CZ’s 9th Anniversary Interview: If I could do it again, I’d still build an exchange, but I would learn compliance and politics earlier

Source: Talking Tokens Podcast

Compiled & Edited: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: CZ (Changpeng Zhao), founder and former CEO of Binance

Host: Jacquelyn Melinek, Talking Tokens Podcast (Strata Media)

Original headline: Binance Founder CZ on what it took to build the world's largest crypto exchange and stay #1

Air date: July 16, 2026

Conflict of interest statement: CZ is the founder and a major shareholder of Binance. This episode covers overall trends in the crypto industry and Binance platform development, and the views inevitably carry a stance.

Key takeaways

Binance is celebrating its ninth anniversary. At a Binance event, CZ sat down for a brief interview with Talking Tokens. He looked back at the rough state of the exchange industry when he started in 2017, admitting that his biggest blind spot at the time was legal compliance and international politics. Binance reached the #1 spot globally within five months of launch, which CZ attributes to product experience, user protection, and a bit of luck in catching the ICO wave.

The most forward-looking part of the interview is the intersection of AI and crypto. CZ believes that AI agents will begin handling payments for humans within months (not years), and that cryptocurrencies are the “native currency” of AI agents. He also argues that crypto penetration, measured by wealth, is still under 1%, and that the industry’s biggest misunderstanding is treating crypto as a speculative asset rather than underlying technology. After stepping down as CEO, CZ admits that back then he missed the rise of stablecoins, and is now spending a great deal of time studying RWA and tokenization.

Highlights

On reviewing the startup experience

• “I’ll tell my younger self: spend more time learning compliance and learning politics. Before 2017, I was just a technologist focused on building products and protecting users, but I underestimated how important the legal side is.”
• “The second piece of advice is to move faster. Binance’s futures contracts were introduced two years after launch. If I could do it again, I would launch them much earlier.”
• “We had already become the global #1 in our first five months, and then we stayed in that position every single day.”

On the community

• “If you treat the community well, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”
• “The company will be attacked by regulators, laws, and geopolitics. The community is almost immune to those. The community will even fight back for you.”

On crypto perception

• “People treat crypto like a speculative asset and always think about when to exit. You don’t exit the internet—you don’t exit AI. Crypto is the same: it’s a technology.”
• “Measured by wealth, crypto penetration is about less than 1%. The market is far from saturated.”

On AI × crypto

• “AI will eventually handle payments for us. Right now, AI can search for the best hotels and flights, but it can’t place the order for you yet. That capability will come within a few months—you don’t have to wait years. 2”
• “Once AI starts trading, it needs some kind of native currency. Credit cards are too clunky—cryptocurrency is the natural choice.”
• “Crypto payments are the biggest unlock point for AI. Other things like verifying training data are still far away.”

On security

• “AI will completely change the security landscape. It can find vulnerabilities and is useful for both developers and hackers. There may be some attack incidents in the short term, but in the long run, systems will become more secure.”
• “The latest Anthropic Methuselah model is extremely powerful. I hope that versions will be available soon that developers can use to harden systems.”

On financial integration

• “There shouldn’t be a distinction between crypto finance and traditional finance. Just like you wouldn’t say postal mail and email are two separate systems—ultimately there is only one financial system.”
• “Which country wouldn’t want its stock market open to the world? Tokenization is just a matter of time.”

Body text:

Looking back after nine years: the exchanges in 2017 didn’t do enough

Jacquelyn Melinek: This year is Binance’s ninth anniversary. Before founding Binance, you also worked at a major exchange. Looking back at the 2017 market and your situation then, what problems in the exchange industry do you think no one had solved well enough that made you feel you had to come out and do it yourself?

CZ: Before I started my own business, my entire career was in order execution and exchange systems. In 2017, looking at the exchange industry, I felt the product could be better, the technology could be better, the matching engine could be faster, security could be higher, and customer service could be more complete. “Back then, exchanges really didn’t put users first.” I think there was definitely room for improvement. Of course, we also had luck—we rode an ICO hype wave and benefited from that market cycle.

Jacquelyn Melinek: Do you think the CZ of 2017 and the CZ of 2026 are the same person?

CZ: (Laughs.) Not the same. Much older—but not necessarily smarter. More challenges have happened. That’s basically it. Over nine years, a lot has changed; my mindset and even my body are different.

Jacquelyn Melinek: If you could give a piece of advice to your 2017 self, what would you say?

CZ: Knowing what I know now, I would tell my younger self: spend more time learning legal compliance and learning politics. “Before 2017, I was a technologist focused on building products and protecting users, but I underestimated the importance of the legal side.” I also didn’t understand international law enough—I didn’t know that some U.S. laws have global jurisdiction and very long statutes of limitations. That’s my first piece of advice to myself.

The second piece of advice is to move faster. There were many products I hesitated about whether to launch. Looking back, entrepreneurs should push products to market as early as possible to get feedback. For example, Binance’s futures contracts were launched two years after launch. If I could do it again, I would do it much earlier.

Topping the charts in five months: product, mission, and a bit of luck

Jacquelyn Melinek: Binance overtook dozens of exchanges and quickly reached the top. Was it in the first year or the second year?

CZ: The first year. “In our first five months, we reached global #1, and then we stayed in that position every single day.”

Jacquelyn Melinek: It’s easy to reach the peak; it’s hard to hold it. What do you attribute that to?

CZ: A company’s success has many factors. The product needs to be good, customer service needs to be good—and more importantly, there needs to be a mission. Our mission is to increase the freedom of money, and one of our core values is protecting users. “Protecting users helped us hold onto the position after becoming #1.”

Of course, there was also luck in 2017. That year was the ICO year—ICO was new—and we were a new exchange with native support for ICO listing that went up quickly. Most other exchanges were still Bitcoin exchanges, and some of the biggest U.S. exchanges at the time hadn’t even listed Ethereum. We caught the industry turning point. But competition was fierce—Bittrex and Poloniex were both giants then. We had good products and services, plus strong user protection. Those were all indispensable.

Community is more resilient than the company

Jacquelyn Melinek: Binance’s ninth-anniversary theme is “Built by You.” How would you describe the community culture you want to create?

CZ: Nine years ago, crypto was still a very niche industry. When we started, Bitcoin was around $2,000 to $3,000. Our user base was small, but extremely loyal—all early adopters who knew our product inside and out. They knew we protected them, so they followed us with their hearts—and with their money.

As the community grew, Binance continued to protect users through real actions. Many volunteers contributed to the Binance ecosystem—some were called Binance Angels, and some didn’t even have formal titles. “The entire platform is community-driven, and ‘Built by You’ is exactly what that means.”

Jacquelyn Melinek: You’ve said that sometimes community is more resilient than the company. What can a community do that a company can’t?

CZ: If you treat the community well, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Companies face all kinds of attacks—especially centralized companies, where regulators, laws, and geopolitics come knocking. “The community is almost immune to those kinds of attacks because it’s distributed, and in our case it’s spread globally. It’s hard to launch an effective attack on a globally distributed community.” The community also fights back for you—its volume on social media is often bigger than that of mainstream media. The community has enormous power that can be mobilized.

Crypto penetration is under 1%: the biggest misunderstanding is treating technology as speculation

Jacquelyn Melinek: In today’s market, what can make a product that users keep coming back to?

CZ: Any industry’s products can be improved. Today, friction in fiat on-ramps and off-ramps is still pretty high. Whoever can make it have lower fees, lower friction, and cover more regions will have an advantage.

Stablecoins are the same: the most popular ones don’t pay interest to users, and those that do pay interest are hard to trade. “If there were a stablecoin that both offers good interest and can be traded freely, that would be an improvement point.” RWA tokenization is still new—there are only a handful of tokenized stocks that are truly tokenized, and they’re mostly centered in the U.S. Why wouldn’t other countries want to tokenize their stock markets so the whole world can participate? Measured by wealth, crypto penetration is about less than 1%. We’re still in the early stages.

Jacquelyn Melinek: We’ve talked for years about “the next billion users,” but we don’t even have the first billion yet. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding in the industry about mainstream adoption?

CZ: Many people treat crypto as a speculative asset instead of as underlying technology. “If you buy Bitcoin, you start thinking about when to exit. You won’t exit the internet—you won’t exit AI. Crypto is the same: it’s a technology.” Crypto blockchains are here to stay; they’re one of the three fundamental technologies of my life. The other two are the internet and AI. I suggest people evaluate projects by their long-term outlook.

AI agent payments: coming within months

Jacquelyn Melinek: Where will the worlds of AI and crypto truly intersect?

CZ: AI will eventually handle payments for us. Right now, AI can help you search for the best hotels and flights, but it can’t place the order for you. “That capability will arrive within a few months—absolutely no need to wait for years.” Once AI starts trading on behalf of people, it will need a native currency. Credit cards are too clunky—cryptocurrency is the natural choice.

Traditional fiat payments work fine within a country, but they’re terrible across the globe. You’ll see more and more global citizens needing to pay people on the other side of the Earth and needing to book tickets in different regions. Crypto payments make that much easier. “Crypto payments are the biggest unlock point for AI.” Other things, like using blockchains to verify training data, are still far away. AI companies are big, profitable, and overvalued, so for now they don’t care too much about decentralization.

Jacquelyn Melinek: Do you think crypto payments are something coming soon, or in three to five years?

CZ: I guess one to two years. Once people start using AI to make payments with crypto, they’ll find it’s much faster. Also, early adopters in the crypto world overlap highly with early adopters of AI.

AI changes the security landscape: harden systems with the strongest models

Jacquelyn Melinek: How does AI affect Binance’s internal operations and crypto infrastructure?

CZ: I see AI the way you see the internet. Can you say you don’t need the internet? That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. “Every company, every person should use AI to the fullest, but you also can’t abuse it.” AI is good at helping people write code, find bugs, and do code analysis. It’s also useful in design and video. But don’t make AI do everything—we live in the human world, and people still want a human touch. AI is good at creativity, but raw creativity is still stronger in humans.

Jacquelyn Melinek: Besides payments, where else will AI change crypto?

CZ: AI will completely change the security landscape. “AI is very good at finding vulnerabilities—developers can use it to quickly identify weaknesses in systems.” The latest Anthropic Methuselah model is extremely powerful. I hope there will be versions soon that developers can use to harden systems. In the short term, there may be some hacker incidents, but in the long run systems will be much more secure.

Also, blockchain throughput still isn’t enough—we need faster, higher-capacity chains to reduce usage costs. AI will play an important role in this development. And there’s an even more fundamental trend: AI will push us toward a more digital world—ten times, even a hundred times deeper than what the internet has done. “The more digital it becomes, the more we need digital currency.” The concept of paper money is already outdated. AI will push us past that tipping point.

A retired perspective: missed stablecoins, now focused on RWA

Jacquelyn Melinek: Since you stepped down from CEO to different roles, have you found anything different about the industry?

CZ: The perspective is indeed different. When I was CEO, everything revolved around Binance—twenty-five meetings a day, all kinds of problems constantly popping up. My vision was actually pretty narrow. Now that I’m forced to step back one step, I can look at the industry as a whole. I have time to learn new things—learn AI, learn biotech—and in crypto I can understand new directions more deeply.

“When I was CEO, I actually missed stablecoins.” Back then, I thought stablecoins were just a transitional technology to bridge between exchanges. Turns out it became big. Now I spend a lot of time looking at RWA and tokenization, and I’m also giving advice to governments on this. To be honest, stepping back has made it easier for me to learn new things.

If starting from scratch: I’d still build an exchange

Jacquelyn Melinek: If you started from scratch today—no Binance, no reputation, just your experience—what would you choose to do?

CZ: If I have to build something new, I can only choose what I understand. My experience points to one direction: building an exchange. (Laughs.) I always tell people to find the intersection of what they’re good at, what they’re interested in, and what’s valuable to others. What I’m good at is exchange systems. If I went to lead an AI team, that would probably be a disaster.

Jacquelyn Melinek: Do you think traditional finance, on-chain finance, and the trading ecosystem will ultimately converge into one?

CZ: It will definitely happen. There shouldn’t be a distinction between crypto finance and traditional finance. Just like you wouldn’t say postal mail and email are two parallel systems. Today, most people don’t use postal mail for messaging anymore. “Crypto blockchains are just a new technology within the financial system.” Because it’s new, it initially forms a niche area, but integration is already happening. Stocks are tokenized on-chain, and traditional banks and financial institutions are also using blockchain. In the end, there won’t be two parallel lines—only one financial system.

Jacquelyn Melinek: CZ, thank you so much for your time, and congratulations to the Binance team on your ninth anniversary.

CZ: Thank you, and thanks for inviting me.