Big Brother @cz_binance In-depth Conversation in Abu Dhabi: MiCA Regulatory Game, AI Revolution, and New Life Plans

Binance founder CZ's every public conversation attracts global attention. Yesterday, he appeared in Abu Dhabi for the premiere interview on The Block's new show "The Starting Block," engaging in a nearly hour-long deep dive on topics including EU regulation, the fusion of AI and crypto, and personal life stage transitions. Below are the core insights and takeaways from this interview.

I. MiCA Regulation: Compliant but Blocked by Political Forces
Discussing the EU MiCA license application, CZ stated bluntly that the application submitted through Greece was fully compliant at the time and very close to approval, but ultimately, due to "political and other external forces" intervening, the process was interrupted.
He made it clear that he has no direct evidence that European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde personally intervened (only seeing related rumors online). In the end, Binance chose to withdraw the Greek application and pursue re-application in other EU countries.
CZ described this outcome as a lose-lose situation—a loss for both Binance and Europe. This statement reveals the complex reality the crypto industry faces within traditional regulatory systems: even with extreme compliance, it can be disrupted by non-market factors.

II. AI and Cryptocurrency: Will Generate 1,000x Trading Volume
On the relationship between AI and crypto, CZ offered a highly forward-looking judgment:
"AI agents will generate 1,000 times more trading volume than humans."
"AI will use cryptocurrency."
He believes that the explosive development of AI inevitably requires efficient, autonomous payment and trading infrastructure, while traditional financial systems struggle to meet AI's needs for autonomous decision-making and automatic execution. Blockchain, with its native programmability and API-friendly characteristics, will become the best partner for AI in the financial sector.
CZ predicts that within the next few months, scenarios such as AI-automated trading and automatic payments will emerge and deeply integrate with cryptocurrency. This means your AI assistant could soon use cryptocurrency to help you buy tickets, invest, transfer money, etc., achieving a qualitative leap in efficiency.
At the same time, he also observed an interesting phenomenon: a large amount of capital flowing into the AI field, with many people now using cryptocurrency to trade AI-related assets, which in turn brings new incremental volume to the crypto market.

III. Complex Financial Products: STRC Left Him Confused Multiple Times
CZ mentioned that he has tried multiple times to understand Strategy's $STRC preferred stock product but still cannot fully grasp it. He pointed out that the market's criticism of Strategy selling a small amount of BTC to pay dividends is excessive. He also believes that some financial products are overly complex and suffer from over-engineering.

IV. CZ's New Phase: From Long-Term Planning to Short-Term Action
After stepping down as Binance CEO, CZ's life focus has clearly shifted. He no longer makes 5-year or 10-year long-term plans but instead focuses on actions for the next few months, as technology and opportunities change too fast. His current priorities include:
• Promoting educational inclusion through GiggleAcademy
• Supporting blockchain founders and innovative projects through yzilabs
• Advising governments on blockchain adoption
• Mentorship + investing in early-stage quality projects
Additionally, he mentioned donating $2 million to Prison Professors after his release and previously investing about $500 million in Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter (now X), hoping X will better support crypto payments in the future.

In CZ's view, the crypto industry remains a super major track, and the deep integration of AI and crypto will be one of the most certain trends in the next phase. The regulatory game will continue, but the certainty of technological progress far outweighs the uncertainty.

The full video may have translation errors due to automatic translation by editing software. Please do not misinterpret maliciously. The original video can be watched at @TheBlockCo.