except that one, the.

It's the same. In the sun, it turns darker.

Okay. Well, that dark look is a good look. You got a, you got a James Bond looking, uh, you know, look going on there for you. But by the way, you want to play that Merrick Garland clip? I just love the way he says it like he is celebrating your fall, right? Is this it, Rob?

I believe so.

Okay, go for it.

Binance has agreed to plead guilty to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act, knowingly failing to register as a money transmitting business.

Go to the part about the biggest emergency.

It was a 7-second clip.

This billions of dollars. No, I wanted to get to the clip. Okay, you don't have the clip. It's okay. We don't have to show it. So.

I, he's not a very much liked guy. He did a lot of weird things when he had power and he was one of those guys that wanted to use his power to, uh, take down different guys. And if you weren't willing to help them out and you took their biggest stoner, I wouldn't be surprised if he got a call from somebody to say, "Let's target CZ." Not saying the stuff that you guys did, you know, didn't, uh, uh, probably didn't break a couple laws that we have because of the transfers that was taking place, but still, you could tell they were interested in targeting a guy like you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Till the last minute, they wanted to protect SPF.

Sorry.

You were going to say something.

Yeah. No, they even attacked President Trump, right? President Trump got charges, criminal charges for bringing a document to his bathroom, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. No, they try to, they try to destroy, uh, the, the president. And the, the good thing about the market is like you said, the Constitution. It's interesting for you to say how powerful the Constitution is. To go from there to where it's at today, relationship with Trump is, there's a conversation about the fact that you help them with a technology that they have. What is the relationship with you and the family?

There's basically no relationship. Um, so, um, there's no business relationships. There's no commercial relationship.

What is that company's name? There's a company name that they talk about, something Liberty, right?

Oh, World Liberty Finance.

Yeah. What's the relationship with you and World Liberty?

We don't have any relation. We don't have any relationships. Um, uh, yeah, I think they, when they said, so, World Liberty Finance issues a stablecoin called USD1. Uh, and USD1 is deployed on BNB Chain, which is a public blockchain that anyone can deploy a smart contract. The smart contract is open source and BNB Chain developers, public, give them like a co, a sample code, which is, you know, pretty much publicly available. So, um, that's probably what they were referring to, making up a story saying, and this is nothing to do with Binance, nothing to do with me personally. Um, so we don't have any stake in USD1 or World Liberty Finance. They don't have a stake in us. Um, there were reports about, you know, there was a deal about knowing some equity of Binance or Binance US to get a partner. There's no such transactions. They don't own any, uh, equity in any of those entities.

Yeah, that's a story that you'll see all over the place. The fact that, hey, there was this was a back deal. You helped them out. This was their way.

In exchange for, uh, the pardon that you got, etc., etc. Uh, uh, uh, but, but let me ask you the next question here.

Yeah.

In regards to Satoshi Nakamoto. Okay. Article comes out recently. Okay. I don't know if you, I'm sure you saw that.

Where it says Adam Back. Is it Adam? Uh, Adam?

Adam Back. Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto. Now he comes out and says that's not true. But by the way, people have been saying this about him for 15 years.

So, it's not like it's a new thing. The, the typical name is he's one of them. And then they'll talk about Hal Finney as another one. And there's a couple other guys. Do you care to know who it is?

I prefer not to know.

Okay. So you're part of the camp that says, "I prefer not to know."

Yeah. I think it's better if we don't know who he is and he doesn't come back. He doesn't come back into become active again.

Do you think there's a chance that it's him?

There's always a chance. There's always a chance that it's Hal Finney. I think Hal Finney probably have a higher chance.

Than Adam Back. Really?

I think so. Yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, Hal Finney would make a lot of, will make a lot of sense because, uh, he, I think he passed away in 2013 or 2014. Yeah. Early, right? And his background matches and he went away basically, right? So all of that matches with what we're seeing. Um, if it's Adam Back, then he's very good at track, like hiding his trail digitally, which is extremely difficult in today's world. U, but Adam is a big contributor in the, in the, in the, in the crypto ecosystem. So, there's a chance you could be him that he just does a very good job of concealing it. Um, you'd be fantastic, but, um, I, yeah, there could be a few other potential people, too. Uh, but.

Your number one pick is it could be Hal Finney.

If I were to pick one person, that would be Hal Finney, but you could, it could be a group of people. You could even be software from the future. Who knows? Yeah.

Yeah. I saw you saying that software from the future came back, AI, you know, agent and kind of wrote the thing.

Yeah.

Uh, to create this form. Uh, uh, uh, in regards to, uh, Adam Back and when you hear the stories with who could be behind it, you know, they said there was 10 people that exchanged emails. It's about 10 people that could know it. These 10 people. Can you imagine getting 10 people that none of them want to go tell the market that they know exactly who it is? You got to respect these 10 people.

Um, I think it was 10 people who have email exchanges with Satoshi, but they don't, they don't even know though.

So even the 10 don't know who it is because he used the pseudo name. So nobody would know.

They just receive an email, they can respond, but they never met him. They don't, they don't know anything about.

You can't, like, track it where it's coming from to see who it is. I mean.

You know. So, okay. So, you, you have enough money right now to do a lot of weird things, but you choose not to, right?

You don't have Ferraris?

No.

You don't have Lambos?

No.

You don't have crazy watches?

No.

Do you have crazy art collection?

No, I don't. I don't care.

You don't?

So, what, what's, is there anything that you'd want to own physically, you know, with the money that you have that you'd say, "I wouldn't mind owning such and such." Is there any interest in anything physical?

Um, I own functional things. Um, I like, no, I like enjoy, enjoy outdoor sports. I feel like, no, I can still enjoy them for maybe one or two decades and then I'll get too old. So might as well enjoy them. Like I like skiing, snowboarding, um, uh, windsurfing, kite surfing, um, and just other than that, just, you know, I, I have a very small home gym, um, like much smaller than the studio, and I just, you know, do some weights. Uh, and then the rest of the time, I just enjoy hanging out with the family. Uh, so I don't have any crazy obsessions. U, but I do, I'm not a, as I said earlier, I'm not a, like, pure minimalist. Um, I spend, I have a bunch of junk in my, in my home, but they're not that expensive.

What do you drive?

Uh, I have a, uh, Toyota van. I actually have a Lexus van now. Uh.

You have a, you upgraded.

Uh, yeah.

What would you splurge? You bought a Lexus van.

Uh, the, the Lexus van is a new one. Yeah. This one.

Do you drive a Lexus van?

Uh, yeah. Uh, well, I usually sit in the back. I'm a driver. So, um, that's another luxury. Um, but the, this van has a seat that goes flat. That's my requirement for a car because I have a back, I have a back, my back is not so good. So I like to like when I, especially on longer trips, if I drive from like, you know, Dubai to Abu Dhabi, etc., like for an hour, I like to lay down flat. That's my requirement. But I'm happy with a van. I, I actually like, um, until very recently, I've never, I don't think I've ever sat in a Lambo yet.

Stop it.

I don't think I've, I've sat in a Ferrari a couple times. My friend's Ferrari. Ever sat in a Lambo, Lambo yet?

I don't think I've ever sat in a.

No interest.

Uh, my f, another friend of mine has a, has a Porsche. I've sat in it. It's like very uncomfortable. Like, you got to, it's, it's.

These crazy people that drive Porsches, right? They've lost their minds.

And they drive super fast. It's scary.

Who wants to drive fast? Like, who wants? Yeah. You got your license suspended. Reckless driving. Yeah.

Get your act together, right? People.

Yeah. So, like for me, I enjoy even when I enjoy outdoor sports like kite surfing, I don't go very fast. I'm scared like hitting the water like, you know, really hard. I just chill, right? I'm, I'm, I'm here.

How big is the house you live in?

Uh, the house is, uh, decent. It's like, um, I, I don't know how to correct.

20,000 square foot house? Is it like.

It's, it's about 20,000 square foot.

Okay. So it's a good house you got. So at least you got a nice house.

Yeah. Yeah. But the house is like 15 years old and the water leaks in my, in my living room, like right beside the, the table. There's like two, like stains on the, on the floor of the water leak. Yeah. From the second floor.

Doesn't bother you. I would wish that it doesn't leak all the time, but, um, it happens. U, but it's functional. I got, I got a, I got a lot of rooms. I got like eight or nine rooms. Uh, so just good for a large family, everybody.

Yeah. But it's, it's not a fancy, like, it's not a fancy house.

So, you, you, you don't sit there and say, "Hey, you know, like these guys."

I'm going to go buy one of the last 38 remaining T-Rex skeletons that are going between 25. That's not you.

No, that's not.

You're not going to go buy a copy of the Constitution that is, you know, it's been.

I don't collect art. I don't collect anything. I don't collect stuff. And like, no, even, yeah. So, um, I don't, yeah. I'm just not a collector. Yeah.

Wow. What's the craziest thing you splurged on? Anything?

Um, not, nothing too crazy. Uh, nothing too crazy. Yeah. I, yeah. Nothing too crazy.

Yeah. Wow. Uh, uh, uh. So, it's kind of weird because, you know, for, for the average person, like, you know, what if I, if I win the lottery, I'm going to buy this, I'm going to buy that, I'm going to buy that. Oh, I guess, you know, if you ask that detailed, uh, question. Um, I do fly private, right, which is quite expensive. So, but I, I don't want to go through the airport. I get recognized and then people want to talk to you on the airplane the whole way.

Yeah.

U, so for the privacy and security, I, I do fly private. So.

You fly, or you bought, you bought a jet?

Uh, I, I think I have a long lease on my, I have a long lease on a jet or something through a company. Yeah.

Yeah. So, and then you've said something where, you know, of your wealth, at the end, you're going to give 99% of it away.

Yeah. Yeah.

Why would you give it away?

I don't think I can spend more than 1% myself. Uh, so, uh, and I want to use money for, I think money is an enabler, uh, for you to, well, take care of yourself and then do impactful stuff. I think we get a lot of intrinsic reward when we can do positive stuff for our society. Basically, we can, we contributed and then we believe. Um, so I, yeah, so, um, I think, you know, um, I should try to make the money to, uh, to, to work. It's actually very hard work to, uh, make money to make money to do positive things, uh, to make the maximum positive impact. I read this book on, uh, uh, legacy planning, estate planning.

Yeah.

And it said one of the worst things you can do at the end of your life is give the money to charity because what ends up happening is the charity, you may, you know, the people at the time, you may support, but the boards change and the values change and then eventually they could be putting money into causes that you never supported. Like Henry Ford started a charity back in the days and he, because I think in the late 30s, early 40s, I think Roosevelt announced that they want to take 70% of your estate when you die. And, you know, because they needed the money, all the stuff that was going on. So he's like, we got to make some adjustments. They start a charity and then he goes from three people, him and his, you know, they're making the main decisions. And then he decides to add a board of nine. And all of a sudden, he starts noticing the money they're putting into, I never supported stuff like this where you no longer have control over it. So the book's entire premise is never, ever leave your money in the hands of charity because when leaders change, the types of people that work for charity typically don't share common values with the creator, with a guy like you. So you're going to have a hard time. You're young right now. So your money is going to be a lot of money. You probably by the time you're done, you're going to be a trillionaire.

So where that money is going to go to?

It's a scary thought, giving to charity and they put the money in places you may not agree with. Actually, I agree with you that, um, I actually hope to give that money away while I'm alive.

Okay.

Because, you know, who they are. That's great. Yeah. I'm with that. Because maybe building a museum, schools, you know, universities, something's like, uh, uh, you ever been to, uh, uh, what is that museum in LA off the 405 freeway? The Getty Center. You ever been to the Getty Center?

I think I have been there 20 years ago.

Yeah, me too. I've been there 20 years ago. I've been there. And this guy, J. Paul Getty, when he died, he created the museum that people can go to for free with the most amazing collection there. And I think the dividends or, uh, whatever he makes off the money pays for it. So at least that is a cause, right?

But unfortunately, if you had a museum, it would be an empty museum because you don't collect things.

No, I don't.

So if we created a car museum, there would be no cars in it. There'd be a Lexus van in there and they would say, "This is CZ's van from Texas."

Last question for you. So you, you, you got all these things and I'm cur, I'm curious to know how you're going to answer this. You got all these things in the world that people want to know about. You know, you have money to be able to get answers to a question. If you could use your resources to find out one thing that is not public to the world, what would it be?

Oh, that's a, that's an interesting one.

That's, that's already known by other people. Not known.

But people know, like governments know, societies know, but it's not to the public. Could be assassinations, could be events that took place, could be, you know, you, you obviously said earlier you're not interested in knowing Satoshi. You could know anything. One fact, moon, anything. What would it be?

I think I will probably want to know how the golden stand, the go, the 1971 when we switch off the gold standard.

What was? Yeah. Nixon, what, what happened kind of behind the scenes things there? What were the discussions?

Out of everything, that's what you would want to know.

Uh, oh, this is a pretty, I've only like had like five seconds to think about that.

Yeah, that's pretty massive. That's one of the things we talk about a lot because why that?

Well, it's very relevant to our industry. I want to, I want to know like what were the factors forcing, uh, sort of the decision to move away from the gold standard. I actually kind of know the background, but I kind of want to know like what were the real discussions. Uh, the background is, you know, uh, gold, um, no, have enough gold, right? Right. So they want to move it off and the government can print fiat money. Um, but I want to know like the sort of what the conversations were, etc., just to get the back, the, like, you know, the real, like, I wish somebody wrote a book like my book, like authentic discussions that happened all the time. Yeah.

Yeah.

It would be. Do you think it was a good move or bad move, or necessary move, like you didn't have a choice?

It's a bit of both, to be honest. I think, um, uh, there's pros and cons for that move. Uh, but I think, uh, it just staying on the gold standard probably will limit the economic development. I think some quantitative easing, some inflation is okay, is good, is also maybe necessary. But the problem is inflation always goes too high, too quickly. And then, um, so this is a, it's a, it's a balance. I'm not saying like, you know, zero inflation is the best. Uh, uh, usually when this kind of things first h, very similar to the, to the sort of trust of foundations or a charity that you talked about. When this thing first start, they always with good intentions, but with time, like, you know, the board changes, and the mission moves, and then people get, get more greedy, and then it's just poorly managed. Um, so that's just, that's just human nature that, you know, things evolve. As things evolve, and often degrade over time. So I don't think it's a bad move at the time, particularly, but, uh, it's hard to maintain that over time.

Yeah. I mean, you know, like you say, you're limited, right, on how much you can lend because of limited supply. So we almost had to get off of it. But once we got off of it,

Fiat, what is it backed by? Or promise? Yeah.

And this goes at the Peter Schiff arguments, right? This is why gold, this is why gold, this is why gold. And, um.

Yeah, but gold has a lot of limits, right? So, you know, he, you don't know whether it's real or not. It's not divisible. It's not transportable.

It's funny when you handed it to him. He's like, "I don't even know if this is real." Because I don't know who minted it. Remember when he said that to you?

He didn't even trust. I don't even know if this is real gold.

Yeah.

You're like, "No, but pay, you paid $130,000 for it at the time." Whatever the price was. $4,200.

Yeah. Yeah.

You're right. So, and by the way, even with Nixon with the whole China deal at the time, because China was weak.

Yeah.

You know, it was number eight, nine, 10 in GDP and Russia was at the top, and they were worried about USSR and communism. And what if, so let's strengthen these guys. And I look at China now.

Yeah.

Do you, do you go back to China often or no?

Very, like, I haven't been to China for the last seven years or longer.

Any reason or no reason? Um, what China's not China have not, well, China actually explicitly said that they don't allow cryptocurrency exchange businesses, right? So China's banned crypto exchanges. And if I go back, uh, people will know I'm back. People want to have meetings with me. People want to have chats. I don't want to be that seen as like, you know, promoting.

You're not worried about safety, like if you go and they'll keep you there? That's not your concern?

Uh, I'm not sure to be, to be very frank.

Probably not a risk worth. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. So, like, look, I, I, I don't try to cause problems for people. I don't try to go where, like, I'm not welcome potentially. Like, uh, I think I'm welcome to go, like, I think as a, just as a traveler, etc. But people want, will want to meet with me. They will want to talk about crypto. They will want me to go on stage, do a talk. And I.

Do you talk to Jack Ma? Or?

No, I've never talked to Jack Ma. Uh, I talked to other people very senior at Alibaba. Um, yeah. So, but, um, I never talked to Jack Ma.

Really? I thought you guys would have talked for sure.

There was a couple, there was a couple potential chances. You know, he visits, uh, uh, Masayoshi Son in, um, in Japan. We missed each other by a day. U, we, like, Binance Japan.

That'd be an interesting sit-down.

That would be a very interesting sit-down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you did an event like in Singapore, you know, uh, uh, and for him to fly out, that would be an interesting. I think the world would show up to entertain that conversation.

For sure. But I think Jack Ma has also became much more low-key.

He has.

So he's.

What happens when you talk a little bit and you say stuff about the government, they, they may silence you.

For whatever reason, he's not much more low-key. So I don't think he's going to do too. He seems like he's not doing too many public talks, etc.

Do you think there was a conversation behind closed doors? Hey, you better relax and not criticize us.

Most likely.

Most likely.

So, you never know for sure.

Yeah. Because he was everywhere. There was a time that he was one of the main entrepreneur voices.

Yeah.

And his stuff would go viral all the time. Yeah.

And he was a likable guy. He was a guy that you, he had a sense of humor, you know, personality. So.

Yeah.

It's interesting. He's been a little bit quiet.

Uh, uh, would, would China look at you as they made you in their eyes because you were born there? Is it kind of like, hey, we made you. We taught you our values and principles. Without the way, uh, of our living, you wouldn't be where you are right now. Is that kind of how they would view it?

I don't think so. I left at 12. So, um.

You don't think that's the pride? Because the temperament you have is a very good temperament.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, I, well, when people ask me, you know, like, you know, do you identify as, you asked, right? Do I identify as Chinese or not? Like, ethnicity, I'm definitely Chinese, but like education, culture, like, you know, the way you think about your value system are really built when you're teenager years. So I spent that in Canada. And then after work, I was like, mostly outside of China, right? So, most, most of my work, um, styles, thinking is more capitalist, capitalism, etc. So my way of doing business is more much more American than Chinese, I would say. So, um, uh, yeah, so, but I, no, I have many, many Chinese friends. Um, but, oh, there was also another, like, you know, common attack that people try to attack me with is, uh, because I look Chinese, I'm part of the CCP or anything like that. That's completely false. It's just.

You're part of the CCP.

Yeah. This is just completely false. Yeah. I've been away from China for 30 something years. My business couldn't operate in China. I'm a business guy. I'm, I'm never political. Uh, yeah. So that's, that's also, yeah. So, um, I don't think China will try to view me as a Chinese business. I think we, like, we were, we, we just don't have those touch points.

But the likelihood of you taking a trip to Chi China next 5 to 10 years, probably slim to.

I'm open to it. Okay. Um, like, for example, if I get, if I get invited, I would go, but I probably wouldn't go unsolicited.

Um.

So, if she invited you, say, "Hey, we would like to have a meeting," you'd go.

Oh, yeah, of course. So if anybody that's in here, uh, invites me, I'll.

So, so then that means your fear isn't a real high fear that you think if you go there, they may not let you leave.

Oh, no, no, no. I'm not feeling that. But I don't, I visit countries who are pro-crypto. So, if China says, "Look, come in, teach, help us with a crypto regulation," I'd be happy to go.

And that's why you're in UAE. You feel safe being there because they're pro-crypto. That makes you feel safe.

Uh, yeah. I feel safe in many countries, but I don't spend time in non-pro-crypto countries because if they're against crypto, what am I doing there? I, I'm just so in the eye.

Cy, relationship-wise, because I'm trying to see the profile that you have with your personality. Are, are you have close friends who are very, very.

Well-known people in business, uh, uh, you know, who are major influencers, like, relationship with Musk, relationship with guys like that. Are they, would you consider some of those guys your friends?

>> Yes, yes. So I have friends, mentors, coaches. So, um, I, I view those guys more as my mentors. Um, so, you know, um, uh, I have a relationship with Ray Dalio. Um, I met with Larry Fink. Both of them wrote quotes for my book. Um, and, uh, many, many, many, many guys like that. Masa from, uh, from Japan. Um, uh, so many, many guys like that. Um, even Eric Schmidt, etc.

>> Eric Schmidt's phenomenal.

>> He is. He's a great guy. And he also, he knows all the problems that he went through, all the problems we're facing.

>> Oh, he's brilliant. Like, when, when you hear him speak for, you know, if I, if you get two or three hours of him, you're going to get smarter on what he. Ray is phenomenal. We've had him on as well.

>> Yeah. Yeah. But there's something different about Schmidt, the way he explains operating a business.

>> Uh, Eric is much more on operations of a business, especially like a platform. Uh, I think, uh, um, Ray is much more macroeconomics, countries, debts, national bond, bond curves, etc. So he's much more like even politics, geopolitics, tension, war, money, etc.

>> Yeah, he made a video, he made like a 25-minute video on YouTube that's got 40 million views. Rob, can you go to Ray Dalio's YouTube channel?

>> Yeah. Yeah, that's a great.

>> Am I saying it correctly?

>> It's a great. It's a.

>> Yeah. It's like, it's very rare to make a video that long that gets that many views.

>> The cycles.

>> Oh, the cycles. Go to videos and then go to most popular. Holy sh. Look at that. Well, it's the second one I was talking about.

>> Does that say 297 million views?

>> Yes, sir.

>> Okay. Go to the second one. Look at the second one. That's the one everybody should watch.

>> How long is the video?

>> 43 minutes.

>> 43 minutes.

>> 165 million views. Principles for Dealing with Changing World Order by Ray Dalio.

>> Yeah. The book is really good, too.

>> Yeah, it is. Um, we had every one of our executives read Principle when it first came out. Phenomenal book.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, so, okay. So, Ray Dalio, um, uh, uh, Eric Schmidt, and Larry Fink from BlackRock. Any relationship with Warren Buffett? Have you guys had interactions or?

>> No.

>> No. Zero interactions. Zero.

>> Okay. Again, he's not that hot on crypto. So, I don't, I don't, I don't try to. I actually don't try to go to people who are against crypto or like anti-crypto or skeptical about crypto and try to convince them. I don't. I don't. I don't try to convince people.

>> I go to people who are willing to learn about crypto, who wants to learn, and I go interact with them.

>> Makes sense. Makes sense. And then Musk, cuz you put a half a million, a half a billion dollars into Twitter when he was, uh, going through acquiring it.

>> Yeah.

>> You were one of the top three, four investors, I think, into. I think, uh, uh, Ellison called him. There's a call that Ellison says, "Hey, yeah, I'll put some money into it, you know, a billion dollars." And I think Ellison said, "Yeah, Elon said, you should put two billion, not a billion." It's like, "Okay, I'll put two billion dollars into it." It was a funny conversation.

>> So, why Musk? Why, why supportive of Musk and what he's doing?

>> Oh, I think, well, um, free speech. Well, we want to. My, the book, the title of my book is Freedom of Money, right? So, we want to increase the freedom of money for people all around the world. To do that, you have to have freedom of speech, right? So, and to have freedom of speech, you have to have freedom from slavery first. You have to have physical freedom first. And then you have freedom of speech, and then you have freedom of information, and then you have freedom of money. So, supporting freedom of speech is really important. I think the US has very good, um, uh, freedom of speech, uh, laws, uh, principles, foundations, etc. Uh, and but Twitter, or now X, is the platform that where everyone, quite a lot of the town, global town square discussions happen. So I thought, you know, that's a fairly minimal, a meaningful cause for a crypto business to support. Um, yeah, so that's pretty much it. Yeah.

>> Well, if that doesn't happen, you know, the world's a different place.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Because Twitter forced everybody else to be more open to opening up.

>> You know, Facebook, YouTube, everybody. If Elon doesn't do what he does,

>> we're, we're in a very different climate today. Very different climate today. People forget how quickly it was. Just a few years ago, the president of the United States was suspended from all social media.

>> That's crazy.

>> How the hell, like, when history books write about this, you know, they're going to be like, "Wait, they suspended who? The US president? Really?" Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> So, uh, it was a big deal when that took place. So, the book, you want to share with us what some things are going to be in the book? Are we going to get some, uh, is there, is there your car collection in the book in the middle with pages when you open it up?

>> No, I don't have a car collection. Right. So, yeah, but the book is like, small, small snippets of my life, uh, and how my perspective, how I saw things, um, over the last, I don't know, over the last 40, 50 years, almost. Um, so, uh, it's, it's really honestly how I saw things and how I experienced things. So, in small snippets, I'm not a great writer. So, it's a very basic, simple English. Um, and, uh, but it's very authentic, I think. Um, it's what I saw. Um, so I hope people learn about myself, my journey, Binance's journey, and also Crypto's journey, um, through, through this book. Yeah.

>> Yeah. You're super likable and you're simple, humble, brilliant. Even though you don't, you know, you don't, uh, uh, uh, you make it seem like anybody can start a company and get to 100 billion. You're obviously very brilliant for what you've done and to overcome all the fires that have come your way. So, we're going to put the link below for the audience to be able to go support the book, Freedom of Money. And I was telling you before, you know, the story is a crazy story that maybe one day they'll make a movie about you and we'll be sitting in the theater seeing all the different stories in it. Uh, and if that ever happens, whatever happens, I want to see the Lexus van in there. I think that Lexus van has to be in there. People have to know. And that'll be a big sponsorship from Lexus. Lexus is going to get nice product placement, is what they call it, right? In it. CZ, appreciate you for coming down here. Truly an honor speaking to you. What a great story.

>> Thank you, Patrick. Thank you for having me. It's a great, it's a great conversation.

>> Anytime. Anytime. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> You know, this whole thing with VIN and PBD Podcast started with a phone call me and Mario. That's it. And it grew today to, you know, 15 million subscribers almost and 164 full-time employees. And that relationship, or you watching us and supporting us, wouldn't happen without you. But did you know 51% of you that watch the content are not subscribed to the channel? And it would mean the world to us if you could press that subscribe button and notification. Why? It allows us to grow, hire more, do bigger interviews, have a bigger team, and deliver a better product to you. So, if you haven't yet, if you don't mind, press that subscribe button. It would mean the world to us. Thank you so much.