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Binance’s CEO, Richard Teng, spent time with the community on X Spaces on July 16, 2024, answering questions and celebrating Binance’s 7-year anniversary.
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Teng highlighted how Binance has come a long way from its inception in 2017, when crypto was thought broadly as a passing fad, to today when major cryptocurrency ETFs are gaining regulatory approval and massive inflows of capital.
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Binance continues its commitment to serve users by investing heavily in improving products and features, compliance, security and user protection, as well as working closely with regulators all over the world to be able to expand operations into new markets.
What follows is a summary of Binance CEO Richard Teng’s answers to some of the questions he received from users during an AMA on July 16, 2024, which was held in celebration of Binance’s seventh anniversary. Please note that this transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
On Challenges in The Past, Present, and Future
What has been the biggest challenge Binance faced in the past? What is the biggest opportunity you see still untapped for the future?
Richard Teng: “Binance started on 14th of July, 2017 and at that point in time, many people are still very skeptical about crypto. It’s first embraced by retail; and if the corporations, the institutions, the regulators don’t believe you’ll stay, if they believe it’s a passing fad, you’ll go away. So in that big backdrop, there have been a lot of challenges from first building a platform to then trying to work with regulators that don’t believe in it, that try to outlaw it.”
“Another big challenge, you can understand that having a platform that trades 24/7 is very, very demanding. People underestimated it, that any downtime will have a significant impact on all users. If you can’t take positions, if you can’t hedge, if you can’t liquidate given any market event, that would have a significant impact.”
“Moving forward, we will continue to invest heavily in terms of technology and our operational readiness. Secondly, we will improve our product suite and services to serve the different demographics. And we continue to focus a lot on efforts on education, to work closely with regulators, to uphold a very progressive mindset that supports innovation, that supports Web3, which is one of the most important industries together with AI going forward, but at the same time managing risk on that front.”
On Next Big Milestones and Further Expansion
What are the next big milestones or projects that the company is focusing on and for the further expansion, what are those new markets that are attracting your attention?
Richard Teng: “So 2024 is going to be a landmark year. With the approval of ETFs, not only in the US but in places like Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and that list goes on, that itself shows a lot of different symptoms of thinking where Larry Fink, who is the CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world and one of the smartest investors globally, went from a crypto skeptic to a true crypto believer. That scale has changed. So that is very important and it is just the beginning on that front. We are expecting to continue to expand until mainstream adoption is achieved.”
“We do work very closely with governments and policy makers to give them inputs on how to come up with a good framework, a good regulatory framework that on the one hand supports innovation and growth… and on the other hand, we do understand the regulator’s concern about the risk. So we manage those risks.”
On User Safety
What kind of measures will you take to prevent scam, money laundering and increase user safety in the future?
Richard Teng: “We actually spend a lot of time working across the board on that front: preventing scams, illicit activity, hacks, strengthening security measures. We have the most talented team working for us. I will give you an example. Recently, the Turkish crypto exchange BTC Turk was compromised, and our security team acted swiftly and froze over 5.3 million of funds from that attack. And this is only possible because we have a very strong security team and processes, we are always willing to work very closely with the rest of the industry for the greater good of the ecosystem.”
“Our security team has recovered about 55 million in user funds in 2023 due to coordinated efforts. Together with other players, the team has recovered and refunded users over 4.3 billion worth of crypto that’s deposited but not credited for different reasons in the last two years. And we organized many different things like bug bounty programs, capture the flag competition to help enhance our overall platform security even further.”
On The Philippines, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia
Does Binance have plans to return to The Philippines and Malaysia? Does Binance have any specific expansion plans in Southeast Asia?
Richard Teng: “Yes, so in Southeast Asia we are in many places. For example, we have an exchange in Japan, we are approved there, we run an exchange in Indonesia and the like. So Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia are very, very important marketplaces. There are many growth markets that we wish to serve our users closely.”
“The Malaysian community is close to our heart. The Philippines market is very dear to us. What I can say is for any of these markets we are working quite closely where possible with the regulators, with the policymakers to see how we can serve those markets. If there are problems we try to overcome and resolve those problems in a collaborative fashion and we’ll continue to work on that front to see how we can continue to serve our community, our users on a worldwide basis.”
On the Arabic Community
Where do you see the Arabic region in crypto in the future?
Richard Teng: “If you look at the Arab countries and communities very generally, you’re dealing with very young demographics, very savvy demographics who are thirsty for change. Crypto normally has a much higher adoption rate and faster pace of adoption rate where there are two dimensions at play. The first dimension, the younger the demographics, the more savvy the demographics, the faster you see crypto adoption. The second element that affects crypto adoption is also where you have a slightly lower pace of financial inclusion in the country. For example, many countries in the world only have 10 to 20% financial inclusion, and crypto becomes the only means that people can use for payments for transfer of value to preserve value for themselves, especially where the country is going through a hyperinflationary situation. We see crypto in action in many parts of the Arab world on that front and we do see a lot of positives from that. We aim to serve our Arab community better.”
On New Features and Products
This year we see the addition of Binance Square. So what about other additions in the coming years?
Richard Teng: “In the last year alone, I think you see Web3 wallet, you see Binance Square, you see enhancements to copy trading. We roll out mock trading functions and abilities. We enhance our Earn product, but we continue to enhance across our product suite based on user feedback and rigorous internal and external research. So we continue to push on those fronts and it’s not restricted to only retail users.”“I mentioned this year we saw a 36% increase in our institutional users as well. And we roll out new features, new programs on that front to enhance our VIP program to roll out things like the Tri-party arrangement, et cetera, and be it whatever form of users in whatever countries and regions, we do try to make sure that we try to serve you to the best of our ability. We try to understand your needs and try to make enhancements around new features or new products as and when we think that those are things that you want and we can serve you much better using that.”
Final Thoughts
Do you have any final remarks or advice to give to the community before we wrap up?
Richard Teng: “Yes, I think I want to say this: seven years! We are very fortunate to have you alongside us all the way. We are very grateful for your support, your trust and confidence. And we are only here because of you. We will continue to do our best. We will keep building, we’ll keep pushing up with new products and features, asking: How do we serve you even better? We want to be the best platform out there to support you in your crypto journey. So please continue to support us. We’ll keep building together, we’ll keep supporting the freedom of money globally – and it is the best community ever. So I look forward to our next catch-up.”
You can listen to the recording of the AMA in full here.
Further Reading
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Highlights From Richard Teng’s AMA on Binance Reaching 200 Million Users
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From Our CEO: Seven Years at the Frontier of Financial Innovation
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Join the Party as Binance Turns Seven!
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