PBD - Patrick Bet-David - The $110 Billion Dollar Man - Binance Founder Opens Up | PBD #797
Aired: 2026-05-12
Duration: 01:58:04


=== Turbulence and Safe Living (03:39) ===

[00:00:00]  President Trump gave me a pardon.
[00:00:01]  Who cares about getting a pardon?
[00:00:02]  I'm labeled as a felon.
[00:00:03]  Binance founder sentenced to four months in prison.
[00:00:06]  You could tell they were interested in targeting a guy like you.
[00:00:09]  The timing is coincidental.
[00:00:10]  Today, U.S. is pro-crypto.
[00:00:11]  The White House pledged to make America the crypto capital of the world.
[00:00:14]  You're not making friends with the Democratic Party.
[00:00:17]  That's crazy.
[00:00:17]  Your tweet was one of the reasons that caused them to go out.
[00:00:22]  Don't think those were my exact words.
[00:00:23]  There it is.
[00:00:24]  That's the tweet.
[00:00:25]  He was the biggest guy giving money to them.
[00:00:27]  You just took that money away.
[00:00:28]  Sam, Minnie Madoff, arrested.
[00:00:30]  Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto.
[00:00:32]  Do you think there's a chance that it's him?
[00:00:35]  In their eyes, would China look at you as they made you?
[00:00:39]  Because I look Chinese, I'm part of the CCP or anything like that.
[00:00:42]  That's completely false.
[00:00:43]  You make it seem like anybody can start a company and get to 100 billion.
[00:00:46]  I'm a normal guy.
[00:00:46]  You're not a normal guy.
[00:00:47]  I don't think I've ever said in a Lambo yet.
[00:00:50]  Stop it.
[00:00:53]  Guys worth $100 billion, give or take.
[00:00:56]  Never been in a Lambo.
[00:00:57]  Enjoy today's conversation with the one and only CC.
[00:01:01]  CC, great to have you on a podcast.
[00:01:03]  Thank you for having me.
[00:01:04]  Pleasure to be here.
[00:01:04]  I told my guys, I said, listen, I noticed everybody was going in the cigar lunch.
[00:01:07]  To meet you, I said, you better not ask him for a loan.
[00:01:10]  You better not go and say, you want a donation or a loan from this guy.
[00:01:13]  Because the first thing they found, what's his net worth?
[00:01:15]  Is he really worth $110 billion?
[00:01:18]  That's the first thing people want to find out.
[00:01:19]  And you're like, yeah, you know, he's a pretty rich guy.
[00:01:22]  But it's funny.
[00:01:23]  I got all these things I want to go through with you, with your story.
[00:01:25]  I was telling you earlier how your story is a movie.
[00:01:27]  They could turn it into a movie at any time.
[00:01:29]  And I hope it turns into a movie because you've lived an interesting life.
[00:01:32]  But you, did you fly in from UAE?
[00:01:36]  Yes.
[00:01:36]  Okay.
[00:01:37]  Is it true that you guys just got attacked or you got bombed yesterday by Iran at a couple oil facilities?
[00:01:42]  I don't know where they attacked, but as we were leaving, there were missile alerts and the flight was on, off, on, off.
[00:01:49]  When you were leaving?
[00:01:50]  When we were leaving.
[00:01:51]  Yeah, so just on my way to the airport, like, no, the flight was off and then 20 minutes later, the missile warning was canceled, well, was resolved.
[00:01:59]  It was on again and then it was off again and on again.
[00:02:02]  And then, yeah, so that's how we fly.
[00:02:04]  And we wait.
[00:02:05]  So just before we were supposed to take off, there was off again.
[00:02:09]  We said, well, let's just wait for 20 minutes.
[00:02:12]  It was, yeah, so then we had a 20 minute window at the What did the pilot say?
[00:02:16]  The pilot said, hey, we don't know.
[00:02:18]  Are they given a safety protocol or no?
[00:02:19]  Hey, we're going to take off.
[00:02:20]  It's going to be fine.
[00:02:21]  It's going to be a long flight.
[00:02:22]  We're going to be okay.
[00:02:23]  There's going to be a little bit of turbulence.
[00:02:24]  What warning did the pilot give?
[00:02:26]  So the pilot's just waiting for the.
[00:02:29]  The pilot's just following instructions.
[00:02:30]  So whenever there's a warning, they huddle everything into a safe room that's like in the middle of the airport, away from glasses, windows, and stuff like that.
[00:02:38]  And whenever the warning's off, you say, well, you can board the plane and then you fly off.
[00:02:43]  And it was actually no turbulence.
[00:02:45]  It was calm day.
[00:02:47]  No turbulence.
[00:02:49]  Were you worried while you were taking off or no?
[00:02:51]  No, I wasn't worried.
[00:02:52]  Not worried.
[00:02:52]  Okay.
[00:02:53]  So, like 99% interception rate and super safe.
[00:02:57]  Yeah, it is worrying because that missile flying in, but it's super safe.
[00:03:02]  So, living there yourself, you feel safe living in UAE.
[00:03:06]  Very safe.
[00:03:06]  Abu Dhabi, you do.
[00:03:07]  Very safe.
[00:03:08]  When you think about all the things that you can't buy with money, you can go to a restaurant, the waitress doesn't give you good service.
[00:03:18]  You can buy the restaurant and say, You're no longer here.
[00:03:20]  You have that kind of money.
[00:03:21]  You can go to a sports game.
[00:03:23]  You don't like the team's management.
[00:03:24]  You can make a massive offer the next day and buy an NBA team or an NFL team.
[00:03:28]  But when it comes down to security, living at a place, what made you pick UAE out of all the places to live in?
[00:03:35]  I mean, it is the safest country in the world.

=== Fuzzy Borders in Tech (11:59) ===

[00:03:39]  You believe that?
[00:03:40]  By far, yeah.
[00:03:41]  Tell me why.
[00:03:43]  If you drop your wallet on the street and it has like, I don't know, 3,000 bucks in there, you come back in a week, it's still there.
[00:03:50]  You'll find it.
[00:03:51]  And people who find it will return it with the cash in there.
[00:03:54]  There's basically zero crime.
[00:03:56]  There's no petty crime, no big crimes, et cetera.
[00:04:00]  And the fiscal security on the street translates into financial security, fintech.
[00:04:04]  It's just very well run.
[00:04:07]  And also, the leadership of the country is very pro business, very, very smart, very, very calibrated, extremely visionary.
[00:04:16]  So it's one of the best places to be.
[00:04:19]  Do you think about the importance of, like, what level of importance do you put on where to raise your family?
[00:04:26]  On the strength of the military of that country in today's turbulent times that we have?
[00:04:31]  Do you say, man, I wish UAE had a stronger military or no?
[00:04:35]  Well, I think I was actually surprised at how strong the military of UAE is.
[00:04:39]  I didn't know until there were missiles flying in and they were intercepting it.
[00:04:42]  I was like, wow, that's pretty cool.
[00:04:44]  And I didn't, like, you have to think about it, right?
[00:04:46]  How much do you have to prepare that in advance to be able to intercept that many missiles coming in?
[00:04:51]  And it takes years and years of preparation.
[00:04:53]  So that's this foresight there that's really hard to match.
[00:04:56]  I think UAE does rely very heavily on U.S. support from military equipment, technology.
[00:05:04]  They rely on us for that.
[00:05:06]  I think so, yeah.
[00:05:07]  So they're a very strong partner for the U.S.
[00:05:09]  So I think they do quite well there.
[00:05:13]  But other than that, I think just the countries were very well governed.
[00:05:18]  If you have sensible leaders, you have smart leaders that are fair and that want the country to grow instead of growing their own pockets, then you have a pretty good country.
[00:05:27]  I saw a stat the other day and I wonder how you answered this one.
[00:05:29]  In the 70s, In the SP 500, it showed that 85 to 93% of the wealth was tied to tangible assets in 1970.
[00:05:40]  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.
[00:05:52]  Today, we've gone from 85% to 93% back in the days to now it's the other way around.
[00:06:01]  Is an intangible asset, patents, brands, Bitcoin, crypto, AI, all this stuff that they're building.
[00:06:09]  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?
[00:06:17]  That person can say, Great, I'm going to go move in UAE, I'm going to go to Singapore.
[00:06:20]  How do you view that with how much of the wealth today is tangible instead of intangible?
[00:06:25]  I think that's a great point.
[00:06:26]  I think 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.
[00:06:36]  They have no borders.
[00:06:37]  Even with IP and technology, there are some country limitations.
[00:06:41]  So, if you run an IT company, like say AI, you're running in the US or you're running in China, you're still kind of confined to those countries.
[00:06:48]  Whereas in blockchain, in our industry, crypto, there's no borders.
[00:06:51]  Your Bitcoin is yours no matter where you are.
[00:06:54]  You fly to a different country, you don't have to even make a transfer.
[00:06:57]  That crypto stays with you.
[00:06:59]  And also, technology, startups, we've seen a lot of technology companies amassing very high valuations.
[00:07:05]  Those are the big drivers for this economy.
[00:07:08]  Economies of countries and the world, they can be based anywhere.
[00:07:12]  So, and this is good and bad.
[00:07:15]  So, now countries with favorable regulations, with good leadership, good regulations, good environments, will attract the top talents.
[00:07:23]  And talents are very mobile now.
[00:07:24]  Like, you get educated in one country, you can move to a different country very easily.
[00:07:28]  And you learn your skill, you know, you can also work remotely.
[00:07:32]  For like, you know, Binance has remote work, 5,000 people working remotely.
[00:07:37]  So, all of this is possible now.
[00:07:39]  So, in how many countries, the 5,000?
[00:07:41]  I don't really know for sure, but more than 100 countries, I would say.
[00:07:44]  You have 5,000 employees working for Binance.
[00:07:47]  They're all remote.
[00:07:47]  In 100 plus countries, everyone's remote.
[00:07:50]  Pretty much everyone's remote.
[00:07:51]  Wow.
[00:07:52]  So, I don't run Binance anymore, but no, this is the stats is pretty public.
[00:07:56]  You still own 90% of it though?
[00:07:58]  No, actually, I'm a large shareholder, but not 90%.
[00:08:01]  So, quite a bit less than that.
[00:08:03]  But you still have majority control though.
[00:08:05]  You're above 50%.
[00:08:10]  I'm the single largest shareholder.
[00:08:12]  Majority?
[00:08:13]  Yes, yes.
[00:08:13]  Okay, got it.
[00:08:14]  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, you still carry a lot of influence?
[00:08:25]  I think influence, yes, but I don't run the company.
[00:08:28]  I don't try to, I don't give them instructions.
[00:08:30]  But, you know, my shareholder rights are intact.
[00:08:33]  So I'm a shareholder.
[00:08:35]  So I get shareholder information.
[00:08:36]  Yeah, that's pretty wild.
[00:08:37]  So 5,000 employees, 100 plus countries.
[00:08:40]  You know, you're a thinker.
[00:08:42]  When I watch you in interviews and things you say, I watched you with Peter Schiff debate on the way you brought the kilo of gold.
[00:08:48]  You're like, here, here, let's split it.
[00:08:50]  You're trying to kind of make the point of the difference between traveling, airport.
[00:08:56]  Why live in UAE?
[00:08:57]  Why not live in America?
[00:08:58]  Why not, you know, from the outside yourself?
[00:09:01]  Because America's always been known as the land of all opportunities, you know, the place to be for entrepreneurs.
[00:09:06]  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?
[00:09:16]  Okay, I'll give you a very blunt answer.
[00:09:18]  Please.
[00:09:19]  I think since the last one year and a half, I think America is probably back to the best country, one of the best countries to live in.
[00:09:27]  But during the Biden administration, it was one of the worst places to live in, I think.
[00:09:32]  I basically just tried to stay as far away from the US as possible during that time.
[00:09:35]  They were very hostile on crypto, they were very hostile on our industry.
[00:09:39]  So I just wanted to stay as far away as possible.
[00:09:41]  So it was not possible to run a crypto business in America before.
[00:09:46]  I think now it's more possible.
[00:09:48]  So I think in the last year and a half, we're seeing a 180 degree reversal, which is great for the US economy, I think.
[00:09:55]  Now, would you consider ever coming down here and living here, or no, you're happy in UAE?
[00:09:59]  I think right now my life's pretty set up and it's not easy getting US passports, et cetera.
[00:10:06]  So I'm pretty content where I am, but I think we will definitely want to do more business and invest more in the US.
[00:10:13]  So if I'm a friend of yours, I know you do some mentoring as well for some of the founders that you work with.
[00:10:19]  And if I ask you, I said, look, I got a bunch of different places to live in in crypto space.
[00:10:24]  Should I go build my hub out of America or should I build it outside of America?
[00:10:29]  What advice would you give me?
[00:10:30]  I think today I would.
[00:10:31]  I would say definitely do have a presence in America, but you may want multiple presences because the crypto regulations today are country specific.
[00:10:41]  US regulations don't service the rest of the whole world, actually.
[00:10:45]  I think UAE is actually one of the very few places that offer global crypto licenses for crypto exchanges, right?
[00:10:51]  And that's fairly new as well.
[00:10:53]  So we're still at the early stages of this regulatory frameworks in different countries.
[00:11:00]  And US, I think, is progressing extremely well, extremely quickly.
[00:11:03]  I think there was some progress on Clarity Act even last night.
[00:11:09]  But I think the US is definitely one of the places to be.
[00:11:11]  But I wouldn't say I always have a global view on business.
[00:11:17]  I wouldn't focus on only one country.
[00:11:19]  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 assets.
[00:11:27]  So have a global view instead of a.
[00:11:31]  We no longer need to do business in one country and then expand to another country and then expand to another country.
[00:11:36]  We can, no, you can do parallel progress.
[00:11:40]  So, even if you did get a passport to come down here, you would still choose UAE today?
[00:11:45]  I think today my life is pretty set up in the UAE right now.
[00:11:48]  I would probably just stay there.
[00:11:49]  Yeah.
[00:11:50]  I want, 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?
[00:12:08]  Maybe not all 200 of them.
[00:12:09]  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.
[00:12:20]  As bad as it is today, we see reports of people leaving California with the whole wealth tax.
[00:12:24]  I don't know if you're following that closely or not.
[00:12:26]  And we see what they're talking about in New York.
[00:12:28]  And a trillion dollars left New York and California during COVID.
[00:12:31]  California just lost another trillion dollars.
[00:12:34]  And their net migration rate report came out that they're even losing more people now.
[00:12:38]  And they want to offer this 5% tax, billionaire tax, on the couple hundred people that I have there.
[00:12:43]  I wonder if they're going to realize how horrible of a move this is long term because you can go anywhere today.
[00:12:51]  I wonder if they'll figure that part out.
[00:12:52]  What do you think?
[00:12:53]  Well, what I hear is a lot of companies are moving into taxes in the US, right?
[00:12:57]  I don't know the details, but generally, at a high level, I think high taxes don't work that well.
[00:13:03]  When you impose high taxes or high transaction fees or just generally high cost for doing business, a business moves away.
[00:13:10]  Basically, you're taxing on a much smaller volume.
[00:13:13]  You actually get less net tax, I think, or less net fees or income or revenue, higher, whatever you call it.
[00:13:20]  The concept is about the same.
[00:13:22]  And as you said, Now, there are 200 countries.
[00:13:25]  They are kind of actually competing for favorable regulations for businesses, favorable environments for businesses.
[00:13:32]  So, yeah, I do think that that place, that consideration is definitely in play.
[00:13:39]  So, it's not like the business won't move and you can just tax the hell out of them.
[00:13:44]  When you increase tax from 1% to 10%, yeah, you might have less tax income.
[00:13:51]  It's not that straightforward.
[00:13:53]  Being close to Iran, what is your opinion on what's going on with Iran?
[00:13:57]  Well, I didn't follow geopolitics that closely before.
[00:14:01]  I'm just like a business guy doing crypto, et cetera.
[00:14:04]  But after the war started, I'm really not.
[00:14:08]  I live in a country that was attacked by Iran.
[00:14:11]  UAE did not initiate any attacks.
[00:14:15]  And UAE was the most missile attacked from Iran out of all countries.
[00:14:19]  I think it's just because of the physical proximity, because they're just across the water.
[00:14:23]  But even being the most attacked, they didn't retaliate.
[00:14:26]  So UAE held back.
[00:14:28]  Probably could, but they didn't.
[00:14:30]  This goes to the wisdom of the country leadership.
[00:14:32]  But living there, seeing missiles flying overhead, can't make me support Iran.
[00:14:37]  So, yeah, so I'm against all wars.
[00:14:41]  And also, based on my limited understanding, the fact that Iran hit every country in the Gulf is a bit crazy.
[00:14:49]  I wish the war will stop soon.
[00:14:51]  I wish people come to the census.
[00:14:55]  And also, based on what I'm reading, it's just like there's no leadership there.
[00:14:58]  There's no leadership in Iran.
[00:15:00]  It's fairly chaotic.
[00:15:02]  I really wish we can help put, like, somebody puts order in there and then people can move on to build businesses.
[00:15:10]  You think it's unified the Gulf states, like, against Iran?
[00:15:15]  I'm not too sure.
[00:15:16]  I'm not an expert on this topic, but it doesn't seem to be super unified.
[00:15:19]  I think everyone has different opinions, right?
[00:15:21]  We see UAE, like, no, withdraw from OPEC, which is pretty significant and also which is pretty strategic.
[00:15:29]  So, there's some different things.
[00:15:30]  I wouldn't say everything's aligned.
[00:15:32]  You have multiple countries, you have multiple personalities, you have multiple people involved.
[00:15:36]  It's a dynamic environment.
[00:15:37]  Again, I'm not an expert on this kind of thing.

=== Chaos Without Leadership (04:25) ===

[00:15:39]  No, I answer because you're also not a regular guy, though.
[00:15:43]  You have a lot of money, you have a lot of influence.
[00:15:44]  You built one of the fastest growing companies to billion dollars at the time, it was the fastest.
[00:15:48]  The total amount of money transactions that's been done in Binance.
[00:15:52]  I saw $125 trillion.
[00:15:54]  I think I saw a number like that.
[00:15:55]  So it's not like you founded just a regular company.
[00:15:59]  It's a big company with a lot of influence and compliance.
[00:16:02]  And I know when you're saying not all the Gulf states, UAE, Saudi, Saudi dictates prices for oil.
[00:16:07]  So it's probably not happy that UAE left and Qatar left in 2019.
[00:16:11]  I was just wondering what your opinion would be on that because safety matters at this phase.
[00:16:14]  So going back to it, your story, fascinating story.
[00:16:19]  You know, before everybody learned about you with Binance, at the time, I think you guys went from zero to a billion the fastest out of any other company that we had.
[00:16:27]  And then reports came out.
[00:16:29]  You're on Twitter.
[00:16:30]  You have a massive following when it comes to Bitcoin, the comments you've made, the stories of you selling your house for $900,000, all of that.
[00:16:37]  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?
[00:16:45]  Well, we trace back, right?
[00:16:47]  I was born in a fairly rural village in China.
[00:16:50]  I grew up there, moved to a city when I was 10, and then moved to Canada when I was 12.
[00:16:56]  And then I did high school there.
[00:16:59]  I did high school in Vancouver, and then I started college in Montreal, in McGill.
[00:17:05]  Didn't graduate there.
[00:17:06]  I did four years, and then my intern boss gave me a job.
[00:17:11]  Then I delayed and delayed, and I never went back to McGill.
[00:17:15]  I started working.
[00:17:17]  And then I worked in Tokyo, New York, Shanghai.
[00:17:22]  And then where else?
[00:17:25]  Singapore.
[00:17:27]  So I started as an IT guy and then turned into an entrepreneur.
[00:17:34]  I worked in Bloomberg, in New York.
[00:17:37]  And so I was always in the sort of financial tech, fintech field.
[00:17:41]  So then I started a company.
[00:17:45]  I was a junior partner of an IT company.
[00:17:47]  I started a company with six other older guys in Shanghai in 2005.
[00:17:52]  Did that for eight years.
[00:17:53]  And then I came across Bitcoin in 2013.
[00:17:56]  And then I was like, this is the future technology.
[00:17:59]  So at that time, it was actually pretty interesting because I think there are three big technologies in my life there's the internet, there's blockchain.
[00:18:06]  And at the time, I didn't know what was next.
[00:18:08]  At the time, I thought the next one was going to be like 10, 15 years later.
[00:18:11]  Now we know it's AI.
[00:18:12]  So I think this is the three big technologies in my life.
[00:18:16]  When the internet was happening, I was too young to really do anything meaningful with it.
[00:18:22]  When blockchain is happening, we got lucky we founded a platform that's impactful, that's useful.
[00:18:28]  And then, so yeah, that's kind of how I came to be.
[00:18:31]  If I was in high school with you, say you're 14, 15 years old, who were you in high school?
[00:18:35]  We're in a class together.
[00:18:37]  Who's CZ?
[00:18:38]  I was a normal kid.
[00:18:38]  I was a bit geeky.
[00:18:40]  I played a lot of sports.
[00:18:42]  And I was like, you know, Asian kid in Canada that played volleyball, that just normal kid.
[00:18:52]  I wasn't super smart.
[00:18:53]  I wasn't super.
[00:18:54]  I wasn't the best in any academics.
[00:18:57]  I was pretty decent in math and science.
[00:18:59]  A bit weaker on the literature, like, you know, English.
[00:19:02]  French.
[00:19:03]  I was very bad in French.
[00:19:05]  Yeah, so, but I was a normal kid.
[00:19:07]  Yeah.
[00:19:09]  Did people, like, did you know you're going to do something special?
[00:19:11]  Like, was there something where, like, one day, were you a driven kid or.
[00:19:15]  No, no, no.
[00:19:16]  It was not.
[00:19:18]  No, it was like there were no indications I was anything special.
[00:19:22]  I was just a normal kid.
[00:19:23]  Yeah.
[00:19:23]  And I, there was never any indications, oh, this guy's going to build a billion dollar company even.
[00:19:29]  Were you a dreamer?
[00:19:30]  Would you dream about one day, you know, I'm going to do this, make my family proud?
[00:19:34]  Was there any.
[00:19:35]  Thoughts like that with you?
[00:19:37]  No, I didn't have any of the.
[00:19:38]  I wanted to be successful.
[00:19:40]  I wanted to do well, but I never dreamed of being a billionaire or like, you know, run a largest crypto exchange.
[00:19:45]  I just wanted to be financially successful.
[00:19:52]  I want to have a successful career.
[00:19:54]  I want to build a good life.
[00:19:57]  I always worked hard.
[00:20:00]  But I wasn't dreaming, I want to be the worst, I don't know, whatever ranking.

=== From Normal Kid to Billionaire (15:26) ===

[00:20:04]  That's not what I was.
[00:20:05]  I wasn't you.
[00:20:06]  I don't know if you read the book Accidental Millionaire.
[00:20:10]  It was a book written about Apple, about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
[00:20:15]  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.
[00:20:20]  There's a different copy of it if you go to Accidental Millionaire and you put Apple.
[00:20:24]  Just go to images, you'll see which one it is.
[00:20:26]  Apple, that's the one right there.
[00:20:29]  Then they wrote a book called The Accidental Billionaire.
[00:20:31]  Yeah, if you notice, it's only got 11 reviews.
[00:20:32]  This came out in 87.
[00:20:34]  It's actually a very good book.
[00:20:35]  For somebody in the space, Lee Butcher was actually a very good book I read.
[00:20:39]  Then the book came out called An Accidental Billionaire.
[00:20:42]  And that was written, I think, about Mark Zuckerberg, who, you know, he became a billionaire.
[00:20:48]  I don't know what they call it.
[00:20:49]  What's 100 is what?
[00:20:50]  Centi?
[00:20:51]  Is a hectare is 10 centi centi, right?
[00:20:53]  So, ax, so you're an accidental centi billionaire.
[00:20:57]  I'm not sure, I'm I'm not sure I'm centi to be honest.
[00:21:00]  Um, I think the Forbes estimates are a bit off, they're too high.
[00:21:03]  Okay, yeah, uh, but yeah, um, kind of accidental, yeah.
[00:21:07]  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, yeah, and you bought all Bitcoin, what got you to the point of saying I have to be able to get into Bitcoin?
[00:21:19]  Um, I started learning about Bitcoin in 2013, right?
[00:21:22]  And at the time, I was like, what, 35.
[00:21:27]  And then I was like, okay, this is the future technology.
[00:21:30]  This is bigger than the internet.
[00:21:33]  And when the internet was happening, I was too young.
[00:21:35]  So I was at 36, 37 ish, I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by.
[00:21:41]  So I said, look, I just got to get involved in this new technology field.
[00:21:47]  I don't know what I'm going to do first.
[00:21:49]  I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'm going to buy Bitcoins first.
[00:21:53]  So I sold my house, sold my apartment, and bought Bitcoin.
[00:21:56]  So that was pretty clear to me.
[00:21:57]  That was a very long term conviction.
[00:21:59]  Is this a $900,000 apartment?
[00:22:01]  Yes, this is a $900,000 apartment.
[00:22:03]  And when you bought it at the time, what was the average price of Bitcoin?
[00:22:06]  The average price I got in was about $600,000.
[00:22:09]  I got payments in installments, right?
[00:22:10]  So I bought it at $800,000, $600,000, $400,000.
[00:22:14]  So average $2,000.
[00:22:15]  So if we do $900,000 divided by $600,000 times $81,000, you're looking at $121 million, give or take.
[00:22:23]  Something, yeah, about $100 million.
[00:22:26]  Selling a $900,000 apartment turned into $121 million.
[00:22:31]  The average person listening to this thinks that's crazy.
[00:22:35]  But what made you say this is what I'm going to be doing?
[00:22:37]  That's a pretty bold decision to make.
[00:22:39]  That's a big risk to make.
[00:22:40]  Well, number one is I saw the clear future of the technology.
[00:22:44]  I don't know what it's going to be like exactly, but I know it's going to grow.
[00:22:48]  What made you say that?
[00:22:50]  Is it a white paper you read?
[00:22:51]  Is it someone's paper you read?
[00:22:53]  Back then, there was much less materials about it.
[00:22:56]  There was a white paper that I read, there was a forum called Bitcoin Talk.
[00:23:01]  That I spent a lot of time on.
[00:23:02]  And then going to conferences, meeting the people, the community made a huge difference.
[00:23:07]  And also doing the first transaction with Bitcoin when you install your own Bitcoin wallet and you realize, wait a second, 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.
[00:23:22]  So once you realize that, it's like this is a technology for the future.
[00:23:27]  Not only did I just sell the apartment, I actually quit my job to look for a new job in this industry, right?
[00:23:32]  So most people will say, no, That those two combined are pretty high risk.
[00:23:36]  But I think, as I detail in the book, risk is not based on the action, it's based on your individual circumstance.
[00:23:44]  For me, my risk tolerance at the time was high because I know I can get a job.
[00:23:50]  If Bitcoin went to zero, I can get a job in a bank.
[00:23:54]  I can get a job on Wall Street again.
[00:23:55]  That confidence came from what?
[00:23:56]  Your just pure skill set and knowledge?
[00:23:58]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:59]  So, by the time I learned about Bitcoin in 2013, between 2001, 2005, I was working in Bloomberg in New York.
[00:24:08]  And so I was in entrepreneurship for eight years afterwards.
[00:24:11]  I thought my experience and everything else have increased.
[00:24:14]  My value should have increased.
[00:24:15]  At the time when you sold your apartment and you quit your job, How much did you have in liquid cash?
[00:24:20]  Did you have some money?
[00:24:21]  Not very much because I put most of my cash into the company that was working before, and the rest, the cash was in the apartment.
[00:24:28]  Less than a half a million bucks.
[00:24:29]  Oh, way less.
[00:24:30]  Actually, probably much less.
[00:24:32]  The apartment money was pretty much all I had.
[00:24:34]  The reason why I say this is it's not like that was a decision because you had a couple million dollars in a bank from a previous exit.
[00:24:40]  Oh, no, no, no.
[00:24:41]  You're not rich at this time.
[00:24:42]  No, no, no.
[00:24:42]  Okay.
[00:24:43]  Yeah.
[00:24:44]  So that's a risky decision right there.
[00:24:45]  But you trusted your ability on the way to work and the skill set that you had and the knowledge that you had.
[00:24:50]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:51]  So, I didn't need the 900,000 to maintain my lifestyle.
[00:24:55]  Got it.
[00:24:55]  I can work for income that will maintain my life.
[00:24:58]  And you were a minimalist even at that time.
[00:25:00]  Yeah, I wouldn't call myself a minimalist.
[00:25:03]  I'm just pretty basic, right?
[00:25:04]  So, I wouldn't like, you know, if you look at my table, it's got all kinds of camera gadgets.
[00:25:09]  I wouldn't like minimal, like very clean.
[00:25:11]  That's how I think of minimalists.
[00:25:14]  I'm just a normal, basic guy.
[00:25:15]  Got it.
[00:25:16]  Okay.
[00:25:16]  I don't do anything fancy.
[00:25:17]  So, when you found out Bitcoin, was it like a three o'clock in the morning aha moment?
[00:25:22]  You're calling your Friend, wake up, John.
[00:25:23]  I got to tell you something.
[00:25:24]  We're going to do something special.
[00:25:26]  Did you have a moment like that or was it gradual?
[00:25:29]  Well, a friend told me, a friend, Ron Tao, told me about Bitcoin over a poker game.
[00:25:36]  It was a very friendly poker game.
[00:25:38]  And then afterwards, I spoke to another friend whose name is Bobby Lee.
[00:25:43]  He was just about to join Bobby Lee?
[00:25:45]  Yeah.
[00:25:46]  He was just about to join BTC China, which is at the time not the comedian, Bobby Lee.
[00:25:50]  No, different.
[00:25:51]  Okay.
[00:25:52]  When I think about Bobby Lee, all I think about is Bobby.
[00:25:55]  The whole Theobobobot thing.
[00:25:57]  Not this guy, not this guy.
[00:25:59]  But yeah, so there were a couple of friends who were around me.
[00:26:03]  They were getting pretty serious into Bitcoin.
[00:26:04]  I was like, okay, let me learn about this a little bit more.
[00:26:08]  And so from there, is it inviting friends over?
[00:26:13]  Guys, we're going to go do this, we're going to go do that.
[00:26:15]  Or no, it was more, I got to go find a company to work for.
[00:26:18]  At the time, first, I spoke to a bunch of guys.
[00:26:22]  We tried to do a few different businesses, like, especially, let's do this and that.
[00:26:27]  I talked to a couple of friends in Taiwan who used to work for TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer.
[00:26:33]  Manufacturer, yeah.
[00:26:34]  Basically, all the NVIDIA chips, all the AI chips, 80% of the world's chips are manufactured there.
[00:26:40]  We wanted to do a Bitcoin mining chip or a mining machine, but that didn't materialize.
[00:26:46]  It involves a lot of logistics, which are not my specialty.
[00:26:49]  How close did you guys get to executing that?
[00:26:51]  Not very close.
[00:26:52]  We discussed business concepts, we had maybe even a business plan, but we didn't pull the trigger.
[00:26:57]  I did a couple of like RoboCore, like Bitcoin ATM machines.
[00:27:02]  I actually sold a couple, but that also didn't grow.
[00:27:08]  And then I said, okay, well, instead of trying to do a startup, let me try to work for a company first.
[00:27:12]  And I bumped into a few guys at Blockchain Info, and then I joined them for like a few months.
[00:27:18]  Big company, small company, startup?
[00:27:20]  Very small company.
[00:27:21]  I joined as a third person there.
[00:27:23]  And were they players?
[00:27:25]  The other two guys, were they players in the Bitcoin space?
[00:27:29]  The founder is a 20 year old kid who wrote a website that attracted 20 million users.
[00:27:37]  Wow.
[00:27:38]  At the time, he was 20.
[00:27:39]  At the time, he was 21, 22, yeah.
[00:27:41]  And how old were you at the time?
[00:27:43]  I was like 30, I was 36, 37.
[00:27:45]  So, 36, 37 year old goes works for a 20 year old to build a website with 20 million users.
[00:27:51]  Well, he already built the website.
[00:27:53]  I was just helping him, really.
[00:27:55]  Yeah, so I, yeah, so.
[00:27:56]  Did you go in as an equity position player or no?
[00:27:59]  Just a regular person?
[00:28:01]  No, I joined without much equity.
[00:28:03]  I was, I have an earnout to earn the equity, but I didn't stay there long.
[00:28:08]  I only stayed, I didn't stay more than a year.
[00:28:09]  So, I didn't have.
[00:28:10]  Did he end up becoming a major player?
[00:28:11]  Like, is he a known guy in Bitcoin today?
[00:28:14]  No, he's become very successful or no, he um, his name is Ben Reeves.
[00:28:18]  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.
[00:28:26]  And but then he he's a very low key introvert, so he he stayed out of sight.
[00:28:31]  Got it, Ben Reeves.
[00:28:32]  Yeah, is that part of blockchain.com or they I think they later they later renamed to blockchain.com.
[00:28:38]  Um, yeah, uh, this page doesn't talk about Ben Reeves, but Ben Reeves is a founder, is a true founder.
[00:28:44]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:45]  Benjamin Reeves.
[00:28:46]  Peter Smith and Benjamin Reeves.
[00:28:47]  Got it.
[00:28:47]  So, what did you learn from what he did?
[00:28:50]  So, now you're working there.
[00:28:51]  What did Ben do?
[00:28:53]  Because you're not there for too long.
[00:28:54]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:55]  How long were you there?
[00:28:55]  I was there for eight months.
[00:28:57]  And during that eight months, was it an accelerated learning curve of finding out everything with Bitcoin?
[00:29:03]  I learned a lot, actually.
[00:29:05]  Number one is the community is very dynamic.
[00:29:07]  So, this guy, Ben Reeves, his only marketing was based on one thread on bitcoin talk.org, which is a bulletin form, like a virtual bulletin form.
[00:29:17]  That's what brought 20 million people.
[00:29:19]  Yeah.
[00:29:21]  And then also, Blockchain Info at the time didn't have a company.
[00:29:27]  They don't use bank accounts.
[00:29:28]  They don't have an office.
[00:29:29]  They pay everybody in Bitcoin.
[00:29:30]  They pay all the, you know, when we grew into like 18 people, the company just paid every month, sent some Bitcoin to all the employees.
[00:29:38]  And it's up to them to how they handle that Bitcoin, those Bitcoins.
[00:29:41]  They didn't have an office.
[00:29:43]  They didn't even have a company back then.
[00:29:45]  So it's just like 18 people working together.
[00:29:47]  Well, and they're still growing.
[00:29:48]  So I learned a lot of different stuff about.
[00:29:51]  Blockchain, crypto during that time.
[00:29:54]  Yeah.
[00:29:54]  Got it.
[00:29:54]  So the whole idea of not having a headquarters kind of comes from the experience here that you don't need it?
[00:30:00]  That definitely contributed to like when early on in Binance, I said, look, we don't need a headquarter.
[00:30:08]  We can pay everybody in crypto.
[00:30:09]  Yeah.
[00:30:10]  Got it.
[00:30:10]  So then from there, eight months later, what do you do next?
[00:30:15]  I actually joined a Bitcoin exchange in China, OKCoin at the time.
[00:30:21]  And then I learned a bit about like how exchanges operate.
[00:30:24]  Exchanges are actually much closer to what I know best.
[00:30:26]  I've been dealing with trading systems quite a lot.
[00:30:31]  So, yeah, so actually, He Yi hired me into OKCoin.
[00:30:36]  So that's OKX.
[00:30:38]  And then how long are you there with them?
[00:30:39]  I was there also just under a year.
[00:30:41]  Under a year.
[00:30:43]  Yeah.
[00:30:43]  So this turned into a big company.
[00:30:45]  They got 5,000 plus employees.
[00:30:47]  This is San Jose Calo.
[00:30:48]  How big of a company is this?
[00:30:49]  I think they're about 2,000 to 3,000 people, maybe 5,000.
[00:30:52]  I don't know.
[00:30:54]  But they're still around.
[00:30:56]  They're the decent side exchanges.
[00:30:58]  Size exchange, they're probably about, I would imagine, like about 10 times smaller than Binance.
[00:31:04]  10 times smaller than Binance.
[00:31:06]  Yeah, even Coinbase, I saw the numbers, even Coinbase is what, a third of your size?
[00:31:11]  Depending on how you calculate, by trading volume, they're much less than that.
[00:31:18]  But by Bitcoin Reserves, they're probably about, I actually don't know the numbers on top of my head anymore.
[00:31:24]  But Bitcoin Reserves, Coinbase has a decent Bitcoin Reserves.
[00:31:29]  They started early.
[00:31:30]  Got it.
[00:31:30]  So, from that company you go to from China, how much longer after that do you start Binance?
[00:31:36]  So, I left that company.
[00:31:38]  Took me another, I left that company in 2015, and it was two years later, in 2017, I launched Binance.
[00:31:44]  So, at this point, when you're leaving and you're working at these different companies, what is, are you sitting there saying, I'm eventually going to start something?
[00:31:53]  I'm eventually going to start something, or that's not even on your mind right now?
[00:31:56]  So, in 2015, I said, Look, I'm going to do my own startup, right?
[00:31:59]  So, I, and I actually wanted to do a Bitcoin exchange, basically very similar to what Binance is.
[00:32:04]  But then the team I assembled, we only had tech guys.
[00:32:09]  And we don't have a marketing team.
[00:32:10]  We don't have a.
[00:32:11]  And I wanted to do a Bitcoin exchange in Japan, and none of us spoke Japanese.
[00:32:15]  So I tried to raise money from VCE investors, and they said, like, no, there's no way you can do this Bitcoin exchange thing.
[00:32:20]  But you can provide the technology for Bitcoin exchanges.
[00:32:23]  So we pivoted to a technology company providing exchange systems to other exchanges.
[00:32:27]  And we did that for two years.
[00:32:29]  And then in 2017, we said, well, there might be a chance that we can pivot to running a Bitcoin exchange ourselves.
[00:32:39]  2015, we tried to do a Bitcoin exchange, but we were not quite ready.
[00:32:44]  Pre 2017, are you a known player in the crypto world, in the Bitcoin world?
[00:32:49]  I think I had a bit of a reputation by 2017.
[00:32:54]  Because back then.
[00:32:55]  What would people say about you?
[00:32:56]  Who was CZ pre starting Binance?
[00:32:59]  Like if somebody came up, like right now we talk about Ben Reeves.
[00:33:01]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:02]  If somebody said, hey, CZ in 2017, pre Binance, what would they say about CZ?
[00:33:05]  They would probably say, like, CZ is a technology guy, been involved in the crypto industry relatively early.
[00:33:13]  And being a senior position in a wallet company, senior position in an exchange company, and then build his own business as a technology, exchange systems, technology company.
[00:33:27]  That's probably what people would say, yeah.
[00:33:29]  Okay.
[00:33:29]  And so from there, now you have a reputation.
[00:33:32]  Are you at a point that if you start something, people want to work with you?
[00:33:35]  Generally, yes.
[00:33:36]  Okay.
[00:33:36]  Yes.
[00:33:37]  So now you start Binance.
[00:33:38]  Yeah.
[00:33:38]  When you start Binance, what were some of the big early meetings you guys had?
[00:33:44]  Like, you know, you think about the meeting that everybody has seen with Jack Ma.
[00:33:48]  When he's doing Alibaba and he's there with five, six, seven guys.
[00:33:51]  I'm sure you've seen this video.
[00:33:52]  It's not black and white, but it's an old video where you can tell it's not a.
[00:33:57]  Did you have a meeting like that where you said, guys, here's what we're building?
[00:34:00]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:34:01]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:02]  We had a meeting like that.
[00:34:04]  We said, look, let's build this thing called a crypto to crypto exchange, right?
[00:34:09]  And put the guys into a room and says, this is what we're going to build.
[00:34:13]  And I told him, look, I've been for the last, I don't know, 17 years in my career, I've always been working on exchange systems.
[00:34:22]  And now I think this is the time to build it.
[00:34:24]  If I don't do this, I'm going to keep thinking about this for the rest of my life, right?
[00:34:28]  So if I don't do this today, I might try again two years, five years, 10 years later.
[00:34:33]  So it's something that we have to do sooner or later.
[00:34:35]  And now might just be the right time to give it a shot.
[00:34:38]  None of the other people objected.
[00:34:40]  Everyone's like, yeah, let's go.
[00:34:42]  Was everybody in?
[00:34:43]  Everybody was in.
[00:34:44]  So nobody's like, I don't know, CZ, whether you're going to be able to pull this off.
[00:34:47]  Nobody doubted you.
[00:34:49]  On my team, nobody doubted.
[00:34:50]  Everyone's just, okay, sounds good, let's go for it.
[00:34:56]  But when I try to raise money from VCs, no one invested.
[00:34:59]  Everyone's like, no, no, the exchange space is too crowded.
[00:35:02]  There's too many exchanges out there already.
[00:35:04]  You can't do it.
[00:35:06]  So that's the VC investors.
[00:35:08]  And then we did an ICO, initial coin offer.
[00:35:10]  I saw that.
[00:35:11]  And then everyone wants to buy the ICO.
[00:35:13]  This is the $15 million or something.
[00:35:15]  Yeah, this is the $15 million ICO.
[00:35:17]  It was like a stark contrast.
[00:35:21]  And it's $15 million.
[00:35:24]  Am I correct when I say it gave 4,100x return?
[00:35:28]  Yeah, pretty much.

=== The $15 Million ICO (08:40) ===

[00:35:30]  Yeah.
[00:35:30]  So if somebody would have put a dollar, it's worth $4,300.
[00:35:34]  If somebody would have put $1,000 into it, $4,100X would be what?
[00:35:41]  $40,000, $400,000, $4.1 million.
[00:35:44]  Yeah.
[00:35:45]  Just from $1,000.
[00:35:46]  Yeah.
[00:35:47]  And even more, like depending on the BMB and price at different times.
[00:35:51]  Yeah.
[00:35:51]  Yeah.
[00:35:52]  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.
[00:36:01]  Did anybody give money that was a player where you're like, oh, wow, that guy is willing to give us money?
[00:36:05]  Was there any players that got in?
[00:36:07]  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:08]  Who were some of the big names?
[00:36:10]  Well, they're all crypto guys, right?
[00:36:12]  So this guy, his name is Shenbo.
[00:36:15]  He runs, what's his company name?
[00:36:17]  Invictus.
[00:36:19]  He did a couple of different companies, I think.
[00:36:21]  China or Japan?
[00:36:24]  He was in China at the time.
[00:36:25]  He was in China, okay, got it.
[00:36:28]  And so when I asked him, he just told me that, no, CZ, I'll give you this much money.
[00:36:35]  This is before he read the paper.
[00:36:37]  This is before he read anything.
[00:36:39]  He just said, Oh, CZ, you're going to do a project.
[00:36:41]  I'm going to support you.
[00:36:43]  I think he sent me, I want to say like 100 ETH.
[00:36:48]  At the time, I don't know.
[00:36:49]  I forgot the price.
[00:36:50]  But he gave me like a couple hundred thousand dollars.
[00:36:55]  That's pretty wild.
[00:36:56]  So people have your back.
[00:36:58]  People are believing what you're going to be doing.
[00:36:59]  They're sitting there.
[00:37:00]  They're believers of what CZ is going to be doing.
[00:37:03]  At what point was it when you're like, guys, this thing's off to the races?
[00:37:08]  We built something special.
[00:37:09]  When did that happen?
[00:37:10]  I think it was about a month after lunch.
[00:37:12]  So we launched on July 14th, 2017.
[00:37:15]  A month after lunch, we were growing.
[00:37:19]  The first three weeks, the BNB price was actually underwater, it was below the ICO price.
[00:37:23]  So that was like a high pressure period.
[00:37:25]  And then about a month late, but a week the next week, BNB price went 29x, right?
[00:37:31]  This is like 2,900 times.
[00:37:33]  In one month.
[00:37:34]  2,900% in one week.
[00:37:37]  In one week, in the fourth week, and then that's when I okay, this thing might work.
[00:37:42]  Uh, if it stays, and also, our we looked at our user growth, um, on the platform, the users were growing like this, so they were real users with real trading.
[00:37:51]  And then it was about, I forgot, it was like maybe two months, three months in.
[00:37:55]  I asked our finance, like, you know, how are we doing financially?
[00:37:58]  The guy said, Well, we're making a couple hundred bitcoins.
[00:38:00]  Like, I thought that number was wrong, I was like, There's no way we're making that kind of fees.
[00:38:05]  A couple hundred bitcoins, but back then, bitcoins were maybe like three thousand dollars, it's not like a hundred thousand dollars today.
[00:38:11]  Uh, well, not like 70 80 thousand dollars today.
[00:38:14]  Um, but like it's but yeah, it was like a couple hundred bitcoins uh on on on revenue.
[00:38:21]  I was like, there's no way that's correct.
[00:38:23]  And so we double checked the numbers.
[00:38:24]  We're like, okay, then we got this correct, but then we got a we probably got a viable business.
[00:38:29]  Wow, 200 bitcoins a day.
[00:38:31]  No, no, not a day, like over over a period of time, over that that few weeks that you're talking about, over like maybe one or two months.
[00:38:36]  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, six hundred thousand dollars, right?
[00:38:42]  200 bitcoins at 300.
[00:38:44]  $3,000.
[00:38:45]  Am I saying it correctly?
[00:38:46]  $600,000.
[00:38:47]  Yeah.
[00:38:48]  Yeah.
[00:38:48]  I think so.
[00:38:49]  So things started growing.
[00:38:51]  And then how long did it take you guys until you got the billion dollar valuation?
[00:38:54]  I took a.
[00:38:55]  So we, I don't know when the valuations, but we probably want, we are one of the fastest companies to reach $1 billion in profits.
[00:39:02]  I think that took about a year.
[00:39:04]  Profits took one year?
[00:39:06]  Yeah.
[00:39:06]  Not rev. So it's profits.
[00:39:09]  Yeah.
[00:39:10]  Well, at the time, profits of rev is pretty similar.
[00:39:13]  Because your margins are so.
[00:39:15]  Because our team is small.
[00:39:17]  Our cost is low at that time.
[00:39:19]  Team team is very small.
[00:39:21]  And so, yeah, so that's when, yeah, that's about a year, a year, yeah.
[00:39:24]  So at that time, who are the top five biggest players in crypto, Bitcoin, in 2017, 2018?
[00:39:31]  Yeah, there was PolarNex, which was the biggest.
[00:39:33]  And then later on, Btrax became the biggest by the time we launched.
[00:39:37]  Who else?
[00:39:38]  Coinbase was up there, but not the biggest.
[00:39:40]  There was a Bitflyer in Japan, who was like, you know, pretty big, the biggest for a while.
[00:39:47]  Bitfinex was the biggest for a while, too.
[00:39:50]  Who else?
[00:39:51]  Those were kind of like the three or four players.
[00:39:53]  Got it.
[00:39:53]  So a billion dollars in profits.
[00:39:56]  Did you.
[00:39:58]  Yet sense that you're making enemies or no?
[00:40:00]  Everybody is good with you guys.
[00:40:02]  You're not getting weird phone calls.
[00:40:03]  People are not upset at you.
[00:40:05]  Other people are not experiencing envy.
[00:40:06]  Or did you start experiencing enemies?
[00:40:08]  We started experiencing jealousy even from day one.
[00:40:12]  Even before, like just from day one, we launched.
[00:40:15]  People were like competitors.
[00:40:18]  Other exchanges were somewhat hostile.
[00:40:19]  But that's just competition, right?
[00:40:21]  So that's just business competition.
[00:40:22]  Nothing dirty.
[00:40:24]  Some of them are a little bit borderline, right?
[00:40:27]  So there's a lot of smear articles.
[00:40:29]  That are sponsored by our competitors, which is great for us, which is great for us because we're a new platform.
[00:40:34]  We couldn't afford the advertising money and they were talking about us.
[00:40:37]  So, yeah, so there has been like, you know, attacks, what we call FUD fear, uncertainty, and doubt, basically false news, even from day one.
[00:40:47]  But that's, I thought that was just business competition.
[00:40:52]  The regulatory scrutiny came much later.
[00:40:55]  The regulatory scrutiny came like 2020, like three, four years later, yeah.
[00:41:00]  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.
[00:41:05]  What are you talking about?
[00:41:06]  What does your schedule look like year one?
[00:41:08]  Oh, the year one was crazy.
[00:41:10]  Give me the schedule.
[00:41:11]  What does it look like?
[00:41:11]  What are you doing?
[00:41:12]  I basically will go home to sleep from like 2 a.m. to about 6 a.m.
[00:41:18]  That's returning home and leaving home, right?
[00:41:20]  So that's shower and sleep in between.
[00:41:22]  And then I will probably take a nap in the office like around 2 to 3 p.m., somewhere around there, like depending on who's in, what meetings we have.
[00:41:32]  And the team probably did the same, very similar stuff for basically a year.
[00:41:37]  The whole team was in the office the whole time.
[00:41:39]  The office is very loud.
[00:41:42]  It's just buzzing with energy, just people yelling over each other.
[00:41:44]  It's like a flea market.
[00:41:46]  So, yeah, that was the first year.
[00:41:48]  And it was just constant issues, constant stuff happening.
[00:41:54]  Do you miss that?
[00:41:55]  Actually, some part of me do.
[00:42:00]  There's a feeling that people really miss.
[00:42:02]  It's like fighting with.
[00:42:03]  Fighting in the trenches with your comrades, with your teammates, that's a very rewarding feeling.
[00:42:09]  It's a very strong social connection.
[00:42:12]  But honestly, I don't think my body can handle it now.
[00:42:16]  When you tell the story and you go through a phase like that, the average person won't believe it when you tell them the story.
[00:42:22]  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:42:23]  Most people cannot imagine how hard we work.
[00:42:24]  Were you ever hospitalized for anxiety, for exhaustion?
[00:42:27]  Were you ever experiencing dehydration where you had to go and get yourself IV?
[00:42:32]  No, I have not.
[00:42:33]  But other people on our team have.
[00:42:35]  On your team.
[00:42:35]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:42:36]  Other people on our team.
[00:42:38]  So I tell people entrepreneurship is a physical demanding activity.
[00:42:42]  It's not just mental, it's a physically demanding activity.
[00:42:46]  Our CTO still uses eyedrops from today.
[00:42:49]  From those days, he got an eye infection.
[00:42:51]  He had to use eyedrops.
[00:42:52]  He still uses that.
[00:42:53]  Till today.
[00:42:54]  Till today.
[00:42:54]  So he's still there.
[00:42:56]  He's no longer CTO now, but he's still there.
[00:42:58]  He's one of the co founders.
[00:42:59]  The original people that were there, is it fair to say they're all financially successful beyond the wildest imagination?
[00:43:05]  Yes.
[00:43:06]  They all are success.
[00:43:07]  And you guys are all friends still.
[00:43:08]  You guys have relationships together.
[00:43:09]  That's a beautiful thing about building something like that.
[00:43:12]  And 80% of the co founders are still with the company.
[00:43:15]  I'm actually one of the people that stepped back.
[00:43:21]  Yeah.
[00:43:21]  And also, even the people who left, we're friends.
[00:43:24]  So, my co founders made money.
[00:43:27]  So, there's a saying, especially in the Chinese communities, that I have been a pretty good leader that I treat my people well.
[00:43:33]  That's good.
[00:43:34]  And by the way, would you consider yourself Chinese?
[00:43:37]  Like, if somebody asks you nationality, would you say I'm Chinese?
[00:43:41]  No, I think I'm definitely like so.
[00:43:42]  I'm ethnicity wise, I'm Chinese, right?
[00:43:45]  I'm by blood.
[00:43:46]  But my thinking, my way of doing business, my mental process is much, much more Canadian, U.S. even.
[00:43:52]  Canadian, U.S.
[00:43:53]  Yeah, I think my English accent is more US centric, even though it may not be perfect.
[00:44:01]  But the way I think and I do business is much more US capitalist, Western ideology.
[00:44:07]  Western ideology, freedom driven, et cetera.
[00:44:10]  Yeah.

=== Zero Fee Trading Model (15:21) ===

[00:44:11]  So let's go back to Binance.
[00:44:12]  So you're at a billion.
[00:44:13]  You're starting to get some articles being written about you, you're getting some enemies coming to you.
[00:44:19]  At this point, has Sam Bankman Fried started anything or nothing yet?
[00:44:23]  No, no, no.
[00:44:23]  He started way later.
[00:44:24]  He started in 2008.
[00:44:26]  Earliest I met him was January 2019.
[00:44:29]  So you start 17, you don't meet him till 19.
[00:44:31]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:32]  And does he have a name in the market?
[00:44:34]  Like, do people know who he is or nothing yet?
[00:44:36]  No.
[00:44:36]  When I met him, I didn't know who he was.
[00:44:39]  Our client manager tells me, like, hey, Alameda was a pretty decent trader, a pretty big trader on Binance.
[00:44:45]  Like, okay, who's Alameda?
[00:44:46]  Okay, I'll go shake his hand.
[00:44:47]  Got it.
[00:44:48]  And Alameda was him.
[00:44:49]  Yeah.
[00:44:50]  Okay.
[00:44:51]  Okay, so in the market now, by 2020, who is Binance by 2020?
[00:44:58]  By 2020, Binance, well, By 2020, Binance has been the biggest crypto exchange for more than three years.
[00:45:05]  So people just view Binance as the largest crypto exchange.
[00:45:09]  But at that point, back to back to back, you're the King Kong of the space.
[00:45:13]  I wouldn't say King Kong.
[00:45:13]  Well, we're the largest.
[00:45:14]  Well, Binance was the largest centralized exchange.
[00:45:17]  But there's like decentralized, there's blockchains, there's other things, there's stable coins, there's other businesses in the ecosystem.
[00:45:24]  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.
[00:45:31]  How did you guys, what was your thinking behind that?
[00:45:34]  What prompted you to say, we're not going to charge a fee.
[00:45:37]  Here's how our approach is going to be.
[00:45:39]  And, you know, the market's going to react to it.
[00:45:42]  How did that idea come about?
[00:45:43]  I think it's a very simple business idea where you want to provide a large amount of value and you only want to realize a small portion of it.
[00:45:51]  So you want to provide a value of 10 and hopefully only take five for yourself.
[00:45:57]  If you can do that consistently, people will do a lot of business with you.
[00:46:01]  Your customers will come to you and you will grow quickly.
[00:46:03]  Why didn't others do it?
[00:46:04]  If it's such a simple thing, why didn't the other guys do it?
[00:46:07]  I think a lot of people have in their heads that they want to maximize their cut on each transaction.
[00:46:13]  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 so that you multiply the scale.
[00:46:21]  Many people just can't handle it.
[00:46:23]  Many people just want to, like, you know, I want to take the maximum that's possible, that's harsh.
[00:46:29]  But for example, if you look at some of the largest businesses, Google, Google makes fees on advertising, but they provide a lot of free infrastructure in the internet space.
[00:46:39]  The time clock that we use is probably synced with a Google time server, that's completely free.
[00:46:45]  The DNS services that is completely free.
[00:46:48]  So they provide a lot of infrastructure to run the internet completely free.
[00:46:51]  They just make money from advertising, like from some ads.
[00:46:54]  And now the ads coverage is more spread across different products.
[00:46:59]  But for years, they only advertise on search.
[00:47:02]  Like Gmail was no ads, Google Maps was no ads.
[00:47:05]  For years, But they were able to make enough money to sustain themselves.
[00:47:11]  We were in a very lucky, same fortunate situation where our revenues from a small amount of business, from a few businesses, were able to sustain us to provide more free services to everyone so we can grow the industry, we can grow the crypto industry.
[00:47:26]  And so, 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.
[00:47:34]  So, many people don't realize that.
[00:47:36]  You actually want to charge the minimum cut so you are sustainable.
[00:47:41]  And hopefully, you can scale.
[00:47:42]  If you can do that, you'll make way more money than you charge eight or nine.
[00:47:46]  So, where's the real money made with Binance?
[00:47:49]  Trading fees, actually.
[00:47:50]  Trading fees.
[00:47:51]  Just trading fees.
[00:47:52]  When people trade, we charge a small commission, or Binance charges a small commission.
[00:47:57]  Comparable to others, how much lower are you compared to others?
[00:48:01]  I think compared to some, especially some of the US players, we're probably 20x lower.
[00:48:05]  20x lower?
[00:48:06]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:48:08]  So, in some places.
[00:48:10]  So, yeah.
[00:48:12]  So, we like.
[00:48:15]  We provide the lowest fees in the non US markets.
[00:48:20]  We don't have access to that fee, we don't have access to the US markets yet.
[00:48:25]  Got it.
[00:48:25]  So 20 times less than competitors.
[00:48:29]  So that got the world to come to you.
[00:48:32]  So then you have volume.
[00:48:34]  Did other people try to replicate that model as well?
[00:48:36]  People do.
[00:48:37]  People try, yeah.
[00:48:38]  To make it a zero fee, like a very low fee?
[00:48:40]  People try.
[00:48:41]  People even try to compensate, like pay users to trade on them.
[00:48:46]  People try all kinds of different models.
[00:48:48]  Has anybody succeeded as wildly as you guys did coming out?
[00:48:53]  No, I would say no.
[00:48:55]  The fees is important.
[00:48:57]  Fees is one part.
[00:48:58]  There's other parts like how you protect users, how good is customer service, how well you do things overall, how good is your technology.
[00:49:07]  There's multiple things in play, but fees is important, I think.
[00:49:10]  So, can you give me some numbers?
[00:49:12]  Because 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.
[00:49:19]  So, lifetime trading volume, $125 trillion.
[00:49:23]  Total users, registered users globally, 280 to 300 million registered users.
[00:49:29]  At peak, you held 70% of market share during zero fee promotions.
[00:49:33]  Closest competitor, MyBit, only 8% of market share.
[00:49:37]  Revenue estimate, 16 billion to 20 billion in 2024, 2025, two and a half times Coinbase.
[00:49:42]  I mean, I can go through a lot of these numbers.
[00:49:45]  It's insane what some of the things are.
[00:49:47]  At peak promotions, 85% of total.
[00:49:49]  Weekly volume was zero fee.
[00:49:52]  Market share skyrocketed from 50 to 70% when you announced the zero fee Bitcoin trading on July of 2022.
[00:50:00]  Some of these numbers are staggering.
[00:50:03]  At what point were you.
[00:50:06]  When did the company's valuation hit 100 billion?
[00:50:09]  Actually, I don't even know.
[00:50:11]  I'm not sure if that happened yet.
[00:50:14]  What was the biggest milestone you guys celebrated?
[00:50:16]  What was something where even you were shocked by it?
[00:50:19]  I think we.
[00:50:20]  Binance generally counts its number of users.
[00:50:22]  That's probably the easiest milestone.
[00:50:24]  Trading volume, it's pretty easy to count as well.
[00:50:27]  Valuation, Binance is a private company.
[00:50:31]  I don't think Binance has ever done a deal, had a raise or had a deal.
[00:50:34]  The numbers you will hear about are $100 to $300 billion.
[00:50:37]  But to you, it's a private company, so you don't even know what it's worth.
[00:50:40]  There's no transaction at those valuations.
[00:50:41]  So those are estimates by third parties.
[00:50:43]  But the company has never raised money at those valuations.
[00:50:47]  So, yeah.
[00:50:51]  For me personally, as a shareholder, not running the company anymore, I just look at the user numbers.
[00:50:56]  I just say, look, and they publish that publicly.
[00:50:59]  So, you know, 300 million, 315 million, those are good numbers to service users.
[00:51:06]  Where do you think it can go in the future?
[00:51:08]  I know you're not running it.
[00:51:09]  What do you think it can turn into?
[00:51:10]  I think, well, the CEO, He Yi, just announced their target is 3 billion users.
[00:51:15]  Users.
[00:51:16]  So the next target.
[00:51:17]  But I don't think that's the ultimate target.
[00:51:19]  That's just the next target.
[00:51:20]  What do you think would be the ultimate target?
[00:51:22]  I think, well, everybody on the planet should use money.
[00:51:25]  And that's humans.
[00:51:27]  And then they are AI agents.
[00:51:28]  And that's going to be all of us should have thousands.
[00:51:31]  Each person should have thousands of AI agents.
[00:51:34]  So in the future, we may count humans plus agents.
[00:51:36]  I don't know.
[00:51:37]  Each of us should have thousands of AI agents.
[00:51:40]  Working for us, yeah.
[00:51:41]  Working for us.
[00:51:42]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:42]  So, you know, they can edit this podcast video for you.
[00:51:46]  They can buy your coffee.
[00:51:47]  They can, I don't know, book your trips, hotels, flights.
[00:51:52]  Yeah.
[00:51:52]  You just fired 15 people here, Cece.
[00:51:54]  These are nice people here.
[00:51:55]  You're talking to them.
[00:51:57]  They're going to use their agents to do the work for them, and then you're going to have more podcasts.
[00:52:02]  So, if you have 5,000 employees, not you, but you're the majority chef, Binance has 5,000 employees today in 100 plus countries.
[00:52:09]  How many AI agents do you guys have?
[00:52:12]  Actually, I don't know how many agents they use.
[00:52:14]  One number I just heard very recently is this just came from an anecdotal conversation.
[00:52:20]  I think I heard they pay like $10 million per month on AI fees.
[00:52:26]  Per month.
[00:52:27]  Binance is paying $10 million a month in AI fees.
[00:52:30]  It's just like tokens, AI tokens.
[00:52:33]  That's what I heard.
[00:52:34]  This is where I heard like a second, third honey information.
[00:52:36]  I didn't verify it.
[00:52:38]  Very interesting.
[00:52:38]  And what do they use that?
[00:52:40]  What do they do with that?
[00:52:41]  I don't know for sure, but I would suspect, I would think that it's probably.
[00:52:45]  A majority on developer, like coding.
[00:52:49]  I don't know if they use cloud code or some other AI code.
[00:52:53]  Probably just coding is a big part.
[00:52:55]  Customer support is a big part because customer support is also language interactions.
[00:53:01]  Yeah, I think those are probably the bigger two.
[00:53:03]  I do encourage them to use more AI for risk monitoring, risk control, compliance.
[00:53:09]  All of those areas can use AI.
[00:53:12]  But I'm not sure if the models are very mature yet in those areas.
[00:53:16]  I don't think there's a lot of training, a lot of data.
[00:53:17]  Et cetera.
[00:53:18]  What do you think maturity looks like in five to 10 years?
[00:53:21]  Like, you know, when the language learning model ChatGPT came out like this, life changed for everybody.
[00:53:27]  Teachers didn't know how to react.
[00:53:28]  Universities, like, wait a minute, this is a perfect paper.
[00:53:31]  What are these spaces for?
[00:53:33]  Who wrote this paper, right?
[00:53:34]  Everything was a disruption, right?
[00:53:36]  What is life going to look like where companies in five, 10 years have tens of thousands of AI agents?
[00:53:41]  What do you think is going to happen?
[00:53:43]  I think we're going to see a lot more faster progress.
[00:53:46]  So I always believe that technology is a tool that increases productivity and that leads to faster.
[00:53:53]  Faster progress of our civilization.
[00:53:56]  Hopefully, we don't get overrun by AI, that becomes sovereign, et cetera.
[00:54:01]  But I think before that, we're going to see a dramatic increase in productivity and progress.
[00:54:08]  So we should be able to discover drugs much quicker, cure diseases.
[00:54:13]  We should be able to discover new materials that are lighter and harder and stronger, and we can go explore space.
[00:54:20]  We should solve many of the problems we can't solve today, both economics and, you know, we.
[00:54:26]  I think we'll just progress faster.
[00:54:29]  We can build applications much faster.
[00:54:30]  We can write software much faster already.
[00:54:33]  So we are seeing much better apps, much more apps.
[00:54:38]  So, yeah, so I think our productivity is just going to increase.
[00:54:41]  When you do a SWOT analysis and you're talking about AI and AI agents, what's the T?
[00:54:46]  What's the threat long term with AI?
[00:54:49]  Well, obviously, if AI becomes self conscious and they want to compete, or they don't even have to compete with us.
[00:54:58]  Pursue a goal that we get in the way, and they just want to move us aside, then that's the risk.
[00:55:03]  So, we just need to figure out how to build AI safely, which is difficult, I think, because of the competition right now.
[00:55:12]  Yeah, how do you do that?
[00:55:13]  Because if we as a society run as a higher regulated environment where maybe China is not running on a higher regulated environment and they kind of lose control of the AI, what could happen if some people get a little too aggressive?
[00:55:24]  Will there be a moment where there'll be world AI regulation that everybody will deal with?
[00:55:34]  I have a slightly.
[00:55:36]  I'm not sure if regulation is the cure.
[00:55:39]  I think it's one of the solutions that will help.
[00:55:41]  I think the industry itself has to self regulate.
[00:55:46]  I think by the time regulators figure out what's going on, the problems already occur.
[00:55:49]  That's right.
[00:55:50]  Your speed is too slow.
[00:55:52]  Regulators are always reactive.
[00:55:54]  So they see a problem, then they try to fix it.
[00:55:57]  And they're very slow.
[00:55:59]  Whereas the industry players, they're competing.
[00:56:03]  This is a multi hundred billion dollar company competing for business.
[00:56:07]  Right, China, US, maybe other countries as well.
[00:56:11]  They have significant drivers to push progress to the max.
[00:56:14]  So, but at the same time, long term, I do hope the positive forces will win.
[00:56:19]  So, it could be like you have a bad AI, then you have to make a good AI to combat it.
[00:56:23]  Potentially, who knows?
[00:56:24]  Yeah, got it.
[00:56:25]  So, you're going to have the bad AIs, which will naturally happen the evil, the villain, the enemy, and then we'll produce more good to take over the bad and fight against it.
[00:56:35]  I think so.
[00:56:36]  I think in any industry, there's always going to be some players that are.
[00:56:39]  Unethical, bad.
[00:56:40]  There's always going to be a few bad apples.
[00:56:43]  But by and large, I think our society, overall, we are around because we have more positive forces.
[00:56:51]  So I have a pretty optimistic view on humans, our civilization.
[00:56:55]  When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast.
[00:57:03]  We had the choice to make it cheap.
[00:57:05]  We chose neither.
[00:57:06]  Instead, we chose Tuscanero.
[00:57:09]  We chose true Italian craftsmanship.
[00:57:11]  Each pair touched by 50 skilled hands.
[00:57:14]  We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step.
[00:57:21]  Introducing the Future Looks Bright collection.
[00:57:25]  Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary.
[00:57:29]  Rather intentional, luxurious, timeless.
[00:57:35]  Do you remember that conversation between Jack Ma and Elon Musk?
[00:57:42]  Where Jack Ma is like, you know.
[00:57:45]  Humans, you know, AI can't do anything that we're doing, and they're kind of happy.
[00:57:49]  Do you remember that exchange between the two of them?
[00:57:51]  Rob, can you find that?
[00:57:52]  It's a short clip between two of them.
[00:57:55]  Is this the one, Jack Ma?
[00:57:56]  Humans or computers are smarter?
[00:57:58]  Yeah, maybe start a little bit.
[00:58:00]  Let's just see how quickly it gets into.
[00:58:02]  Let's see if we can get any of it.
[00:58:04]  Press play.
[00:58:05]  Go ahead.
[00:58:06]  Basically, there's just a smaller and smaller corner of intellectual pursuits that humans are better than computers.
[00:58:15]  And that every year it gets smaller and smaller.
[00:58:19]  And soon we will be far, far surpassed in every single way.
[00:58:23]  Guaranteed.
[00:58:27]  Is there a reaction from Jack Ma to Elon?
[00:58:30]  See if there's a part where he reacts.
[00:58:32]  So we used to think, for example, being good at chess was an example of a smart human.
[00:58:37]  I mean, right now your cell phone could crush the world champion at chess, literally.
[00:58:41]  My view is that computers may be clever, but human beings are much smarter.
[00:58:49]  Yeah, definitely not.
[00:58:49]  Clever is very academic, is knowledge driven.
[00:58:54]  Smarter is experience driven.
[00:58:58]  Computer is smart, it's clever, but it's human being.
[00:59:02]  We invented the computer.
[00:59:07]  Okay, you can pause it right there.
[00:59:09]  Who do you agree with?
[00:59:12]  I'm not too sure, to be honest.
[00:59:14]  I don't take binary views on this type of things.
[00:59:16]  I take a more gradient, balanced view.
[00:59:19]  I think there's somewhere, there's multiple aspects to it.
[00:59:24]  I think, as we will see.
[00:59:25]  This is a tough spot for you to be in because Jack Ma, you know, where he's at and then Elon.
[00:59:30]  I'm actually curious your thoughts on this.

=== Honest Market Views (14:54) ===

[00:59:32]  I think we will see increasing intelligence capabilities from AI, right?
[00:59:37]  They can solve more and more problems and they can compute, the computational power is going to increase.
[00:59:42]  They can do more and more complex things.
[00:59:45]  I'm not sure about the emotional or what do you call it, the human, the sympathy, what, the sort of, what do you call it, emotional aspects of it.
[00:59:55]  I think AI so far is not sentient.
[00:59:58]  They don't have consciousness.
[01:00:00]  They're probably not sympathetic to a lot of the human emotions, et cetera.
[01:00:04]  They may be able to, we may even be able to mimic that.
[01:00:08]  AI may even be able to mimic that, but I don't think they come, they're the true human feelings.
[01:00:14]  And I think humans can use AI with this increased intelligence.
[01:00:19]  Humans are very adaptable, right?
[01:00:20]  So also, based on business success, business success doesn't come from intelligence alone, right?
[01:00:27]  Smarter people don't build large businesses.
[01:00:30]  There's a lot of fairness, ethicalness, EQ.
[01:00:34]  A lot of other things that.
[01:00:36]  Interesting.
[01:00:36]  Right.
[01:00:36]  So just being smart doesn't mean you have more money.
[01:00:39]  Right.
[01:00:40]  That's just the word that works.
[01:00:42]  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.
[01:00:49]  So somebody may argue down and say they don't need people.
[01:00:52]  They don't need to have EQ because they're talking to other AI agents that you don't need to tell them how amazing they are.
[01:00:57]  You don't need to ask them how their wife and husband and kids are doing because they don't need that validation.
[01:01:01]  So it makes drama a little bit easier.
[01:01:03]  You don't lose efficiency because somebody's in a bad mood because you didn't give them a.
[01:01:07]  High five that morning.
[01:01:08]  So, that argument may be made against humans, no?
[01:01:11]  It can be.
[01:01:12]  It certainly can be.
[01:01:13]  So, AI may be more efficient and less dramatic and less troublesome to manage, et cetera.
[01:01:19]  So, that is possible, but I don't think they replace humans in that sense.
[01:01:23]  You don't think so?
[01:01:24]  I don't think so in the short term.
[01:01:25]  And I also think that we will find the proper safety guardrails against it.
[01:01:32]  So, there might be some accidents, there might be some damages, there might be some problems, but I think over the long run, we will find the guardrails.
[01:01:40]  So, the future looks bright in your mind?
[01:01:41]  I think so.
[01:01:42]  I'm always up to date.
[01:01:43]  I like it.
[01:01:44]  By the way, if you were 20 years old, if the 35 year old CZ who was working crazy hours those 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?
[01:02:01]  What are you doing?
[01:02:02]  How are you?
[01:02:03]  What software are you using?
[01:02:04]  What technology are you using?
[01:02:05]  Where would you get into today?
[01:02:07]  Well, I think for me, I would still get into the same industry.
[01:02:10]  I think you got to.
[01:02:11]  You can't just change every hot industry.
[01:02:13]  You have to do what you do best.
[01:02:15]  You have to do what you're good at, what interests you, and what's valuable for others.
[01:02:19]  You've got to find the intersection of those three things.
[01:02:21]  And those three things don't change overnight.
[01:02:24]  For a young person, you can learn about blockchain or you can learn about AI.
[01:02:27]  Both are good.
[01:02:29]  So I wouldn't change what I would do, but I would change the way I would do it a little bit.
[01:02:34]  I would be much more focused, much less distractions.
[01:02:37]  And just with hindsight, right?
[01:02:39]  You would know, like, okay, I can be so much more focused instead of getting.
[01:02:44]  Distracting me a lot of different places, etc.
[01:02:47]  Got it.
[01:02:47]  So, internet was first, blockchain was second, AI stored.
[01:02:51]  What do you think is going to be fourth?
[01:02:52]  I don't know.
[01:02:53]  That's very hard to predict.
[01:02:54]  Like, for example, before ChatGPT came out, AlphaGo was there, right?
[01:03:01]  That wasn't a big industry.
[01:03:03]  But then ChatGPT came, that was suddenly, okay, all this AI thing's happening.
[01:03:08]  Before that, Sam may know, but I didn't know.
[01:03:11]  So I have to wait for it to happen to see what's next.
[01:03:15]  And what's next is probably going to be another 10 years away.
[01:03:19]  You think the next is going to be another 10 years away?
[01:03:21]  No, I don't know for sure.
[01:03:22]  I'm just saying that roughly, right?
[01:03:24]  I don't know for sure.
[01:03:25]  Because at any point, we could wake up and something new is, you know, like, Wait a minute, what is the quantum computing?
[01:03:32]  And it's going to take this long to build it.
[01:03:34]  And all of a sudden, what if they do it faster?
[01:03:36]  What could that turn into?
[01:03:37]  So who knows what's going to be taking place.
[01:03:39]  It could happen tomorrow.
[01:03:40]  Yeah, true.
[01:03:41]  It could happen.
[01:03:41]  So it's a safer answer to say it could happen tomorrow.
[01:03:43]  But so let's go back to Binance.
[01:03:46]  We're talking about SBF when the conversation came up.
[01:03:51]  Sam Mackman Fried with FTX.
[01:03:53]  So at one point, you guys did have a relationship together, right?
[01:03:56]  The two of you.
[01:03:57]  Well, we had an investment into FTX.
[01:04:01]  Was there ever a relationship or no?
[01:04:03]  No.
[01:04:04]  I wouldn't.
[01:04:05]  Well, we met each other.
[01:04:07]  We had each other's contact.
[01:04:09]  But I wouldn't call it a very close relationship.
[01:04:11]  I probably talked to him less than 10 times in total.
[01:04:13]  Did you guys ever break bread, just the two of you?
[01:04:18]  We had one meal together.
[01:04:19]  Just the two of you?
[01:04:20]  Just the two of you.
[01:04:20]  What was that like?
[01:04:22]  This is when he was seeking investment from Binance, right?
[01:04:28]  We just chatted.
[01:04:29]  No, we're just trying to get to know each other a little bit better, et cetera.
[01:04:32]  We had one meal together, just the two of us.
[01:04:34]  When you walked away, what was the feeling you got from him?
[01:04:37]  The feeling I got is he was very high EQ.
[01:04:39]  High EQ?
[01:04:41]  Really?
[01:04:41]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:04:42]  So he knows what to say.
[01:04:45]  This is the impression I got from him.
[01:04:49]  He knows what to say, when to say it, in front of whom, in what circumstances.
[01:04:53]  He will say the right stuff.
[01:04:54]  He was very respectful to me.
[01:04:56]  He was saying all the right stuff.
[01:04:57]  Like, we're going to collaborate.
[01:04:58]  We're going to build this.
[01:04:59]  We're going to help to grow the crypto industry.
[01:05:01]  We're going to solve.
[01:05:03]  Help the regulatory evolution.
[01:05:06]  He was saying all the right stuff that, you know, yeah.
[01:05:08]  Did you walk away saying, I like this guy, I trust this guy, sounds like a good player?
[01:05:14]  We worked, actually, after that meal, we actually declined to invest.
[01:05:20]  I think that was in summer 2019.
[01:05:23]  Where was it at?
[01:05:24]  Were you guys in the States?
[01:05:26]  Actually, it was somewhere in Asia, I think.
[01:05:28]  Okay.
[01:05:29]  Yeah.
[01:05:29]  So I think Singapore somewhere.
[01:05:32]  But we actually turned, like, he wanted investment from us.
[01:05:35]  We actually turned it down.
[01:05:37]  And then he came back in November to our CFO at the time, Wei.
[01:05:42]  And he made a much improved offer.
[01:05:45]  And then we invested.
[01:05:48]  Why'd you take the meeting the first time he came?
[01:05:50]  Was he already a player?
[01:05:51]  Was he somebody that was a known guy?
[01:05:54]  At that time, he was one of the larger traders.
[01:05:56]  He was a VIP trader.
[01:05:57]  Alameda was a VIP trader on Binance.
[01:05:59]  So the VIP manager's like, well, give him a meeting.
[01:06:03]  I usually don't meet with VIPs, but he has a specific proposal.
[01:06:07]  Future exchange, he wants to build FTX, he wants us to invest.
[01:06:10]  And this is where you guys put $2 billion into it?
[01:06:13]  No, no, no, no.
[01:06:14]  We're putting much less money into it.
[01:06:15]  I think we, if I'm not mistaken, we probably put a couple hundred, well, no, sorry, a couple million dollars into it.
[01:06:23]  And this is way early on.
[01:06:25]  This is early on.
[01:06:26]  Okay.
[01:06:26]  I think we got close to $2 billion out of the deal when we exited at the time.
[01:06:32]  And then we held them in FTT tokens.
[01:06:34]  Part of it was in FTT tokens, which went to zero now.
[01:06:38]  Oh, and that's why they're suing Binance for, I think, 1.76 billion or whatever the number is.
[01:06:44]  There is an ongoing litigation.
[01:06:46]  Between them, though, you're not involved in that litigation.
[01:06:48]  I'm not too sure.
[01:06:49]  I don't think I'm.
[01:06:50]  But you haven't gone to court.
[01:06:52]  My lawyers are handling it.
[01:06:54]  But my lawyers did advise me not to talk about ongoing litigations.
[01:06:58]  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.
[01:07:08]  Because you came out and you said, We're out.
[01:07:10]  We're not doing anything.
[01:07:12]  You were speaking to Sorkin, if I'm not mistaken, right?
[01:07:17]  You got on Aaron Sorkin.
[01:07:19]  You guys are on MSNBC or CNBC.
[01:07:21]  And then you said, No, I don't feel good about it.
[01:07:23]  You made some comments, we're out.
[01:07:24]  And then from there, everybody said, If CZ doesn't feel good about it, there may be something going on here.
[01:07:29]  The crypto billionaire who helped expose SPF's insolvency calls him one of the greatest fraudsters in history and accuses media and thought leaders of being manipulated.
[01:07:37]  Those are pretty strong words right there.
[01:07:39]  Who said that, by the way, Rob?
[01:07:40]  Is that.
[01:07:41]  Don't think those were my exact words.
[01:07:43]  Can you go a little bit lower in fortune?
[01:07:48]  Meltdown.
[01:07:49]  SPF is one of the greatest fraudsters in history.
[01:07:51]  He is a master manipulator when it comes to media and key opinion leaders.
[01:07:55]  He wrote in a tweet, the SPF perpetuated a narrative painting me and other people as bad guys.
[01:08:02]  It was critical in maintaining the fantasy that he was a hero.
[01:08:05]  Can you click on that Tuesday tweet link to see if.
[01:08:12]  I don't think I would call him that.
[01:08:15]  I don't think I said all of those words.
[01:08:20]  Good for you that you know whether you said that or not.
[01:08:23]  It's just not.
[01:08:24]  Why would Fortune write something like that?
[01:08:26]  Go right there.
[01:08:29]  Keep going lower, Rob.
[01:08:31]  It's critical of maintaining his VSP as one of the greatest fraudsters in history.
[01:08:35]  Oh, there it is.
[01:08:35]  That's the tweet.
[01:08:36]  He's a master manipulator when it comes to media and key opinion leaders.
[01:08:40]  Is that your Twitter account or no?
[01:08:41]  That looks okay.
[01:08:42]  This is an actual Twitter page, right?
[01:08:45]  Okay, that does look okay.
[01:08:46]  That doesn't look like it.
[01:08:48]  So you don't remember it.
[01:08:49]  You were pissed off that day.
[01:08:52]  I normally would not use that kind of language.
[01:08:54]  So that was a tough one.
[01:08:54]  That was pretty strong.
[01:08:56]  That was strong.
[01:08:57]  What got you to the point of saying something like that about him?
[01:09:01]  Uh, okay.
[01:09:01]  I think can you scroll back up on top of that tweet a little bit more?
[01:09:05]  Uh, because uh, it'd be good to get some context here.
[01:09:08]  I think this is probably a tweet I was responding to accusations of, uh, yeah.
[01:09:13]  So, this is a list of wrong narratives I've seen recently.
[01:09:16]  So, list of wrong narratives I've seen recently.
[01:09:18]  One CZ wants to be the savior of crypto, crypto doesn't need saving, crypto is fine.
[01:09:21]  So, FTX was killed by XYZ.
[01:09:25]  No, FTX killed themselves because they stole billions of dollars of user funds.
[01:09:28]  Period.
[01:09:29]  SPF has good intentions, but just made mistakes.
[01:09:31]  Lying is never good intentions.
[01:09:33]  Go a little bit lower, Rob.
[01:09:35]  CZ's tweet destroyed FTX.
[01:09:36]  No healthy business can be destroyed by a tweet.
[01:09:39]  However, there was a tweet that may have Caroline's tweet 60 minutes after mine on November 6 shows data that it was a real cause for people to dump FTX.
[01:09:47]  Caroline said, What if you're looking to minimize the market impact on FTT sales?
[01:09:50]  Alameda will happily buy it all from you at $22.
[01:09:54]  Go a little bit lower, Rob.
[01:09:56]  She gave her floor price away.
[01:09:58]  SPF perpetuated a narrative painting me as other people.
[01:10:02]  It was critical maintaining the fantasy that he was a hero.
[01:10:05]  SPF is one of the greatest fraudsters.
[01:10:06]  Okay, so that's where he said that.
[01:10:07]  Okay, okay, okay.
[01:10:08]  All right.
[01:10:09]  Okay, yeah.
[01:10:10]  So, yeah, I guess that was pretty strong language.
[01:10:14]  I normally would not say that, but.
[01:10:16]  You don't remember this?
[01:10:18]  Well, I don't remember the whole thread, right?
[01:10:20]  Yeah.
[01:10:20]  So, like, you know, there's a lot of details in that thread.
[01:10:24]  It's not like one single message.
[01:10:26]  And this is 2022, so it's not like ChatGPT wrote that tweet.
[01:10:29]  That's you writing that tweet.
[01:10:31]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:10:33]  So, this account is operated by me.
[01:10:35]  So, yeah.
[01:10:35]  Okay.
[01:10:36]  Yeah.
[01:10:37]  Okay, so, well, why such aggressive language towards him?
[01:10:42]  I think at the time, I guess a lot of people were saying that my tweet somehow killed FTX, right?
[01:10:47]  Which I said, look, that's not true.
[01:10:50]  As I said here, I actually really like the answer.
[01:10:53]  Tweet cannot destroy great business.
[01:10:54]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:10:56]  So I think there was a sequence of events here, right?
[01:10:59]  So there was a CoinDesk reporting, and then there was, that was on like early November, November 3rd or something.
[01:11:07]  And then our finance people asked me, like, CZ, we still have to hold the FTT tokens, should we sell?
[01:11:12]  So I write a tweet.
[01:11:14]  I said, yes, we should sell.
[01:11:15]  And then our finance team moved the tokens.
[01:11:18]  On the blockchain, and people saw it, and people were asking questions.
[01:11:21]  And then the finance team says, Maybe you want to put a tweet out there saying, Look, you want to clarify that we're selling.
[01:11:27]  So, yeah, so this is a tweet that I wrote.
[01:11:30]  And 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.
[01:11:38]  I said, We're going to sell them over many a month, right?
[01:11:40]  We're going to sell them slowly, not to have market impact.
[01:11:44]  So, and many people blame me for causing the FTT.
[01:11:49]  You don't think you had any influence over it?
[01:11:52]  I think your voice carries a lot of weight, especially at that time.
[01:11:55]  Yeah, but this also, I think my voice carries weight, but also there's a balance between being transparent and just do this quietly.
[01:12:03]  Like we just sell our FTT tokens quietly without letting the market know.
[01:12:08]  I actually really like the approach you took.
[01:12:11]  Okay, here's what we're doing.
[01:12:12]  It's being honest with the market.
[01:12:13]  Your customers are seeing what you're doing, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a negative impact on FTX.
[01:12:19]  It probably does have some market impact, but again, I think many people have tried to sell BB tokens, which is our token, which is the token that we're building.
[01:12:30]  But again, if anyone selling can kill your business, you don't have a business, really.
[01:12:35]  No, that's a good point.
[01:12:36]  So, now let me ask you.
[01:12:37]  So, this makes me think about something else.
[01:12:38]  So, at that time, reports came out.
[01:12:42]  One report said that he gave $40 million to the Democratic Party.
[01:12:45]  Then another report said he gave $70 million.
[01:12:47]  Then a federal prosecutor came out and said it was $100 million that he gave up to a bunch of different people.
[01:12:52]  By the way, on both sides of the house.
[01:12:54]  So, it wasn't like it was only one side.
[01:12:56]  Were you, yeah, right?
[01:12:57]  The federal prosecutors alleged that Sam Bankman Fried used over $100 million and stolen FTX customers to make political donations ahead of 2022 midterm elections.
[01:13:05]  Were you doing anything like this at the time yourself?
[01:13:08]  No, we couldn't donate.
[01:13:11]  We're like, no, we're, I'm not a U.S. citizen.
[01:13:15]  So political donations are not possible for me.
[01:13:18]  Right.
[01:13:18]  Political donations.
[01:13:19]  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?
[01:13:27]  Did you get anybody knocking on your door?
[01:13:29]  Saying, can you support our political campaign by sending some Bitcoin, by sending some this?
[01:13:35]  Not that I know.
[01:13:38]  I don't know any of that.
[01:13:39]  You don't know any of that?
[01:13:39]  It didn't happen with me.
[01:13:41]  It didn't happen with you?
[01:13:42]  No.
[01:13:42]  So you don't remember a phone call?
[01:13:44]  You don't remember an email or a text or anybody coming to you?
[01:13:46]  No, no, no.
[01:13:48]  No one asked us for donations.
[01:13:49]  So do you sit in the back of your mind?
[01:13:52]  Because right afterwards, how much after this did the government start knocking on your door to start saying, hey, We noticed Binance is doing XYZ.
[01:14:01]  How soon after this did they come after you?
[01:14:07]  I think the timing wise is very coincidental.
[01:14:10]  But yeah, I mean, we were outside of the US.
[01:14:13]  I didn't make trips to Washington, D.C. at all.
[01:14:16]  Sam Beckerman was making all those trips.
[01:14:18]  So no one asked us to even donate.
[01:14:20]  We're also foreign.
[01:14:21]  I'm not a US citizen, I'm Canadian.
[01:14:23]  So we didn't get asked.

=== DOJ Negotiations Begin (03:59) ===

[01:14:27]  But I think there's definitely, I don't know if there's any correlation, but the timing is coincidental.
[01:14:32]  We got a lot more scrutiny.
[01:14:34]  From the USSCC, from the other US agencies on us.
[01:14:38]  Of course, you just took away one of their biggest.
[01:14:40]  He was the biggest guy giving money to them.
[01:14:43]  You just took that money away.
[01:14:44]  You're not going to make friends by doing that.
[01:14:46]  Again, I don't think I took them away.
[01:14:49]  His business crashed.
[01:14:49]  I get what you're saying.
[01:14:50]  No, but in their eyes, they don't look at it that way.
[01:14:53]  In their eyes, it's what are you doing?
[01:14:54]  This guy's giving us money.
[01:14:56]  Knock it off.
[01:14:57]  And so they probably immediately wanted to target you because you put their biggest backer out.
[01:15:03]  So you're not making friends with the Democratic Party.
[01:15:06]  Yeah, well, this happened at the end of 2022.
[01:15:08]  By early 2023, BUSD, what we call the Binance USD stablecoin, was shut down.
[01:15:16]  And then June, I think USACC sued Binance.
[01:15:19]  Binance US, myself.
[01:15:20]  23.
[01:15:21]  23.
[01:15:21]  So six months after this.
[01:15:23]  So then there you go.
[01:15:24]  So then that makes sense.
[01:15:25]  So six months after this, they come after you and they come after Binance.
[01:15:30]  Pretty much, yeah.
[01:15:31]  And this was around the 100,000, what is it, the transactions with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with, you know, with who is it, Al Qaeda?
[01:15:41]  No, I'm sorry, ISIS.
[01:15:42]  Is that what caused it?
[01:15:44]  I actually don't even know what those transactions are.
[01:15:45]  But yeah, there were negative articles about those things.
[01:15:49]  Yeah, because there was something that, I think I saw a chief compliance officer saying in an email threat that, hey, these guys are making such little transactions, they can't even afford to buy an AK 47, something like that, in an email exchange with a compliance office.
[01:16:03]  They show the picture.
[01:16:04]  It's public right now, so it's not like I'm reading anything that's not public.
[01:16:08]  So when they first approached you, at what point did you know this is real?
[01:16:14]  Because I'm sure when you're big, like, you know, we run small, I've been running an insurance company for 20 years.
[01:16:19]  We get lawsuits, stuff that comes up, and you're like, okay, yeah, let's call this.
[01:16:23]  But sometimes you get something like, this is serious.
[01:16:25]  When did you know this was serious?
[01:16:26]  Early 2023.
[01:16:28]  So I think it was January, February 2023.
[01:16:31]  My legal team says, look, the DOJ wants to, the DOJ has a case and they're pretty serious and they want to get to a deal.
[01:16:42]  So that's 2023 was when the negotiation.
[01:16:45]  Look at Garland.
[01:16:46]  This is Garland.
[01:16:47]  This is Arnold Garland.
[01:16:48]  Yeah.
[01:16:48]  Yeah, this is Garland.
[01:16:49]  And so his team is reaching out to your team.
[01:16:53]  Yeah, I think people like, Probably three or four levels below him.
[01:16:59]  Did they at all reach out to you in 2022?
[01:17:02]  I think there were some communications with our teams in 2022, but I think my involvement with the US DOJ negotiations started kind of in 2023.
[01:17:12]  Okay.
[01:17:12]  So, and then, you know, so when that comes in, you're starting to see their team, you know, three, four layers down, they're coming to you.
[01:17:19]  Is it CZ, man, this is urgent, man.
[01:17:22]  We got this could be very nasty, very ugly.
[01:17:25]  At this point, is it getting public already?
[01:17:28]  Is the entire market reacting to it?
[01:17:29]  Is the market writing about it or not yet?
[01:17:32]  Not yet.
[01:17:33]  Most of the negotiations were done privately.
[01:17:35]  The market didn't know about it.
[01:17:36]  And yeah, it was done privately.
[01:17:39]  Do you feel the negotiation with them and your legal team was fair?
[01:17:42]  Did you feel that there was some animosity?
[01:17:44]  Did you feel some things that was unfair?
[01:17:47]  How did you process it when their team was working with you?
[01:17:50]  Fair or not, I think, is very subjective, right?
[01:17:52]  So on the receiving end, you always feel a bit unfair.
[01:17:59]  But they were extremely aggressive.
[01:18:02]  And the comment I heard most from my lawyers was like, no, they've never seen a case where a government takes a BSA, Banking Secrecy Act violation, this aggressively.
[01:18:12]  Yeah, so.
[01:18:14]  And what was it about?
[01:18:15]  What was the main premise of the case?
[01:18:18]  At the beginning, my personal thought is well, they said, well, Binance violated the BSA Act, which I don't dispute, right?

=== Fairness in Legal Battles (04:52) ===

[01:18:26]  We had US users in the first two years of our operations when we started in Asia, and we were like a technology platform.
[01:18:34]  So that part is fine.
[01:18:36]  They really try to say look, Binance facilitated terrorist financing or actively facilitated illicit transactions.
[01:18:44]  Binance never does that.
[01:18:45]  I never do that.
[01:18:48]  It's not my business.
[01:18:49]  It's not in my interest.
[01:18:51]  I don't even facilitate good transactions myself.
[01:18:53]  It doesn't scale.
[01:18:54]  So I don't handle VIP one wants to do a $10 million buy.
[01:18:59]  I handle it myself.
[01:19:00]  We have a platform that people use.
[01:19:04]  So those allegations were, I think, quite extremely unreasonable.
[01:19:10]  And to some extent, I think they were just hostile towards crypto, and we're the largest player in crypto.
[01:19:16]  Got it.
[01:19:17]  So facilitating was the issue.
[01:19:20]  And I think if I saw the number, it was $8 billion, is what they said, the total number was.
[01:19:25]  And if we say $8 billion, $8 billion on $135, $125 trillion of money being moved, $8 billion may sound like a lot of money, but $8 billion on $125 is not a lot of money.
[01:19:36]  It's not like it's going to impact your revenue in a major way.
[01:19:39]  So, you know, one could speculate and say, all right, they were targeting.
[01:19:44]  That shouldn't have happened because, you know, 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.
[01:19:54]  Did you eventually, after that, create some controls that now triggers when something like that happens?
[01:19:58]  Like, will you be able to tell, or can somebody still be able to create transactions without you guys catching it?
[01:20:05]  Well, I think I'm no longer running Binance anymore, but I think they have a very, very strong compliance program.
[01:20:12]  The compliance program is probably stronger than any bank in the world.
[01:20:16]  The thing is, though, as strong as that is, no compliance program can be 100%.
[01:20:21]  So, compliance programs rely on third party tools like Chain Analysis, Elliptic.
[01:20:26]  To do the blockchain analysis to detect the transactions.
[01:20:29]  And sometimes they're slow.
[01:20:30]  Sometimes, like, you know, when you call them today, when the transaction is happening, they say, okay, it's not a problem.
[01:20:34]  And then 10 days later, when that address interacts with other addresses, then the label that address is bad, right?
[01:20:39]  So it can be slow.
[01:20:40]  It can be like days later that, you know, the label.
[01:20:43]  Banks deal with the salt attempt.
[01:20:44]  Chase deals with the salt attempt as well.
[01:20:46]  So no matter how good of a compliance you create, you're going to go through it.
[01:20:49]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:20:50]  So as you said, like, no, there's no way to block it 100%.
[01:20:53]  But if you look at the percentages of what we call bad or illicit transactions, It's much lower in crypto.
[01:21:00]  In crypto, I think Chain Analysis' own report.
[01:21:03]  Chain Analysis is a third party blockchain compliance tool that all the US agencies use.
[01:21:11]  So, their own report says only 0.41% of the transactions in crypto may be illicit, whereas in traditional finance, there's 2% to 5%.
[01:21:21]  So, this is like two orders of magnitude difference.
[01:21:25]  So, the percentage of transactions in crypto are much, much less.
[01:21:29]  In terms of illicit transactions.
[01:21:30]  Yeah.
[01:21:31]  Yeah.
[01:21:31]  And then I saw this.
[01:21:33]  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.
[01:21:39]  I'm sure it also brought more highlight on getting compliance tighter.
[01:21:43]  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.
[01:21:55]  And then you think the company paid $4.3 billion, and I think you paid $50 million or so.
[01:22:00]  And then you did four months where you went away, right?
[01:22:03]  This whole thing.
[01:22:04]  Rob, do you have that clip of Merrick Garland when he's announcing this?
[01:22:07]  Did you ever meet Merrick Garland or no?
[01:22:08]  You guys have never had any interaction.
[01:22:10]  No, never.
[01:22:10]  So you're not in texting mode.
[01:22:12]  You guys don't text each other.
[01:22:13]  No, no, no, no.
[01:22:13]  Yeah.
[01:22:14]  Yeah.
[01:22:14]  It was interesting when he did this to brag about it.
[01:22:16]  So when this is going on, is it having a negative impact on Binance's business itself?
[01:22:24]  Oh, yeah.
[01:22:24]  It is.
[01:22:25]  For sure.
[01:22:25]  So you're seeing customers going away to a different place when this is going on?
[01:22:28]  For sure.
[01:22:29]  Yeah.
[01:22:29]  Yeah.
[01:22:29]  Okay.
[01:22:30]  And how big was the impact?
[01:22:33]  I would say, well, Binance, it's hard to measure, but Binance lost most of the banking rails, both globally, and Binance US lost all the banking rails in the US.
[01:22:45]  So Binance US actually became a crypto to crypto only business.
[01:22:48]  It doesn't have US dollars.
[01:22:50]  Put that to numbers, like the audience knows.
[01:22:52]  How much revenue did you lose?
[01:22:54]  How much dollar business was lost?
[01:22:55]  Binance US lost probably 99% of the revenue.
[01:22:58]  And how much is that?
[01:22:59]  How much is that revenue?
[01:23:00]  I think, well, I don't have the revenue numbers on top of my head.
[01:23:06]  Binance US raised around in 2021 at a $4.5 billion valuation.
[01:23:10]  They probably lost 99% of that value at one point.
[01:23:14]  Wow.
[01:23:14]  Okay.
[01:23:15]  So it was a real impact to the company.
[01:23:17]  Oh, yeah.
[01:23:17]  This is real dollars.

=== Revenue Loss and Impact (07:27) ===

[01:23:19]  Got it.
[01:23:19]  And so, you know, and so when that happens, Rob, do you have the part when he says it or no?
[01:23:23]  Because it's like a, you know, it's a, you know, the way he says it, you can tell he is celebrating that he hurt somebody.
[01:23:32]  He's celebrating that he hurt somebody.
[01:23:35]  But you're saying, because earlier on the podcast when we started, I asked you about living in America versus living in UAE.
[01:23:42]  You said, if you asked me this in 2022, no, U.S. wasn't a place to live.
[01:23:46]  Now, the last 18 months, America is a much better place to live than it was a few years ago, three years ago.
[01:23:53]  Why?
[01:23:54]  Why would you say it's different today than then?
[01:23:57]  I mean, today, U.S. is pro crypto, and President Trump gave me a pardon.
[01:24:01]  So it's 180 degrees different from 2021, 2022.
[01:24:06]  We were dealing with negotiations with a very hostile DOJ.
[01:24:11]  And the US was clearly, and not just us, right?
[01:24:14]  SEC sued a bunch of other crypto companies.
[01:24:17]  There's probably more than like two dozen lawsuits from SEC.
[01:24:20]  And some of them are US, but many of them are US companies too.
[01:24:24]  So, yeah, so the environment is just a very different environment.
[01:24:28]  Yeah, hopefully, like, no, I think, but to the credit of the US, the US Constitution, I didn't realize this before.
[01:24:35]  I thought, like, no, for the next 20 years, I'm just not going to set foot in the US.
[01:24:39]  But here I am.
[01:24:40]  So the US Constitution baked in a self correcting mechanism.
[01:24:44]  So, every four years there's an election.
[01:24:46]  And you can be very wrong for the four years, and then there's a point where people can vote.
[01:24:52]  So, yeah, this amazed me actually.
[01:24:54]  The Constitution here in the States?
[01:24:56]  The Constitution.
[01:24:56]  Interesting.
[01:24:57]  I think the Constitution of the United States is a very, very strong piece of paper.
[01:25:01]  That's probably even stronger than the Bitcoin paper.
[01:25:04]  That's powerful.
[01:25:06]  But to get the context of dates right, so when do you go away?
[01:25:10]  When do you get the pardon?
[01:25:12]  So, I arrived in the US November 21st, 2023.
[01:25:18]  And then I was supposed to be sentenced going through the court.
[01:25:21]  I was sentenced on April 30th, 2024.
[01:25:25]  I went to, I think I self surrendered to prison on May 30th, 2024.
[01:25:32]  I got out of prison on September 27th, 2024.
[01:25:36]  So I did four months there.
[01:25:38]  And then I think in October 21st, 2025, I got the presidential pardon.
[01:25:45]  So, yeah.
[01:25:46]  So, a year later.
[01:25:47]  A year later.
[01:25:48]  But what is the big deal about getting a pardon, though, a year later?
[01:25:50]  Like, what does it do?
[01:25:51]  What benefit that you're not a US citizen, you don't live here, who cares about getting a pardon?
[01:25:55]  Why was that such a big deal?
[01:25:56]  It's a big deal.
[01:25:57]  It's a big deal.
[01:25:58]  Without a pardon, I'm labeled as a felon.
[01:26:01]  So I have a criminal record, right?
[01:26:03]  And then, especially in my industry where we deal with finances, where we get financial licenses, my ability to, what they call the fit and proper as a UBO, ultimate beneficiary owner, is significantly impacted.
[01:26:16]  That means I cannot be a shareholder of many of our businesses.
[01:26:21]  We will limit our ability to get licenses.
[01:26:23]  This is not just in the US, this is global.
[01:26:26]  And in the US, even more.
[01:26:28]  After the pardon, this goes away.
[01:26:31]  It's a full unconditional pardon.
[01:26:33]  And yeah, so the pardon is the big deal.
[01:26:37]  With the pardon, we don't get the fines back, but still, it's a big deal that we get our name cleared.
[01:26:43]  Got it.
[01:26:44]  So it helps you out for licensing and the way the US qualifies you, the rest of the world will pay attention to it.
[01:26:51]  So it kind of opens the market up for you that if you choose to get back into business, you can.
[01:26:55]  Yes.
[01:26:56]  Yes.
[01:26:57]  Okay.
[01:26:58]  But you have to step down as the CEO of Binance.
[01:27:02]  Yes, when I step, yeah, yes, that's true.
[01:27:05]  What can you do?
[01:27:06]  What can you not do with Binance?
[01:27:09]  I actually have a legal opinion from my lawyers, but basically, largely, my shareholder rights are intact.
[01:27:16]  But now, given the pardon, I believe I have a lot more freedom, but I still don't run Binance.
[01:27:22]  So, yeah, so, and also the company still have two monitors on them, et cetera.
[01:27:28]  So there's still some limitations, but largely, I, Nowadays, I actually don't really want to run Binance either.
[01:27:36]  Could you, after getting the pardon, could you now go back and be the CEO of Binance or you couldn't do it legally?
[01:27:44]  I think there's still some restrictions around that.
[01:27:46]  Is it permanent or is there a time on it?
[01:27:50]  I actually need to check with the lawyers.
[01:27:53]  Nothing is really permanent in my opinion.
[01:27:57]  But I believe that there's still some restrictions today.
[01:28:00]  So in five years, would it be a.
[01:28:04]  Impossible thing that we get news that says CZ makes a comeback and he's the CEO of Binance.
[01:28:09]  Is there a possibility that that could happen?
[01:28:11]  A very small possibility.
[01:28:13]  I think even if you don't have the itch to come back at all.
[01:28:15]  Even if I could, I probably like Binance are very strong leaders now.
[01:28:19]  They run the company much better than if I were to go back.
[01:28:23]  I view myself as more of a zero to one kind of guy, where from like one to 100, there are other people who are.
[01:28:28]  To say that, that's not easy to say.
[01:28:30]  Most people don't have the.
[01:28:31]  That's why you're not an ego guy, though.
[01:28:33]  For you to be able to say that, the average guy can't say something like that.
[01:28:36]  That I'm not a you, I'm a normal guy, like I'm not, yeah.
[01:28:39]  You're not a normal guy, you know, to say you know zero to one, you know, and you're not a one to 100.
[01:28:44]  Uh, yeah, very few founders can say that.
[01:28:46]  Uh, it, I think it's my personality, right?
[01:28:49]  I like to 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.
[01:28:57]  Uh, when I see like you know, even if sometimes I hear about what's happening in Binance and I there's a bureaucracy that drives me nuts, yeah, right?
[01:29:05]  Yeah, I can only imagine that, but it's probably got to be also a little bit uh.
[01:29:10]  Relieved to not have to make any decisions.
[01:29:13]  You're free.
[01:29:14]  They have to do it.
[01:29:15]  You're free.
[01:29:15]  You're doing your own thing.
[01:29:16]  And, you know, they're going to have to run the company and you still are majority shareholders.
[01:29:20]  So if the company goes to half a trillion, you're going to be benefiting from it.
[01:29:24]  So that's a good place to be.
[01:29:26]  So, okay.
[01:29:26]  So this happens.
[01:29:28]  You're off.
[01:29:28]  By the way, did you ever meet with the president?
[01:29:30]  Have you and the president ever met or no?
[01:29:32]  No.
[01:29:33]  I saw him in person in Davos where he was on stage and I was in the audience.
[01:29:37]  We didn't say hi.
[01:29:38]  What interview was this?
[01:29:41]  This is last year.
[01:29:41]  This is Davos last year.
[01:29:42]  Oh, this is Davos last year.
[01:29:44]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:29:44]  This year, actually, it was in January, right?
[01:29:46]  This is the one where Newsom was standing on the side and didn't let him give one of the talks.
[01:29:49]  Yes.
[01:29:50]  The controversy there.
[01:29:51]  Yes.
[01:29:51]  Did you see Newsom?
[01:29:52]  No, I didn't see Newsom.
[01:29:53]  Did any of the Democratic guys approach you and recognize you?
[01:29:57]  Did they come up to you?
[01:29:58]  No.
[01:29:59]  At least they didn't come and talk to me.
[01:30:01]  I was only there for one day.
[01:30:03]  I was only there for, like, no.
[01:30:04]  Did you speak, or was it just a networking dinner, conversations?
[01:30:07]  I was there for a dinner, and I spoke on stage for a little bit.
[01:30:10]  I was on a panel, and then.
[01:30:12]  And then I had the Andrew Tolkien's interview with CNBC.
[01:30:15]  So I did those three things.
[01:30:17]  I flew out.
[01:30:18]  Is this it?
[01:30:19]  This is Free Man, Binance Renatuna.
[01:30:21]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:30:23]  This was outside.
[01:30:24]  So the sun, like my glasses look good on you, buddy.
[01:30:27]  I got to tell you, you look good with those glasses on.
[01:30:29]  It's the same glasses.
[01:30:30]  Is it?
[01:30:30]  Except that one, it's the same.
[01:30:32]  In the sun, it turns dark.
[01:30:33]  Okay, well, that dark look is a good look.
[01:30:36]  You got a James Bond looking look going on there for you.
[01:30:39]  But by the way, you want to play that Merrick Garland clip?
[01:30:41]  I just love the way he says it.
[01:30:43]  Like he is celebrating your fall, right?
[01:30:46]  Is this it, Rob?

=== Mystery of the 10 People (05:09) ===

[01:30:47]  I believe so.
[01:30:47]  Okay, go for it.
[01:30:48]  Binance has agreed to plead guilty to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act, knowingly failing to register as a money transmitting.
[01:30:57]  Business.
[01:30:58]  Go to the part about the biggest fine.
[01:31:00]  It was a seven second clip.
[01:31:02]  Fine.
[01:31:04]  Billions of dollars.
[01:31:04]  No, I wanted to get to the clip.
[01:31:06]  Okay, you don't have the clip.
[01:31:06]  It's okay.
[01:31:07]  We don't have to show it.
[01:31:07]  So he's not a very much liked guy.
[01:31:11]  He did a lot of weird things when he had power.
[01:31:14]  And he was one of those guys that wanted to use his power to take down different guys.
[01:31:19]  And if you weren't willing to help them out and you took their biggest donor, I wouldn't be surprised if he got a call from somebody to say, let's target CZ.
[01:31:26]  Not saying the stuff that you guys did, you know, didn't probably break a couple.
[01:31:32]  Laws that we have because of the transfers that were taking place.
[01:31:35]  But still, you could tell they were interested in targeting a guy like you.
[01:31:39]  Yeah.
[01:31:39]  Till the last minute, they wanted to protect SPF.
[01:31:41]  Sorry?
[01:31:43]  You were going to say something.
[01:31:44]  Yeah.
[01:31:45]  No, they even attacked President Trump, right?
[01:31:47]  Yeah.
[01:31:48]  President Trump got criminal charges for bringing a document to his bathroom.
[01:31:53]  Yeah.
[01:31:55]  No, they tried to destroy the president.
[01:31:59]  And the good thing about the market is, like you said, the Constitution.
[01:32:03]  It's interesting for you to say how powerful the Constitution is to go from there to where it's at today.
[01:32:07]  Relationship with Trump, there's a conversation about the fact that you helped them with a technology that they have.
[01:32:13]  What is the relationship with you and the family?
[01:32:15]  There's basically no relationship.
[01:32:17]  So there's no business relationships, there's no commercial relations.
[01:32:21]  What is that company's name?
[01:32:22]  There's a company name that they talk about.
[01:32:24]  Something Liberty, right?
[01:32:25]  World Liberty Finance.
[01:32:26]  Yeah.
[01:32:27]  What's the relationship with you and World Liberty Finance?
[01:32:30]  We don't have any relationships.
[01:32:34]  Yeah, I think they, when they said, so World Liberty Finance issues a stable coin called USD1.
[01:32:39]  And USD1 is deployed on BNB Chain, which is a public blockchain that anyone can deploy a smart contract.
[01:32:45]  The smart contract is open source.
[01:32:47]  And BNB Chain's developers probably give them like a sample code, which is pretty much publicly available.
[01:32:55]  So that's probably what they were referring to, making up a story saying, and this has nothing to do with Binance, nothing to do with me personally.
[01:33:03]  So we don't have any stake in USD1 or World Liberty Finance.
[01:33:06]  They don't have a stake in us.
[01:33:08]  There were reports about, you know, there was a deal about giving some equity of Binance or Binance US to get a pardon.
[01:33:13]  There's no such transactions.
[01:33:15]  They don't own any equity in any of those entities.
[01:33:18]  Yeah, that's a story that you'll see all over the place the fact that, hey, this was a back deal.
[01:33:22]  You helped them out.
[01:33:23]  This was their way in exchange for the pardon that you got, et cetera, et cetera.
[01:33:31]  But let me ask you the next question here in regards to Satoshi Nakamoto.
[01:33:35]  Okay, article comes out recently.
[01:33:37]  Okay, I don't know if you, I'm sure you saw that.
[01:33:39]  Where it says Adam Back.
[01:33:40]  Is it Adam?
[01:33:42]  Adam Back.
[01:33:42]  Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto.
[01:33:45]  Now he comes out and he says that's not true.
[01:33:46]  But by the way, people have been saying this about him for 15 years.
[01:33:49]  So it's not like it's a new thing.
[01:33:50]  The typical name is he's one of them.
[01:33:53]  And then they'll talk about Hal Finney as another one.
[01:33:55]  And there's a couple other guys.
[01:33:56]  Do you care to know who it is?
[01:33:58]  I prefer not to know.
[01:34:00]  Okay.
[01:34:00]  So you're part of the camp that says I prefer not to know.
[01:34:02]  Yeah.
[01:34:02]  I think it's better if we don't know who he is and he doesn't come back.
[01:34:05]  He doesn't come back and become active again.
[01:34:07]  Do you think there's a chance that it's him?
[01:34:09]  There's always a chance.
[01:34:10]  There's always a chance that it's Hal Finney.
[01:34:12]  I think Hal Finney probably has a higher chance.
[01:34:15]  Then Adam Back, really?
[01:34:16]  I think so, yeah.
[01:34:18]  Yeah.
[01:34:21]  A lot of will make a lot of sense because he, I think he passed away in 2013 or 2014, yeah, early, right?
[01:34:28]  And his background matches and he went away basically, right?
[01:34:32]  So all of that matches what we're seeing.
[01:34:37]  If it's Adam back, then he's very good at hiding his trail digitally, which is extremely difficult in today's world.
[01:34:44]  But Adam is a big contributor in the crypto ecosystem.
[01:34:48]  So there's a chance it could be him that he just does a very good job of concealing it.
[01:34:53]  You'd be fantastic.
[01:34:54]  But I, yeah, there could be a few other potential people too.
[01:34:58]  Your number one pick is it could be Hal Finney.
[01:35:01]  If I were to pick one person, that would be Hal Finney.
[01:35:03]  But it could be a group of people.
[01:35:04]  It could even be software from the future.
[01:35:07]  Who knows?
[01:35:07]  Yeah, I saw you saying that.
[01:35:09]  Software from the future came back, AI agent, and kind of wrote the thing to create this forum.
[01:35:16]  In regards to Adam Back and Hal Finney, when you hear the stories with who could be behind it, You know, they said it was 10 people that exchange emails.
[01:35:26]  It's about 10 people that could know it.
[01:35:30]  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?
[01:35:36]  You got to respect these 10 people.
[01:35:39]  I think it was 10 people who have email exchanges with Satoshi, but they don't even know though.
[01:35:44]  So even the 10 don't know who it is.
[01:35:45]  I don't think so.
[01:35:46]  Because he used the pseudonym, so nobody would know.
[01:35:48]  They just receive an email, they can respond, but they never met him.
[01:35:50]  They don't know anything about it.
[01:35:52]  You can't like track it where it's coming from to see who it is.
[01:35:55]  I mean, yeah, yeah.

=== No Obsession for Lambos (02:45) ===

[01:35:56]  You know, so, okay.
[01:35:57]  So you have enough money right now to do a lot of weird things, but you choose not to, right?
[01:36:02]  You don't have Ferraris.
[01:36:03]  No.
[01:36:03]  You don't have Lambos.
[01:36:05]  No.
[01:36:05]  You don't have crazy watches.
[01:36:06]  No.
[01:36:07]  Do you have a crazy art collection?
[01:36:08]  No, I don't.
[01:36:09]  I don't care.
[01:36:11]  So, 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?
[01:36:18]  Is there any interest in anything physical?
[01:36:21]  I own functional things.
[01:36:23]  I like, no, I like enjoying outdoor sports.
[01:36:26]  I feel like, no, I can still enjoy them for maybe one or two decades and then I'll get too old.
[01:36:30]  So, might as well enjoy them.
[01:36:31]  Like, I like skiing, snowboarding, kitesurfing.
[01:36:36]  And just other than that, just know I have a very small home gym, like much smaller than this studio, and they just do some weights.
[01:36:44]  And then the rest of the time, I just enjoy hanging out with the family.
[01:36:47]  So, I don't have any crazy obsessions.
[01:36:49]  But I do, I'm not a, as I said earlier, I'm not a pure minimalist.
[01:36:54]  I spend, I have a bunch of junk in my home, but they're not that expensive.
[01:36:59]  What do you drive?
[01:37:00]  I have a Toyota van.
[01:37:02]  I actually have a Lexus van now.
[01:37:05]  You upgraded.
[01:37:06]  Yeah.
[01:37:06]  I would just smurge.
[01:37:07]  You bought a Lexus van?
[01:37:10]  The Lexus van is a new one.
[01:37:11]  Yeah, this one.
[01:37:11]  You drive a Lexus van?
[01:37:13]  Yeah.
[01:37:13]  Well, I usually sit in the back.
[01:37:15]  I have a driver.
[01:37:16]  So that's another luxury.
[01:37:19]  But this van has a seat that goes flat.
[01:37:22]  That's my requirement for a car.
[01:37:24]  Because I have a back.
[01:37:25]  My back is not so good.
[01:37:26]  So I like to, especially on longer trips, if I drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, et cetera, for an hour, I like to lay down flat.
[01:37:33]  That's my requirement, but I'm happy with a van.
[01:37:36]  I actually, like, until very recently, I've never, I don't think I've ever sat in a Lambo yet.
[01:37:42]  Stop it.
[01:37:43]  I don't think I've, I've sat in a Ferrari a couple of times, my friend's Ferrari.
[01:37:47]  I've never sat in a Lambo or a Ferrari, a Lambo yet.
[01:37:49]  I don't think I've ever sat in a Lambo.
[01:37:50]  No interest.
[01:37:51]  My friend, another friend of mine has a Porsche.
[01:37:54]  I sat in it.
[01:37:55]  It's like very uncomfortable.
[01:37:56]  It's like you gotta, it's, it's, it's.
[01:37:58]  These crazy people that drive Porsches, right?
[01:38:00]  They've lost their minds.
[01:38:01]  And they drive super fast.
[01:38:02]  Yeah.
[01:38:03]  Who wants to drive fast?
[01:38:04]  Like, who wants?
[01:38:05]  Yeah.
[01:38:05]  You get your license suspended, reckless driving.
[01:38:07]  Yeah.
[01:38:07]  Get your act together, right, people?
[01:38:09]  Yeah.
[01:38:09]  So, like for me, I enjoy, even when I enjoy outdoor sports like high surfing, I don't go very fast.
[01:38:14]  I'm scared, like, heating the water, like, you know, really hard.
[01:38:16]  I just chill, right?
[01:38:17]  I'm here.
[01:38:18]  How big is the house you live in?
[01:38:20]  The house is decent.
[01:38:22]  It's like, I don't know how to convert it.
[01:38:25]  20,000 square foot house?
[01:38:26]  Is it like?
[01:38:27]  It's about 20,000 square foot.
[01:38:28]  So it's a good house you got.
[01:38:29]  At least you got a nice house.
[01:38:30]  Yeah, but the house is like 15 years old and the water leaks.
[01:38:33]  In my living room, like right beside the table, there's like two stains on the floor of the water leak from the second floor.

=== Rejecting Luxury Cars (15:39) ===

[01:38:41]  Doesn't bother you.
[01:38:43]  I would wish that it didn't leak all the time, but it happens.
[01:38:46]  But it's functional.
[01:38:48]  I got a lot of rooms.
[01:38:49]  I got like eight or nine rooms.
[01:38:51]  So, just good for a large family, everybody.
[01:38:54]  But it's not a fancy house.
[01:38:55]  So, 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.
[01:39:05]  That's not you.
[01:39:05]  No, that's not you.
[01:39:06]  You're not going to go buy a copy of the Constitution that is, you know, it's been.
[01:39:10]  I don't collect art.
[01:39:11]  I don't collect anything.
[01:39:12]  I don't collect stuff.
[01:39:13]  And, like, no, even.
[01:39:14]  Yeah.
[01:39:14]  So, I'm just not a collector.
[01:39:17]  Yeah.
[01:39:17]  Wow.
[01:39:18]  What's the craziest thing you spurged on?
[01:39:20]  Anything?
[01:39:22]  Nothing too crazy.
[01:39:25]  Nothing too crazy.
[01:39:27]  Yeah.
[01:39:27]  Wow.
[01:39:29]  So it's kind of weird because, you know, for the average person, like, you know what, if I win the lottery, I'm going to buy this, I'm going to buy that, I'm going to buy that.
[01:39:37]  Oh, I guess, you know, if you ask that detailed question, I do fly private, right, which is quite expensive.
[01:39:44]  But I don't want to go through the airport.
[01:39:46]  I get recognized and then people want to talk to you on the airplane the whole way.
[01:39:49]  Yeah.
[01:39:50]  So for the privacy and security, I do fly private.
[01:39:54]  So that you fly it or you bought a jet?
[01:39:57]  Uh, I think I have a long lease.
[01:39:59]  Actually, my is I have a long lease on a jet or something.
[01:40:01]  Okay, got it through a company, yeah.
[01:40:03]  Yeah, so it and you've said something where you know of your wealth at the end you're going to give 99% of it away, yeah, yeah.
[01:40:09]  Why would you give it away?
[01:40:11]  I don't think I can spend more than one percent myself.
[01:40:14]  Uh, so uh, and I want to use money for I think money is money is an enabler for you to well take care of yourself and then do impactful stuff.
[01:40:24]  I think we get a lot of.
[01:40:25]  Intrinsic reward when we can do positive stuff for our society.
[01:40:28]  Basically, we can, we contribute it, and then we leave.
[01:40:32]  So I think I should try to make the money to work.
[01:40:38]  It's actually very hard work to make money to do positive things, to make the maximum positive impact.
[01:40:45]  I read this book on legacy planning, estate planning, and it said one of the worst things you can do at the end of your life is give the money to charity because.
[01:40:56]  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.
[01:41:04]  And then eventually they could be putting money into causes that you never supported.
[01:41:09]  Like Henry Ford started a charity back in the days.
[01:41:13]  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.
[01:41:22]  And, you know, because they needed the money, all the stuff that was going on.
[01:41:25]  So he's like, we got to make some adjustments.
[01:41:26]  They start a charity.
[01:41:28]  And then he goes from three people, him and his, you know, they're making the main decisions.
[01:41:32]  And then he decides to add a board of nine.
[01:41:34]  And then all of a sudden he starts noticing the money they're putting into it.
[01:41:37]  He's like, I never supported stuff like this.
[01:41:38]  We no longer have control over it.
[01:41:40]  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 a creator with a guy like you.
[01:41:54]  So you're going to have a hard time.
[01:41:55]  You're young right now, so your money is going to be a lot of money.
[01:41:57]  You're probably by the time you're done, you're going to be a trillionaire.
[01:42:00]  So, where that money is going to go to.
[01:42:03]  It's a scary thought given a charity and they put the money in places you may not agree with.
[01:42:07]  Actually, I agree with you that I actually hope to give that money away while I'm alive.
[01:42:11]  Okay, because you know who they are.
[01:42:13]  Yeah.
[01:42:14]  That's great.
[01:42:14]  Yeah, I'm with that because maybe building a museum, schools, you know, universities, something like, you ever been to, what is that museum in LA off the 405 freeway?
[01:42:26]  The Getty Center?
[01:42:26]  You ever been to the Getty Center?
[01:42:28]  I think I have been there 20 years ago.
[01:42:29]  Yeah, me too.
[01:42:30]  I've been there 20 years ago.
[01:42:31]  I've been there.
[01:42:32]  And this guy, J. Paul Getty, when he died, he created a museum that people can go to for free with the most amazing collection there.
[01:42:40]  And I think the dividends or whatever he makes off the money pays for it.
[01:42:44]  So at least that is a cause, right?
[01:42:45]  Yeah.
[01:42:46]  But unfortunately, if you had a museum, it would be an empty museum because you don't collect things.
[01:42:49]  No, I don't.
[01:42:50]  So if we created a car museum, there would be no cars in it.
[01:42:53]  There'd be a Lexus van in there.
[01:42:54]  And they would say, This is CZ's van from Lexus.
[01:42:58]  Class question for you.
[01:42:59]  So you got all these things, and I'm curious to know how you're going to answer this.
[01:43:05]  You got all these things in the world that people want to know about.
[01:43:08]  You know, you have money to be able to get answers to a question.
[01:43:11]  If you could use your resources to find out one thing that is not public to the world, what would it be?
[01:43:17]  Oh, that's an interesting one.
[01:43:23]  That's already known by other people?
[01:43:25]  Not known.
[01:43:26]  But people know, like governments know, societies know, but it's not to the public.
[01:43:30]  Could be assassinations, could be events that took place, could be, you know, you obviously said earlier you're not interested in knowing Satoshi.
[01:43:37]  You could know anything, one fact, moon, anything.
[01:43:41]  What would it be?
[01:43:43]  I think I will probably want to know how the 1971, when we switched off the gold standard.
[01:43:51]  Nixon?
[01:43:51]  What happened kind of behind.
[01:43:53]  The things there, what were these discussions?
[01:43:55]  Out of everything, that's what you would want to know.
[01:43:57]  This is a pretty, I've only had like five seconds to think about it.
[01:44:01]  That's pretty massive.
[01:44:02]  That's one of the things we talk about a lot.
[01:44:04]  Why that?
[01:44:05]  Well, it's very relevant to our industry.
[01:44:07]  I want to know what were the factors forcing the decision to move away from the gold standard.
[01:44:14]  I actually kind of know the background, but I kind of want to know what were the real discussions.
[01:44:18]  The background is no one has enough gold, right?
[01:44:22]  So they want to move it off and the government can print fiat money.
[01:44:26]  But I want to know what the conversations were, et cetera, just to get the real.
[01:44:32]  I wish somebody wrote a book like my book about authentic discussions that happened at the time.
[01:44:40]  Do you think it was a good move or a bad move?
[01:44:42]  Or a necessary move?
[01:44:43]  You didn't have a choice.
[01:44:44]  It's a bit of both, to be honest.
[01:44:46]  I think this pros and cons for that move.
[01:44:48]  But I think just staying on the gold standard probably will limit the economic development.
[01:44:55]  I think some quantitative easing, some inflation is okay, is good, is also maybe necessary.
[01:45:00]  But the problem is, inflation always goes too high too quickly.
[01:45:03]  And then, so this is a balance.
[01:45:07]  I'm not saying zero inflation is the best.
[01:45:11]  Usually, when this kind of thing first happens, very similar to the sort of trust of foundations or a charity that you're talking about, when this thing first starts, they're always with good intentions.
[01:45:19]  But with time, the board changes and the mission moves, and then people get more greedy, and then it's just poorly managed.
[01:45:27]  So that's just human nature that things evolve and often degrade over time.
[01:45:35]  So, I don't think it's a bad move at the time, particularly, but it's hard to maintain that over time.
[01:45:42]  Yeah, I mean, you know, like you say, you're limited, right, on how much you can lend because of limited supply.
[01:45:48]  So, we almost had to get off of it, but once we got off of it, fiat, what is it backed by or promised?
[01:45:54]  And this goes to the Peter Schiff arguments, right?
[01:45:56]  This is why gold, this is why gold, this is why gold.
[01:45:59]  Yeah, but gold has a lot of limits, right?
[01:46:02]  So, like, you know, you don't know whether it's real or not, it's not divisible, it's not transparent.
[01:46:07]  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.
[01:46:10]  Remember when he said that t shirt?
[01:46:11]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:46:12]  He didn't even trust it.
[01:46:12]  I don't even know if this is real gold.
[01:46:14]  Yeah.
[01:46:14]  You're like, no, you paid $130,000 for it at the time, whatever the price was, $4,200.
[01:46:19]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:46:20]  You're right.
[01:46:20]  So, and by the way, even with Nixon, with the whole China deal at the time, because China was weak.
[01:46:25]  Yeah.
[01:46:25]  You know, it was number eight, nine, ten in GDP, and Russia was at the top, and they were worried about USSR and communism and whatever.
[01:46:31]  So let's strengthen these guys.
[01:46:33]  And I look at China now.
[01:46:35]  Yeah.
[01:46:37]  Do you go back to China often or no?
[01:46:40]  Very, like, I haven't been to China for the last seven years or longer.
[01:46:45]  Any reason or no reason?
[01:46:47]  What China has not, China has not, what China actually has explicitly said that they don't allow cryptocurrency exchange businesses, right?
[01:46:55]  So China's banned crypto exchanges.
[01:46:58]  And if I go back, people will know I'm back.
[01:47:00]  People want to have meetings with me.
[01:47:01]  People want to have chats.
[01:47:02]  I don't want to be that seen as like promoting.
[01:47:05]  You're not worried about safety.
[01:47:06]  Like if you go and they'll keep you there, that's not your concern.
[01:47:10]  I'm not sure, to be very frank.
[01:47:11]  Probably not a risk worth taking.
[01:47:16]  Yeah, so, yeah.
[01:47:17]  So, like, look, I don't try to cost.
[01:47:20]  Problems for people.
[01:47:21]  I don't try to go where I'm not welcome, potentially.
[01:47:24]  I think I'm welcome to go, just as a traveler, et cetera.
[01:47:28]  But people will want to meet with me.
[01:47:31]  They will want to talk about crypto.
[01:47:32]  They will want me to go on stage, do a talk.
[01:47:35]  Do you talk to Jack Ma at all or no?
[01:47:38]  No, I've never talked to Jack Ma.
[01:47:40]  I talked to other people very senior at Alibaba.
[01:47:43]  But I never talked to Jack Ma.
[01:47:45]  Really?
[01:47:46]  I thought you guys would have talked for sure.
[01:47:49]  There were a couple potential chances.
[01:47:50]  He visits.
[01:47:52]  Masayoshi-san in Japan, we missed each other by a day.
[01:47:58]  Binance Japan.
[01:47:59]  That'd be an interesting sit-down.
[01:48:00]  That'd be a very interesting sit-down.
[01:48:03]  If you did an event like in Singapore, and for him to fly out, that would be an interesting.
[01:48:11]  I think the world would show up to entertain that conversation.
[01:48:13]  For sure.
[01:48:14]  But I think Jack Ma has also become much more low-key.
[01:48:17]  He has.
[01:48:18]  What happens when you talk a little bit and you say stuff about the government?
[01:48:21]  They may silence you.
[01:48:23]  For whatever reason, he's not much more low key.
[01:48:25]  So I don't think he's going to do too much.
[01:48:27]  It seems like he's not doing too many public talks, et cetera.
[01:48:30]  Do you think there was a conversation behind closed doors?
[01:48:32]  Hey, you better relax and not criticize us?
[01:48:35]  Most likely.
[01:48:36]  Most likely.
[01:48:37]  You never know for sure.
[01:48:38]  Yeah.
[01:48:38]  Because he was everywhere.
[01:48:40]  There was a time that he was one of the main entrepreneur voices.
[01:48:43]  Yeah.
[01:48:43]  And his stuff would go viral all the time.
[01:48:45]  Yeah.
[01:48:46]  And he was a likable guy.
[01:48:47]  He was a guy that you had a sense of humor, you know, personality.
[01:48:50]  So it's interesting.
[01:48:51]  He's been a little bit quiet.
[01:48:53]  Uh, uh, Would China look at you as they made you in their eyes because you were born there?
[01:48:59]  Is it kind of like, hey, we made you, we taught you our values and principles.
[01:49:03]  Without the way of our living, you wouldn't be where you are right now?
[01:49:07]  Is that kind of how they would view it?
[01:49:08]  I don't think so.
[01:49:09]  I left at 12.
[01:49:11]  You don't think that's the pride?
[01:49:12]  Because the temperament you have is a very good temperament.
[01:49:15]  Yeah.
[01:49:17]  Well, when people ask me, do you identify as you asked, do I identify as Chinese or not?
[01:49:24]  Like, ethnicity, I'm definitely Chinese.
[01:49:27]  Education, culture, like, no, the way you think about your value system are really built when you're teenager years.
[01:49:33]  So I spent that in Canada.
[01:49:35]  And then after work, I was like mostly outside of China, right?
[01:49:38]  So most of my work styles are thinking is more capitalism, et cetera.
[01:49:45]  So my way of doing business is much more American than Chinese, I would say.
[01:49:50]  So yeah, so, but I know I have many, many Chinese friends.
[01:49:56]  But there was also another like, no, common attack that people.
[01:50:00]  Try to attack me with is because I look Chinese, I'm part of the CCP or anything like that.
[01:50:05]  That's completely false.
[01:50:07]  It's just.
[01:50:08]  You're part of the CCP.
[01:50:09]  Yeah, this is just completely false.
[01:50:11]  I've been away from China for 30 something years.
[01:50:13]  Our business couldn't operate in China.
[01:50:14]  I'm a business guy.
[01:50:15]  I'm never political.
[01:50:17]  Yeah, so that's also, yeah.
[01:50:18]  So I don't think China will try to view me as a Chinese business.
[01:50:22]  I think we just don't have those touch points.
[01:50:26]  But the likelihood of you taking a trip to China in the next five to 10 years is probably slim to.
[01:50:31]  I'm open to it.
[01:50:32]  Okay.
[01:50:32]  All right.
[01:50:33]  Like, for example, if I get invited, I will go, but I probably wouldn't go unsolicited.
[01:50:38]  So if Zhi invited you, say, hey, we would like to have a meeting, you'd go.
[01:50:41]  Oh, yeah.
[01:50:42]  Well, of course.
[01:50:43]  So if anybody that's in your.
[01:50:44]  Yeah, invites me out.
[01:50:46]  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?
[01:50:51]  Oh, no, no, no.
[01:50:52]  I'm not feeling that.
[01:50:53]  But I don't, I visit countries who are pro crypto.
[01:50:56]  So if China says, look, come in, teach, help us with the crypto regulation, I'd be happy to go.
[01:51:01]  And that's why you're in UAE.
[01:51:02]  You feel safe being there because they're pro crypto.
[01:51:04]  That makes you feel safe.
[01:51:06]  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?
[01:51:12]  I'm just a sore in the eye.
[01:51:13]  CZ, relationship wise, because I'm trying to see the profile that you have with your personality.
[01:51:19]  Do you have close friends who are very, very well known people in business, who are major influencers, like relationship with Musk, relationship with guys like that?
[01:51:31]  Would you consider some of those guys your friends?
[01:51:33]  Yes, yes.
[01:51:34]  So I have friends, mentors, coaches.
[01:51:36]  So I view those guys as more of my mentors.
[01:51:39]  So I have a relationship with Ray Dalio.
[01:51:44]  I met with Larry Fink.
[01:51:45]  Both of them wrote quotes for my book.
[01:51:48]  And many, many, many, many guys like that.
[01:51:51]  Masa from Japan.
[01:51:54]  So many guys like that.
[01:51:56]  Even Eric Schmidt, etc.
[01:51:58]  Eric Schmidt's phenomenal.
[01:51:59]  He's a great guy.
[01:52:01]  And he also knows all the problems.
[01:52:03]  He went through all the problems we're facing.
[01:52:04]  Oh, he's brilliant.
[01:52:06]  When you hear him speak, if you get two, three hours of content, you're going to get smarter on what he does.
[01:52:11]  Ray is phenomenal.
[01:52:11]  We've had him on as well.
[01:52:13]  But there's something different about Schmidt the way he explains operating a business.
[01:52:19]  Eric is much more on operations of a business, especially like a platform.
[01:52:24]  I think.
[01:52:26]  Ray is much more macroeconomics, countries, debts, national bond curves, etc.
[01:52:31]  So he's much more like even politics, geopolitics, tension, war, money, etc.
[01:52:36]  Yeah, he made a video.
[01:52:37]  He made like a 25 minute video on YouTube that's got 40 million views.
[01:52:42]  Rob, can you go to Ray Dalio's YouTube channel?
[01:52:44]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:52:45]  Am I saying it correctly?
[01:52:47]  It's a great, yeah.
[01:52:48]  It's like it's very rare to make a video that long that gets that many views.
[01:52:53]  The cycles?
[01:52:54]  Oh, the cycles.
[01:52:55]  Go to videos and then go to most popular.
[01:52:58]  Holy shit, look at that.
[01:52:59]  Well, it's the second one I was talking about.
[01:53:02]  Does that say 297 million views?
[01:53:04]  Yes, sir.
[01:53:04]  Okay, go to the second one.
[01:53:06]  Look at the second one.
[01:53:06]  That's the one everybody should watch.
[01:53:09]  How long is the video?
[01:53:11]  43 minutes?
[01:53:12]  43 minutes, 165 million views.
[01:53:16]  Principles for Dealing with Changing World Order by Ray Dalio.
[01:53:19]  Yeah, the book is really good too.
[01:53:20]  Yeah, it is.
[01:53:22]  We had every one of our executives read Principle when it first came out.
[01:53:26]  Phenomenal book.
[01:53:27]  Yeah.
[01:53:28]  So, okay, so Ray Dalio.
[01:53:32]  Eric Schmidt and Larry Fink from BlackRock.
[01:53:35]  Any relationship with Warren Buffett?
[01:53:37]  Have you guys had interactions or no?
[01:53:38]  No, zero interactions.
[01:53:39]  Zero.
[01:53:40]  Okay.
[01:53:40]  Again, he's not that hot on crypto.
[01:53:43]  I don't try to actually go to people who are against crypto or anti crypto or skeptical about crypto and try to convince them.
[01:53:50]  I don't try to convince people.
[01:53:52]  I go to people who are willing to learn about crypto, who want to learn, and I go interact with them.
[01:53:56]  Makes sense.
[01:53:57]  Makes sense.
[01:53:58]  And then Musk, because you put a half a million, a half a billion dollars into Twitter when he was going through acquiring it.
[01:54:03]  Yeah.
[01:54:04]  He won the top three, four investors, I think, into that.
[01:54:06]  I think Ellison called him.
[01:54:08]  There's a call that Ellison says, Hey, I'll put some money into it, you know, a billion dollars.
[01:54:13]  And I think Ellison said, Yeah, Elon said, you should put two billion, not a billion.
[01:54:17]  It's like, OK, I'll put two billion dollars into it.
[01:54:19]  It was a funny conversation.

=== Supporting Freedom of Money (02:53) ===

[01:54:21]  So why Musk?
[01:54:22]  Why supportive of Musk and what he's doing?
[01:54:24]  Oh, I think, well, free speech, well, we want to, the title of my book is Freedom of Money, right?
[01:54:31]  So we want to increase the freedom of money for people all around the world.
[01:54:35]  To do that, you have to have freedom of speech, right?
[01:54:39]  To have freedom of speech, you have to have freedom from slavery first.
[01:54:42]  You have to have physical freedom first.
[01:54:43]  And then you have freedom of speech.
[01:54:44]  And then you have freedom of information.
[01:54:46]  And then you have freedom of money.
[01:54:47]  So, supporting freedom of speech is really important.
[01:54:50]  I think the US has very good freedom of speech laws, principles, foundations, et cetera.
[01:54:57]  But Twitter, or now X, is the platform where everyone, quite a lot of the global town square discussions happen.
[01:55:05]  So, I thought that's a fairly meaningful cause for a crypto business to support.
[01:55:12]  Yeah, so that's pretty much it.
[01:55:13]  Yeah.
[01:55:14]  Well, if that doesn't happen, you know, the world's a different place.
[01:55:17]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:55:17]  Because Twitter forced everybody else to be more open to opening up.
[01:55:22]  You know, Facebook, YouTube, everybody.
[01:55:25]  If Elon doesn't do what he does, we're in a very different climate today.
[01:55:30]  Very different climate today.
[01:55:31]  People forget how quickly it was just a few years ago.
[01:55:33]  The president of the United States was suspended from all social media.
[01:55:37]  That's crazy.
[01:55:38]  How the hell, like, when history books write about this, You know, they're going to be like, wait, they suspended who?
[01:55:45]  The US president.
[01:55:46]  Really?
[01:55:47]  Yes.
[01:55:48]  So it was a big deal when that took place.
[01:55:51]  So the book, you want to share with us what some things are going to be in the book?
[01:55:53]  Are we going to get some?
[01:55:56]  Is your car collection in the book in the middle with pages when you open it up?
[01:56:00]  No, I don't have a car collection, right?
[01:56:01]  So yeah.
[01:56:02]  But the book is like a small snippet of my life and my perspective, how I saw things over the last, I don't know, over the last 40, 50 years almost.
[01:56:14]  So, it's really honestly how I saw things and how I experienced things.
[01:56:17]  So, in small snippets, I'm not a great writer.
[01:56:20]  So, it's very basic, simple English.
[01:56:24]  But it's very authentic, I think.
[01:56:26]  It's what I saw.
[01:56:28]  So, I hope people learn about myself, my journey, Binance's journey, and also Crypto's journey through this book.
[01:56:34]  Yeah.
[01:56:35]  Yeah.
[01:56:36]  You're super likable and you're simple, humble, brilliant, even though you don't, you know, you don't, you don't, You make it seem like anybody can start a company and get to 100 billion.
[01:56:49]  You're obviously very brilliant for what you've done and to overcome all the fires that have come your way.
[01:56:53]  So, we're going to put the link below for the audience to be able to go support the book, Freedom of Money.
[01:56:57]  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.
[01:57:07]  And if that ever happens, whatever happens, I want to see the Lexus van in there.
[01:57:12]  I think the Lexus van has to be in there.

=== Press Subscribe to Support (00:50) ===

[01:57:14]  People have to know.
[01:57:14]  And that'll be a big sponsorship from Lexus.
[01:57:16]  Lexus is going to get nice product placement, is what they call it, right?
[01:57:19]  In it.
[01:57:20]  CZ, appreciate you for coming down here.
[01:57:22]  Truly an honor speaking to you.
[01:57:24]  What a great story.
[01:57:24]  Thank you, Patrick.
[01:57:25]  Thank you for having me.
[01:57:26]  It's a great conversation.
[01:57:27]  Anytime.
[01:57:28]  Anytime.
[01:57:28]  Thank you.
[01:57:29]  Thank you.
[01:57:29]  You know, this whole thing with Viked Tim and MPBD podcast started with a phone, me and Mario.
[01:57:33]  That's it.
[01:57:33]  And it grew today to 15 million subscribers almost and 164 full time employees.
[01:57:39]  And that relationship, are you watching us and supporting us?
[01:57:41]  Wouldn't happen without you.
[01:57:43]  But did you know 51% of you that watch the content are not subscribed to the channel?
[01:57:47]  And it would mean the world to us if you could press.
[01:57:50]  That subscribe button and notification.
[01:57:52]  Why?
[01:57:52]  It allows us to grow, hire more, do bigger interviews, have a bigger team, and deliver a better product to you.
[01:57:58]  So if you haven't yet, if you don't mind, press that subscribe button.
[01:58:03]  It would mean the world to us.
[01:58:04]  Thank you so much.