This time, we have an exclusive interview with Richard Ten, the current CEO of Binance! Since its establishment in 2017, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has rapidly developed into a super platform with nearly 300 million users, a total cumulative trading volume of 125 trillion US dollars, and an average daily trading volume of 91 billion US dollars.
On the occasion of Binance's eighth anniversary, Richard Teng, who took over as Binance CEO from founder CZ(CZ), came to Taiwan for an exclusive interview with BlockTempo . Richard mentioned that since the Trump encryption wave after 2024, Binance has ushered in the fastest growth era in history. From 2024 to now alone, the number of Binance users has skyrocketed from 170 million to 280 million, witnessing the history of cryptocurrency moving towards mainstream adoption.
Amid turbulent regulatory changes, Richard also mentioned Binance’s compliance efforts in recent years, including the world’s largest number of more than 1,000 people responsible for compliance-related work, and the amazing achievement of introducing sovereign-level fund MGX to inject US$2 billion.
Richard previously served as a senior executive of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and CEO of Abu Dhabi ADGM. He joined Binance in 2021 and officially took over as CEO in 2023. He has achieved such performance in just two years and is hailed by the industry as one of the world's leaders who can best balance "compliance" and "innovation."
He was particularly friendly during the interview. Although he is a native English speaker, he still tried to interact with readers in Chinese. He also talked to us from time to time with a humble attitude about the changes in the international situation and the opportunities for Taiwan. The following is the full text of the interview:
Looking back on the past, Richard said to himself two years ago: “I am actually very lucky to be in charge of Binance”
Dynamic Zone: Thank you Richard for accepting the interview today, and thank you for taking the time to celebrate Binance’s 8th anniversary. It means a lot to us that you are here in Taiwan. You became the CEO of Binance two years ago. If you could go back in time and say one thing to yourself before you became the CEO of Binance, what would it be?
Richard Teng:
Hello, readers of the Dynamic Zone! For this question, I think it is about preparing for the very exciting challenges that are coming ahead. I am very, very lucky to have a strong and responsible leadership team and Binancians around the world working closely with me. I have a strong global team that can really support us in doing what we do. They support us in achieving financial freedom for users around the world, so I feel very lucky.
Dynamic Zone: I remember you mentioned in an interview last summer that Binance did not need an IPO and was not considering returning to the US market. However, the international situation has changed significantly recently. I would like to ask how you respond to your original views now?
Richard Teng:
I think this proves investors' interest in cryptocurrencies. I think 2024 is a milestone year. 2024 is the time when the first crypto (spot) ETF is listed, and then mainstream institutions that were skeptical about cryptocurrencies in the past also began to embrace cryptocurrencies in the last year.
The current IPO trend is actually part of the mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies. Many investors, whether sovereign wealth funds, institutions, family offices, foundations and trusts, are beginning to consider cryptocurrencies as an asset allocation option.
But we're still in the early stages, right? Global cryptocurrency adoption is only 7%, and I think the future is extremely bright as more and more people start to allocate assets to the crypto space. These IPOs represent very strong adoption cases within crypto, so I'm very bullish, and we also accepted our first institutional investor, MGX invested $2 billion in Binance earlier this year, which shows the institutionalization of crypto.
Dynamic Zone: Binance has experienced many peaks and challenges in the past eight years. You took over as CEO in the sixth year. For you, what is the most impressive challenge or transformation of Binance in the past?
Richard Teng:
I would like to first give credit to the founders for setting the right mission, values, and DNA for Binance. One of the key values is to ensure that we always put users at the core of our decision-making.
That’s why we’re able to continue to grow rapidly, we’re the largest crypto ecosystem in the world, now with 280 million users and soon to be 300 million users.
We are very grateful for the trust and confidence our users have in us, and we will continue to work hard to ensure that we are the best platform possible, with innovative products and features to support our users and take them to new heights together.
Binance’s fastest growth era: 110 million users added since 2024
Dynamic Zone: Eight years is a really long time for a cryptocurrency or company. How would you describe Binance’s growth curve over the past eight years? What do you think were the key moments or turning points?
Richard Teng:
From day one, CZ and co-founder He Yi were very clear that user trust was the most important thing, especially the security of user assets. That’s why we invested a lot of time and resources in these areas. Within half a year of our founding, Binance became the largest crypto platform and has remained the number one position ever since.
This is thanks to the foundations we have now, a very solid foundation is in place, and we have a very strong team around the world in terms of product innovation, driving growth, and supporting clients, both in the retail and institutional segments.
Retail users have long been the main adopters of cryptocurrencies, but in 2024, we saw a lot of institutions coming in, and last year Binance's institutional user base more than doubled, and we saw a very strong growth trend.
We had about 170 million users at the beginning of 2024, and we were at 240 million at the end of last year, an increase of 70 million users. Now in a year and a half, the number of users has grown to nearly 280 million, so you're seeing 110 million new users joining .
This means that the growth trajectory is very strong and the future is very bright, and we want to ensure that both institutional and retail users can provide all the support they need in their future crypto journey.
Dongqu: Regarding Binance users, many people participated in Binance Alpha, but some people did not participate. I personally like Binance Alpha very much.
Richard Teng:
I am very happy to hear you say that. In fact, many users are very excited. They are embracing and participating in the Binance Alpha feature around the world.
Dynamic Zone: But some readers have expressed to us that they cannot understand Binance’s recent business transformation, such as the promotion of Alpha as one of its core businesses. For some traditional old OG users, they want to know why Binance is doing this. Can you tell us the reasons behind this change in business direction?
Richard Teng:
This is not a change in business direction, but to continue to drive innovation and support the actual needs of users. Even in the last year, we have driven new innovations, including Megadrop, the introduction of Binance Square, and Super Earn products.
This year, I think you should see new products launched, and Binance Alpha is another new product and feature we are pushing to meet user needs, which allows users to participate earlier in exciting tokens, early-stage tokens, and have the opportunity to get these tokens earlier.
We’re always working to balance user interest with exposure to early tokens, so this again represents another dimension of innovation.
Dynamic Zone: As Binance enters its eighth anniversary, what is Binance’s next major strategic plan?
Richard Teng:
To continue to achieve great success, we will continue to emphasize three key areas, which is what we have always done.
First, putting users at the heart of our decision making, whether it's new product features, security, compliance. So we continue to invest heavily in these areas, and you'll see new products and services continue to be launched, as well as new innovations;
Secondly, the direction of cryptocurrency development is very clear: there will be more regulatory clarity. Binance now has the highest regulatory compliance in the world. We have invested heavily in compliance, and our compliance team now has more than 1,000 people , close to 25% of our total employees, which shows our commitment to working with global regulators, working with them to create a smarter framework for cryptocurrency services, or working with regulators to obtain local licenses, so we will continue to develop along this trend;
Third, cryptocurrency is still in a very early stage of development, and the more active the ecosystem is, the better Binance will be. So we are working with many different players around the world to really continue to support the adoption and development of cryptocurrency around the world. 
Trump urges other countries to "pay attention" to AI and blockchain
Dynamic Zone: We have seen different changes taking place across Asia since President Trump took office. For example, Singapore is exploring the possibility of tightening regulations during its opening period, Japan and South Korea are working to lower regulations to catch up with international trends, and there is also Taiwan’s VASP system. What do you think of regulation in East Asia?
Richard Teng:
Binance is a global platform, first of all we have to respect the political and regulatory considerations that each country has. We respect local laws and regulatory considerations, but you are right, many countries in the world, not only in the Asia-Pacific region, but also globally, are working hard to support this industry.
The United States, the world's largest economy, has been strongly supporting two key technologies under the impetus of President Trump: artificial intelligence and blockchain, because he knows very well that these two technologies will drive the development of every economic sub-industry in the future. By embracing them (cryptocurrency), the United States can maintain its advantage.
I think this is forcing the rest of the world to take notice and pay attention to it, because this is the future direction of the world's technological development, and it will support the development of every technology in the future. Countries need to embrace these two technologies, stay at the forefront of innovation, attract foreign direct investment, and build their own talent pool in these areas, so this is very important.
Dynamic Zone: You talked about Trump, and how his return to the White House has accelerated new global trends. How do you view the new world order that is currently taking shape, and how is it distinctly different from the old world order? How much do you think this shift will affect the direction of global regulation?
Richard Teng:
We are extremely grateful and thankful for the thoughtful approach President Trump and his administration are taking toward cryptocurrency, supporting responsible innovation rather than attempting to stifle it.
You know, during the last presidency, crypto in the U.S. was suppressed and treated unfairly, and many crypto players left. And President Trump has made it very clear that the U.S. is going to be the crypto capital of the world, and he has put together a very good government team to make sure that that happens.
As the world's deepest capital market and the world's largest economy, the United States has a huge influence on the global scale. Because of this, we see two clear trends emerging:
First, more and more countries will develop crypto frameworks to support and regulate this industry; second, institutions are embracing this big era, because if the world's largest country, the world's largest capital market is chasing it, you can't ignore this industry, you have to deploy it to keep up.
So we have seen different countries around the world take the initiative to build their own crypto strategic reserves , and we have seen institutions, family offices, trusts, etc. begin to configure. These are all key drivers of the future of cryptocurrency, and we are only seeing the beginning of institutional adoption, and the trend is very strong.
Dynamic Zone: You talked about institutional adoption, and the US President and his support for crypto and artificial intelligence, and the adoption of crypto, we can see a lot of crypto companies rushing to IPO, but I think traditional banks and brokerage firms are exploring tokenization, or they have found a way for stablecoins to work, what do you think about this?
Richard Teng:
I think for blockchain technology, tokenization of real world assets (RWA) is another important use case for cryptocurrencies. You can see that stablecoins are also a very important use case. I see US Treasury bonds being tokenized, which brings value, and the value can be released immediately. .
For retail investors, if you put your money in a bank deposit today, you will only get 1% interest, but if you buy tokenized US bonds, you will be able to unlock its value very quickly and get a higher interest rate. So there are important applications emerging, but they all represent different applications of blockchain technology.
*Note: U.S. Treasury bonds usually require institutions to purchase, and retail investors need to go through financial intermediaries to match with the market with limited business hours, while the U.S. Treasury RWA token allows retail investors to trade directly 24/7. In terms of bond dividends, some U.S. Treasury RWA tokens provide a dividend cycle of less than one year, and there are even experimental on-chain products that provide dividends once a block time (12 seconds), which further unlocks the value of cash flow.
Dynamic Zone: In this era of rapid mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency, which areas will Binance choose to invest deeply in?
Richard Teng:
We continue to support innovation and we as a platform will continue to drive new features and products. Investing in security is also very important. As you can see, even some of the largest platforms can be hacked, which can have very serious effects on the platform and user assets, so we will continue to invest heavily in these aspects (platform security).
We are a safe haven in cryptocurrency, and people know that we devote a significant proportion of our resources to protecting user assets, and we are one of the few companies that provides proof of reserves for the asset transparency that users need.
Compliance is another important area that we continue to invest heavily in. We want to make sure we have the financial resources to meet this, and we want to make sure it becomes a competitive advantage for Binance in the future. These are some of the important areas that we continue to invest in.
Will Binance be redefined at the age of eight? Cryptocurrency payments will be a huge opportunity
Dynamic Zone: Binance is celebrating its eighth anniversary, and this is also the starting point for global cryptocurrencies to enter a new stage. Do you think this is the moment to redefine Binance? In addition to what everyone knows, Binance is an exchange, but you mentioned that Binance users are no longer just traders, but also some national institutions. How do you switch between the roles of infrastructure payment and national policy advisors?
Richard Teng:
As a global platform, Binance serves users from different regions and locations. We will continue to do our best to serve all users around the world, but different users and different regions have different needs. Therefore, it is very important to understand the needs of different regions so that we can adjust our products and services to better serve users.
Different types of customers need different things, right? So we need to continue to offer new things, for example, retail users and retail investors will have different needs than institutions, which is why we provide different products for institutions and retail, in order to meet the different needs of all the different users in our user base, and we will continue to invest a lot of energy to ensure that we provide users with customized products.
Dongqu: Okay, Binance’s eighth anniversary is also a time to reflect on the past and think about the future role. How would you define Binance’s development trajectory and what are your expectations for the future? Look back at the past five years, think about the present, and look forward to the next ten and fifteen years.
Richard Teng:
First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to all users around the world. So far, there are more than 280 million registered users. Thank you for your trust and confidence in us. We are very grateful and hope that you will continue to support us. We will continue to build the best platform to serve users around the world.
We look forward to launching more new features and new products to serve our users. Our ambition is to continue to be the world's most powerful platform and continue to serve our users.
Dynamic Zone: Cryptocurrency is developing rapidly around the world. For example, the payment track has been very popular in recent years. Binance also provides a lot of assistance to developing countries, especially Asian countries. What do you think of this trend?
Richard Teng:
Well… I think (crypto payment) is a huge opportunity, not only a huge opportunity for Taiwan, but also a huge opportunity globally. Many countries in the world are now supporting cryptocurrency payments. I just went to Bhutan, and we have cooperation with the Bhutan Tourism Bureau.
Binance Pay is accepted everywhere in Bhutan, whether it is your accommodation, flight tickets, travel agencies, local guides, or shopping in local stores, you can use Binance Pay to pay on the spot. It solves many pain points. It allows merchants to have no transaction fees, so merchants can keep more of their total revenue. For many users, they can use Binance Pay to pay, which is really good for daily life. It is great and very convenient.
Binance CEO looks at Taiwan: We must seize innovation opportunities! Taiwan is a global high-tech talent pool
Dynamic Zone: It has been a while since your last visit to Taiwan. Binance has also held many large-scale events in Taiwan in the past. Do you remember anything special in Taiwan?
Richard Teng:
The key point I've observed is that Taiwan continues to support and embrace the crypto industry, and I think with the introduction of new laws, really starting to regulate cryptocurrencies, from VASP regulations to possible licensing systems, as well as supporting possible spot ETF issuance and stablecoin approvals, these are important developments in Taiwan.
I think Taiwan is known for its very thriving tech scene with a lot of technical expertise and talent, which makes it an ideal place to continue to grow rapidly in the crypto and AI industries.
Dynamic Zone: We mentioned that you came to Taiwan this time for the "Taiwan Linked World" Web3 Industry Summit, which shows that Binance believes that there is huge potential and opportunities in Taiwan. From Binance's perspective, what specific opportunities have you found in Taiwan?
Richard Teng:
The early adopters of cryptocurrency are always those who are very tech-savvy because they understand it better, and Taiwan is a tech hub. Taiwan is well-known for its tech talent and many global tech companies have bases in Taiwan.
So (Taiwan) is certainly a very good platform, many Taiwanese, especially the younger generation, understand cryptocurrency and embrace it, and it is certainly a good opportunity for us to continue to grow with Taiwan, which is why we work closely with policymakers.
Work with regulators to develop the right regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies in Taiwan, and work with law enforcement agencies to combat financial crime.
Dynamic Zone: Regulation is like a double-edged sword. While it brings clear rules, it may also have an impact on existing innovations. For example, in Taiwan, there have been some brief marketing cases of using Bitcoin to buy air tickets and cryptocurrency payments in the past. How do you view the balance between regulation and innovation?
Richard Teng:
The development of new technologies often precedes regulations. This is not only true in the field of encryption, but also in other technological development trajectories, such as the Internet in the past and blockchain and AI in the present.
As a former financial regulator, I know that regulation and innovation do not conflict with each other . In fact, it is possible to establish a technology-friendly environment through regulations, so that the industry has room to develop and innovate while protecting consumers. Just like now, as more and more countries have clear regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrencies, I believe that in the future we will be able to see more innovative applications flourish in a stable environment.
Dynamic Zone: You talked about the global market and the United States. From a macro perspective, are you satisfied with the current direction of regulatory compliance in Taiwan? What is your opinion on this?
Richard Teng:
I think the regulators are working on the right framework and we are working closely with them to provide input. So hopefully going forward, we want to make sure that we continue to support Taiwan's ambitions in the crypto space .
Dynamic Zone: Assuming a favorable regulatory environment in Taiwan, in which three areas do you think there is the greatest potential for breakthroughs in the next one to three years?
Richard Teng:
It's hard to predict because Taiwanese are so innovative and so vibrant, and the crypto space is evolving every day, and there are so many new things and new applications being developed every day, so for us, we also have to continue to track all of these developments, track all of these innovations, and support all of these innovations around the world.
A message to the Taiwanese community
Dynamic Zone: Do you have anything to say to the Taiwanese community?
Richard Teng:
Thank you to all of our friends in the Taiwanese community for your support of Binance over the years. We are very grateful and we hope that you will continue to walk with us and give us feedback and suggestions on areas where we can improve.
But rest assured, we will always be very engaged and will work tirelessly to introduce new innovations and new product features to meet you and your needs. Binance is the best platform in terms of security and provides the most adequate investment in compliance. We will do our best to grow with you in your cryptocurrency journey.
(Chinese) All Taiwanese communities and friends in Taiwan, thank you very much for your support over the past eight years. We are where we are today because of the continued support of our users, so we hope that you will also walk with us in the future. We will do our best to build the most complete platform with the most avant-garde products, the most advanced security measures and the most cutting-edge supervision. So we build all of this for you, and we hope to grow together with you in the crypto.
(End of interview)
