On April 20th, the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival grandly opened at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. During the afternoon roundtable discussion, Binance Co-CEO He Yi and Wanxiang Blockchain Labs Head Du Yu discussed the theme "From Leap to Reconstruction: The Future of Finance is Being 'Reprogrammed'".
Dialogue Transcript
Du Yu: Hello everyone! I'm Du Yu from Wanxiang Blockchain Labs. I've felt everyone's enthusiasm today. Please say hello to everyone.
He Yi: Hello everyone! I'm Xiao He, Binance's "Chief Customer Service Officer". Thank you!
Du Yu: Over the past year, many interesting things have happened in the industry, especially the impact and opportunities that AI has brought to the industry. I think it's a singularity of diverse convergence, and it's particularly interesting to have a conversation with you here.
Yesterday I watched the AMA and many people asked you a lot of specific questions. Today I'd like to talk more about your perspective on the industry as a whole. In the market environment that has changed over the past six months, what are your personal interests? What new changes in your schedule, or things you think about a lot, that excite you or even make you feel a sense of urgency?
He Yi: Regarding AI, my personal life and time allocation, particularly my work, can be roughly divided into three modules:
First, the approaching singularity of AI is indeed a moment that no one can ignore; it truly is a moment in human history. Therefore, I spend a lot of time thinking about the potential global transformation brought about by AI and the blockchain industry, and by AI and finance, and what the future of finance will look like. This means I need to think about what Binance's products and services will likely look like ten years from now.
Secondly, I think I spend a lot of time thinking about organization and talent. Because we often say that when a company is in its early stages, it may rely on the founder, co-founder, or individual strengths to drive the company's growth; but when the company reaches a certain size, it is actually about organizational effectiveness, how to enable the organization to support itself and grow on its own. This is the part that I have been spending time thinking about and adjusting.
Third, there's the often-discussed further integration between cryptocurrencies and traditional finance. Because of this particular moment, we've seen both the US and Hong Kong governments showing tremendous support and encouragement for the blockchain industry. Therefore, I think we might see a revolutionary change in the entire industry in the future. Often, when the singularity arrives, when the moment arrives, we are often unaware. It might happen on an ordinary day, while we're eating, drinking, and sleeping, but the changes it brings to our lives could mean that all global foreign exchange transactions will take place on the blockchain, no longer relying on the old SWIFT system. We might see all asset transactions no longer limited to a few hours, but rather operating 24/7 globally, like the crypto.
Therefore, we see that the whole world is entering a state of "push-back feeling" at a very high speed.
Du Yu: You just described a very exciting future. Often when we discuss the future, it seems to be something that will happen three, five, or ten years from now. But this year feels different. I think an exponential inflection point is right there, and it could happen today or tomorrow. I think many of you here probably feel the same sense of urgency. Following what you just said about AI and the future of finance, let's dive in and discuss some interesting things.
Let's start with AI. AI organization is very important, especially for a company like Binance that is about to have its tenth anniversary. You may have seen many tech companies laying off employees recently, but their stock prices did not drop after the layoffs. This is not because of poor performance, but because of organizational improvement. There is even a lot of talk about one-person companies recently, but I personally think that one-person companies are a bit exaggerated or we have not reached that point yet. However, it is certain that companies with three to five or even ten people can do what companies with dozens or hundreds of people used to do. This is already happening.
AI is rewriting everything. How has AI changed your personal thinking and decision-making, the entire Binance platform, and even multinational operations? I think Binance faces more challenges than many other large companies because you are a highly global company, and you don't have many clients who are more global or distributed than you. What opportunities and challenges has AI brought you?
He Yi: First of all, Binance does not plan to conduct large-scale layoffs and cost-cutting and efficiency-enhancing operations like most tech companies. For us, AI is actually about making strong people even stronger. For example, in the past, many people might have thought that a programmer might have innovative and structured thinking when writing code, but their coding skills might be limited. However, today, when AI-powered coding is already very smooth and mature, it can actually improve efficiency by 10 times.
I've noticed something quite interesting. We discovered that one of our employees was working multiple jobs because AI significantly improved his coding efficiency. He felt his work was too easy to handle, so he thought, "I'll just do another job." Of course, he was eventually fired.
The overall thinking is to further enhance the organization's productivity and innovation capabilities, rather than simply pursuing cost reduction and efficiency improvement at the existing scale. This year, I proposed an idea that others might find a bit crazy. In the past, we said we wanted to achieve 1 billion users, but this year I told everyone that we should aim for 3 billion users, because we already have 300 million users. What does it mean to become a company with 3 billion users? It means that Binance is not just an exchange; Binance is a global financial infrastructure. It means that our services should be geared towards ordinary people, towards the masses, towards everyone. These services could be daily payments, daily financial management, or every detail of their daily lives. This will motivate me to encourage employees to be more innovative and try new things.
As their business continues to expand its boundaries, their infrastructure needs to be stable enough. I've also received a lot of feedback from friends saying that our product could be made smoother, so I've spent a lot of time optimizing the product this year. Give me a few more months, and I will make it even better.
Secondly, regarding the impact of AI on us, I think the biggest impact is that in the past, when we understood AI, we thought of it as a very ambitious child. However, if you have younger children at home, you'll find that children sometimes talk nonsense. I don't know if you've seen the movie "A Little Red Flower," where kindergarten children say their teacher is a monster. You'll find that AI and young, highly intelligent children have very similarities. They may not have structured logic, and their memories may be discontinuous. In this logic, we've seen a huge leap. In the previous cycle (2025), AI was actually a highly intelligent brain, but in just a few months today, I feel that AI has already grown its own hands.
For example, the lobster that was popular a while ago, and now these Skills, most of the top-tier models have already been equipped with AI. This means that AI is no longer just a concept, but has truly begun to enter everyone's lives. Of course, the most obvious example is probably writing code. Why writing code? Essentially because programmers are currently among the highest-paid people in the world. People are discussing how to use AI, so let's start by replacing the highest-paid group of people.
So I think that in the longer term, today's work is a bit like that of workers in a candle factory, but electricity and electric lights have arrived. The huge impact and reflections it may bring us are not just about the old paradigm, but about what kind of responsibility we, as individuals and as companies, bear in the context of new technological changes. But I don't think this is unusual for individual companies.
If you look back at the era of internet celebrities and their personal branding, for example, the former livestreamer Li Jiaqi could achieve a scale of hundreds of millions, much larger than many companies. But I think the more important thing to consider is what kind of responsibility you have taken for the public within society and your organization as a whole.
Du Yu: You mentioned earlier that you're aiming to grow from 300 million users to 3 billion users. Actually, when I was preparing for the questions, including when you spoke, my opinion was that you were being too conservative. Why? With the development of AI, we ourselves feel that Crypto itself isn't for humans, but for AI. Many people say that in the future, whether you're wealthy will depend on how many robots you have, how much AI you have, and how much computing power you can mobilize. So, have you considered that in Binance's product design, and not just Binance, but the entire Web3 industry, the product design of the entrepreneurs here is geared towards AI users and AI agents? At that point, the user base won't be 300 million or 3 billion, but potentially hundreds of billions or even trillions of users. The architecture will be different then, and the opportunities it brings to Web3 will be different. Standing here today, it feels like all the traffic and capital have been attracted to AI, but what still excites me is the combination of AI with Web3, and then with robots and robot dogs. This is truly the next generation of the incredibly exciting internet. What are your thoughts on this trend?
He Yi: I think AI has currently entered two different branches, of course there are conflicts and discussions. For example, the path from large language models to Web Coding is one, while physical AI has actually made many breakthroughs. If we must look to the future, you shouldn't think of crypto as just crypto, but rather as a more efficient and lower-cost financial system. On such a highly optimized structure, how can AI serve the public more efficiently?
There was a discussion on Twitter a while ago where people said that in the West, Anthropic and OpenAI are making short videos to satirize each other, while China's AI war is just about sending milk tea.
This question has given me much to ponder. I believe we shouldn't be arrogant about technology. No matter how remarkable or advanced AI technology is, for individuals, for every human being, the most important thing is how this technology serves me and helps improve my life. Whether it's Doubao or Qianwen, when they can tell an elderly woman in a rural China that a third-party recommended health product is fake and she shouldn't buy it, I think that's the value and meaning that technology brings to humanity. When a lonely elderly person in a rural area can have someone to chat with every day through Doubao, I think that's the significance that technology brings to humanity. No matter where humanity goes, we must always remember that we are human, and we must always cherish the green grass and trees.
Du Yu: Especially for people with a technical background like us, there's sometimes an instinct to show off. Many Web3 startups and companies might think their projects are cool, their products are cool, their technology is cool, but ultimately they find they have no users, or they're only serving a very narrow user base. We always say you're "customer service," "number one customer service," but you're also the number one product manager. It's crucial to understand human nature. All technological advancements, including financial tools, are meant to serve humanity better. We're not ultimately serving robots; robots also serve people, and AI is also meant to serve people.
Earlier you mentioned financial infrastructure, and I also believe that the core of Web3 is financial infrastructure, or the next generation of financial infrastructure. A while ago, I saw you retweet a Binance tweet with two pie charts: Crypto on the left, traditional Trade-Fi on the right, and Binance at the intersection. When I first encountered Binance in 2017, I thought the name was really excellent. I don't know how you came up with that name; you mentioned it in your book "My Binance Life," but it seemed rather simplistic. As I understand it, "Finance" is easy to understand—it represents existing financial systems—but "B" could represent Bitcoin, or the entire digital world. In this overlapping or intersecting area, why do you think Binance is iterating and overlapping? What do you think Binance wants to express in the future financial system?
He Yi: Back in 2014, the slogan was "Down with Wall Street." Today, as your industry continues to expand, with more and more institutional users and traditional financial institutions embracing crypto, you'll find that this is actually a process of integration. In this integration process, some countries and some regulators are ahead, saying, "I understand what it is, I understand its significance to the financial system." Today, it might be about letting a select few experiment and innovate. In Hong Kong, companies like Futu and Tiger have already started simultaneously holding equity assets and crypto assets. In the US, companies like Robinhood also have a large number of crypto assets and traditional equity assets.
Binance may not just want to tie itself to Crypto or so-called equity assets. We recently listed some commodities, including crude oil, gold, and silver. Commodity trading volume on our platform already accounts for a very high proportion of our traditional trading volume. They may now see us as a threat, and they may be calling for "down with Crypto."
But in the longer term, when you aspire to become the foundation of financial infrastructure, you won't need to worry too much about whether you're a cryptocurrency or a trade file. Labeling yourself is a process of self-imposed limitations. When you break through those boundaries and return to the starting point, it's about what you've done for financial freedom, for financial equality, and whether you've improved the lives of ordinary people—these are fundamentally first principles.
Du Yu: You mentioned earlier that starting with first principles is a good and important approach, but it can sometimes be idealistic. Because in practice, we always have to compromise with reality and regulations. My question can be approached from two perspectives. First, many traditional mainstream financial institutions are embracing cryptocurrencies, including the two stablecoin licenses issued in Hong Kong last week, which are held by mainstream financial institutions and banks. But sometimes we have doubts. These mainstream financial institutions are already doing well enough; for them, this is just a small innovation—it may succeed, it may not. Even developing stablecoins might negatively impact their revenue because they have to invest, and investment doesn't guarantee success.
Another perspective, from an outsider's viewpoint—that of a crypto native outside the industry—is that when people talk about the ups and downs of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, I joined Wanxiang Blockchain in 2015. For over a decade, I felt embarrassed to tell my friends I worked in blockchain every three or four years because the industry was often stigmatized. Even if I said "blockchain" and that I was a tech person, people would think I was just a cryptocurrency speculator or something, and they'd label me with a lot of negative terms. Things have improved a lot in recent years. Now, when I talk about Bitcoin, those negative terms are associated with it.
However, with the development over the years, cryptocurrency-native companies are also facing regulation and embracing the mainstream. From your perspective, which path does Binance prefer, or is it that Binance originally originated from cryptocurrency-native companies and finds it difficult to follow that path? What do you think is a more realistic way to achieve the vision of first principles step by step?
He Yi: The path we're on today has already been traversed by the internet. When the internet first emerged in Silicon Valley, there was a very strong "hippie culture." In that era, many people thought that those who worked on the internet and technology were geeks, weirdos. But in that era, the internet branched out to a great extent. The group that went left created the Dark Web, enjoying absolute freedom; the group that went right created Google and Amazon, becoming ordinary commercial companies serving more people around the world.
If you ask me where Binance is headed, we will definitely remain steadfast in our commitment to becoming a commercial company that serves the public. However, while serving the public, technological innovation remains crucial, whether it's blockchain technology or AI technology. Often, people feel that the stigma and negative public opinion crypto are normal. This is because if everyone could understand new things, and there were no controversies, how could there be so much hardship, challenges, and continuous innovation? Looking back at my childhood days going to internet cafes, my mother probably wanted to break my legs.
The fact that we see blockchain being embraced by Wall Street and traditional finance in a complete 180-degree turn precisely indicates that the industry is maturing and the early-stage dividends are diminishing. When these early dividends decrease, complaints tend to increase. For example, people wonder why Bitcoin isn't falling further, making it impossible to buy the dips. Why isn't Bitcoin constantly rising? That's because the early-stage dividend period is over. Once that period is over, the industry enters its so-called maturity stage. Crossing this chasm means figuring out how to ensure all products truly have value and practical applications.
I have great respect for many professional technical experts in the industry, but I often ask them a question: What is your technology used for? What problems can it solve? Is there anyone willing to pay for it? I remember we discussed this topic in a similar setting last year, and the essence of business remains the same. But I believe that there is no end to technological innovation and continuous iteration.
Du Yu: Over the past two years, the focus in the industry has shifted away from technology itself; in fact, technology has become a bottleneck to some extent. For most businesses, current technology is sufficient. What we need to focus on is researching existing technologies. Web3 has many Layer 1 and Layer 2 technologies; the key is how to utilize them, how to change people's lives, and how to gradually build applications. This is crucial. You also mentioned that this industry is gradually entering the mainstream. This year's Hong Kong Web3 Festival, and what we've been consistently doing over the past few years, is attracting more mainstream industries to use Web3 and crypto as valuable tools to help them advance further, just as the internet transformed almost every industry. I believe that Web3, as a new financial infrastructure, will also significantly enhance all existing business models.
Finally, I have a little time left, and I'd like to talk about some things mentioned in CZ's recent book, "Binance Life." This new book allows more people to understand his journey, especially from when he entered the industry to now. His growth story is the growth story of Binance, and even more so, the growth story of the entire industry. He wrote many stories in the book, and today we would like to hear your perspective. How would you summarize it from another perspective as a firsthand witness, or if we push the timeline forward ten or twenty years, how would you tell this story when you recall the events of these past ten years? A very important entrepreneurial journey.
He Yi: If we go back to 2017, you'll see that I've been posting the same phrase on my WeChat Moments ever since: "We're not starting a business, we're making history." So, whether it's the past, present, or future, what we're truly doing is figuring out how to use technology to change the future and how to create history. In the course of history, every path you take is naturally not a straight line, not a smooth one. Whether it's the so-called stigmatization of the crypto, calling people "you bunch of stinky crypto speculators," or the public's recognition of technological innovation, these are all part of the responsibility you need to bear. You can't simply understand life as a smooth, uninterrupted journey. If you choose to be a history maker, you also need to bear the responsibility of history. This is probably why, ten years from now, when I describe Binance, I'll still say, "We're not starting a business, we're making history."
Our slogan has never changed; it has always been "Exchange The World," not "The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange."
When you look at it from a longer historical perspective, you'll find that our current discussions about AI "siphoning off" cryptocurrencies, or the impact of AI on cryptocurrencies, are actually quite normal. This is because the impact of AI isn't limited to Web3 or cryptocurrencies; it's ubiquitous and inevitable. However, the impact and transformation of Web3 on the entire financial system is also real. Many people will say that all this Web3 stuff is ultimately about transactions and finance, and isn't finance a huge industry? If it can improve the efficiency of all financial sectors, even just a little bit, that's a remarkable innovation. There's no need to pursue instant results; steady progress, doing a little bit every day, is enough.
Du Yu: Your initial intention is crucial. Some people stray from the right path when making history. You'll find that very few people in this industry can truly persevere for more than ten years. In the book *Binance Life*, I saw many frequently used words; a media outlet even compiled a list. "Customers," "integrity," and other such words truly reflect a heartfelt desire to do one thing well, permeating the entire book. Only when your initial intention is correct, and you persist in doing the right thing—perhaps difficult, but the right thing—will you achieve great success after five, ten, or even more years.
He Yi: When doing something difficult but right, people often say, "You make it sound so good, but you're not saints." Of course, we're not saints either, but for everyone to achieve a win-win situation, what you need to do is, as your platform grows and you have more users, the industry expands, and everyone benefits. Being at the top of the industry naturally makes you a company with greater commercial and public value. I don't believe in purely zero-sum games. I believe that when what you do has value for society, and people pay for it, people are willing to support you, then earning your due is enough. This process is definitely a spiral upward process, accompanied by controversy and pain, but only a small group of people, after achieving financial freedom, will say, "I want to see how far I can go."
Du Yu: Many of you here today are already Web3 practitioners, and there's an interesting phenomenon: many of our attendees come from diverse backgrounds. Many have heard of Web3 but haven't actually worked in the industry. We've seen a lot of people from mainstream, traditional industries. If you were to share a truly insightful observation that only those who have experienced it firsthand could understand, with these guests who are just starting out, considering entering the field, or are simply interested in Web3, what would you say? What advice would you offer them?
He Yi: Let's talk about some practical tips. Many friends enter the crypto because someone tells them that a coin has increased tenfold and they should buy it quickly. The traditional Buffett value investing theory is really applicable to any industry. If you don't understand an industry, you should buy top assets. You don't need to have that many choices; you only need to choose some top assets as a starting point to understand the industry.
I often say that Bitcoin is the largest decentralized asset, while BNB is the largest centralized asset, and under this logic, a small allocation is acceptable. However, many friends say they came to the crypto to "take a gamble and see if they can turn a bicycle into a motorcycle." In that case, risk management is crucial. I often tell you not to be afraid, but you must understand whether your decisions are like a revolving door or a one-way door. A revolving door means that even if you fail, you can return to where you started, either gaining something or learning something. But some decisions, once made, may be irreversible, with no way back. Such decisions require careful consideration.
For example, I really don't recommend CZ's behavior of selling his All In in.
Du Yu: The best way to understand an industry or a company is to buy its stock. I also tell my friends that they can try it out themselves to see what it's like.
He Yi: Configure a small amount of equipment, do more research, and do less actual work.
Du Yu: AI is the same way. You have to use it first. It's not that profound.
He Yi: One is called execution, and the other is called cognition. You can iterate your cognition during the execution process, but you must understand whether your input costs are controllable.
Du Yu: Due to time constraints, thank you, Sister Yi. Our conversation with you will end here. We look forward to having a more interesting and in-depth discussion with you on the same stage next year. Thank you, Sister Yi, and thank you everyone!
He Yi: Thank you everyone!
