_Video Interview: _CZ, Founder of Binance; Farokh, Crypto Host

Translation by｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Translator｜CryptoLeo (@LeoAndCrypto)

Recently, crypto host Farokh interviewed Binance founder CZ in Dubai, discussing CZ's views on the current and future state of cryptocurrency, Trump, memes, and some past experiences (Farokh also interviewed Trump in September 2024 about the second assassination attempt he faced and the adoption of crypto in the U.S., which you can check out in the original video). After the content was released yesterday, CZ expressed multiple times that this was one of the best interviews he has ever done, containing a lot of information he had not shared before.

Odaily Planet Daily has compiled the key parts of the interview. Due to the length of the conversation and the frequent interaction between the two, this article does not adopt a Q&A format but presents the key points of the interview from CZ's first-person perspective. Here is the full translation:

1. Daily Life, Work, and Entertainment in Dubai, Memecoins, Areas CZ is Optimistic About, and the Politicization of Bitcoin

This section focuses on CZ's daily life and work in Dubai, as well as his views on memecoins:

Life, Work, and Entertainment in Dubai

Although I can choose to live anywhere in the world, Dubai is really a great place; it is one of the best-governed countries in the world. I live here and love it. Dubai is a bit crowded now, like many communities, it is developing rapidly, and there are too many people here. Abu Dhabi is quieter and more reserved, which is better for thinking, but it is also very powerful.

I studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal for four years, and I found a job that pays more than I could have expected after graduation, so I said I might stay a bit longer, and here I am now. I don’t watch sports games much anymore, and I don’t listen to music often; when I want to relax, I listen to audiobooks, but listening to just one book quickly becomes boring, so I also play some small games like Candy Crush. Although it sounds a bit silly, it allows me to keep reading and learning.

In addition, I relax with friends, like having dinner or chatting, and I exercise a bit every day. My life is simple, but it’s very good for me. I think the definition of a good life is being satisfied with yourself, recognizing yourself, knowing you are doing the right thing, and having a sense of mission. You can take care of yourself and hope to help others.

Since we work from home, there isn’t much leisure time, but it’s much better now after getting out of prison because everything else was stripped away in there, and you realize you miss your family the most, right? So after that, I have some leisure time. I don’t look at my phone; I spend a little time every day like most people do, talking on the phone at home, usually in bed. I also lie in front of the computer like I do in bed because sitting for too long is bad for my back.

The Story of Broccoli and CZ's First Experience with Memes

My pet dog Broccoli is about two and a half years old and very obedient. When I first got Broccoli, it was only one year old. I bought a bike from Amazon to exercise with it, and it ran 13 kilometers for its first exercise. As for the name Broccoli, in Chinese, many people name pets based on their color; Broccoli is brown and a bit like a cake, but I think the name Broccoli is more interesting.

Of course, the most interesting thing was that after I returned from the U.S., I might not have had much energy to pay attention to the industry, and I didn’t know that the development of memecoins was so fast; everyone loved memes at that time. There weren’t many truly practical tokens in crypto, so I thought I would figure it out myself. The process was actually very interesting, but memecoins are really hard to learn; once a picture is posted, many communities get involved.

For example, I didn’t know everyone wanted to ask what my pet’s name was and to see a picture. I also didn’t know that when you post a picture, there would be so much PvP. So I just thought it would be fun; I announced I would post it in 25 hours to create some hype. Then when I posted, it felt like thousands of Broccoli memes appeared, and there were competing communities. I learned a lot through this process. One thing was clear: I would focus all the communities on dog lovers; this is a very powerful cultural community element. I also learned that for meme traders, they are very tired; they chat in group chats all day, looking for any new hot topics, etc. So, I learned a lot about memes.

But I don’t think I would become a meme trader; I’m not even a cryptocurrency trader. I have always been a builder of platforms; there is a difference between building a platform for people to trade on and trading yourself. But I think we need to follow the voice of the community, so we won’t try to dictate the direction of the community. Therefore, if the community is full of memecoins, we want to support it. That’s why I’ve said before, let me see the BNB ecosystem memes, so people want me to spend more time interacting with memecoins because I have indeed brought some attention to BNB memes.

I also want to help the BNB ecosystem, but due to some previous restrictions, I couldn’t participate in things like CEX, BNB ecosystem, etc., so I spent my time on the memes I could do.

Areas CZ is Optimistic About

Regarding the current crypto landscape, I believe AI blockchain needs AI; AI is a post-blockchain technology. Then there’s DeSci, which will have a positive impact on crypto in the long term. Science is difficult and takes a long time, but meme traders are not interested in that; they want to make profits the next day. But I believe the long-term development of science will have a huge impact on technological training, such as using smart contracts to fund scientific projects and delivering based on project milestones or timelines, incentivizing millions of small research labs to conduct research, combined with big data AI capabilities. I think we will see significant acceleration in drug discovery and understanding human biology, so all these things are developing.

In addition, there are other more obvious things, like RWA, which large traditional companies are doing, such as BlackRock. ETFs are also interesting because now we are bringing traditional institutional funds into cryptocurrency; most of the funds in the U.S. are institutional funds, and some places are different, but I think we are seeing the influence of Bitcoin growing. Because most ETFs are based on Bitcoin. So I think many things are changing.

The Politicization of Bitcoin and Its Conflict with Decentralization Spirit

The politicization of Bitcoin has two sides. To some extent, as an early adopter of Bitcoin and a believer in decentralization, I somewhat hope that the government becomes the last buyer, especially the government buying Bitcoin. Some of us hope that all retail investors and consumers buy some Bitcoin first, and then the government starts buying. Government purchases of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin would be very beneficial for the price, but it might also damage the original spirit of decentralization that Satoshi envisioned; it depends on a balance point.

But overall, I think in a decentralized world, we cannot control what others do. Just like we cannot control what the government wants to do. The situation in the U.S. now is a complete reversal from what it was 100 days ago, so Trump has only been in office for 100 days, but they are now very, very professional. Cryptocurrency has made the U.S. government smart enough to realize that buying Bitcoin is a great thing. Therefore, now other countries must follow suit, which is good for crypto.

Moreover, the U.S. has also triggered a domino effect in some ways; for example, I am providing crypto advice for Pakistan, and Abu Dhabi MGX has invested in Binance.

2. Issues in the Crypto Industry, Media Reporting, and Prison Life

The second part focuses on the issues CZ sees in the crypto industry, the false reporting by foreign media, and his experiences in prison:

Issues in the Crypto Industry

CZ: I think too much money has flowed into memecoins; people are too focused on memecoins, but memecoins are very short-term, with 99.9999% likely to fail. CoinMarketCap tracks 14 million tokens; this is a high-risk area, but fortunately, most meme traders understand these risks, and this situation happens often, so they accept it.

It has also diverted too much attention from practical projects. I think in the past four years, during the last U.S. government, there was a significant risk in running a proper crypto project. The SEC would sue you, saying it’s a security, etc. Fortunately, many similar lawsuits have been dismissed recently, so now I think we will see more builders. Therefore, I believe this industry will move in a healthy way, in the right direction.

Distorted Reporting by Foreign Media and Market Predictions

Regarding the previous WSJ smear articles about me, from my perspective, it’s like traditional media; they pick you and then try to target you, so they chose Elon, chose Trump, and then chose me, along with many others. Then they publish completely negative articles about you. Fortunately, these things don’t work anymore. I think the fact is that what people care about is not entirely controlled by the media; we can have face-to-face conversations like this, we have our own channels, and we have our own voices. So social media is a great platform, a great tool, allowing us to express our own voices.

But some traditional regulatory bodies, like politicians, will still read more traditional news. So sometimes they may have a distorted view of what is happening. Unfortunately, there’s only so much we can do to try to correct it; at least now we have our own channels. I once spoke with a friend at Bloomberg, and they told me they were really considering shutting down their investigative journalism department. Because investigative journalists don’t really investigate issues; they just investigate someone they set their own agenda against, looking for any little thing they can twist into a non-news narrative, which causes significant harm to the company’s reputation because Bloomberg is a tech company, not a media company. So the media hasn’t brought them profits while also harming some people; Bloomberg sells terminals, and they make a lot of money from those terminals.

I also heard that over 30% of news is actually written by AI, but those are major news stories, not investigative articles, and people read more major news. Of course, because these are data, they are facts that get published quickly, like the market is going down, and there is actually a lot of discussion about this. So I think the media industry will change unless they change their regulatory guidelines. In some ways, I also agree that Polymarket is doing well; their predictions are better than the media, which is also the role of cryptocurrency.

Prison Life and the Twisted Conclusion

The experience in prison changed me in some way, making me realize that health is the most important, followed by family, and then work and other things. In prison, you don’t miss gourmet food, but you do miss your bed and your family. I didn’t stop working, even after resigning as CEO of Binance. I am a builder, and I’m lucky; I’m not young but not very old either, so I still have the energy to do things. Therefore, I am still active, but I am now doing different things.

I am providing some assistance, like advising other founders, meeting with them, talking to them, learning from them, and I also established the Giggle education platform. So I am still busy doing other things; people can always make a positive impact anywhere. Additionally, I am more cautious now than before. After getting out, I took a few months off; I was less active on X and didn’t participate in many events. It took me a few months to slowly reintegrate into society, and I still keep in touch with a few friends from there; you can see friends everywhere.

In prison, many people are excessively punished, and they have a hard time finding lawyers, especially a very expensive outside lawyer. They don’t have pictures or the internet; they can only use a very outdated messaging system. They can call their families, but it’s only what their families want to tell them, 15 minutes each time, 500 minutes a month, and I didn’t have internet access. So, you can make friends everywhere there, and some people sent messages to tell me the price of Bitcoin.

But there is a TV in prison, mostly playing series and sports programs. I don’t watch sports, so I don’t watch TV either. However, some people in prison wanted to know about cryptocurrency, which I liked; it was a channel, just like a financial channel. I could see the development of Nvidia, and I knew President Trump was shot; all of this happened during my time in prison.

I also saw that Trump faced 34 criminal charges, one of which was taking documents to his bathroom. But you shouldn’t charge your former president for taking classified documents to the bathroom. If this happened in my company, and some employees took classified documents to the bathroom, I would give that person a bonus; they are working hard, after all, working in the bathroom. I also saw Trump attending the Nashville conference like a cryptocurrency professional, which was amazing.

Two months into my prison sentence, I saw that the Democrats could also accept cryptocurrency. Just five days before my sentencing, Senator Elizabeth Warren announced another anti-cryptocurrency bill, which was interesting.

Although I describe my prison experience with somewhat embellished language, it is very difficult when you actually go through it. Now I can laugh it off, but it’s not funny at all; I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone, and I was very stressed at the time.

My first cellmate committed double murder, so once you enter prison, the people there don’t care who you are; they treat you equally. So I didn’t receive any special treatment; I was told I was under central monitoring in prison. This means that some central office was watching me.

But I was a white-collar criminal; even if charged, I should have been in a minimum-security prison. However, because I am not a U.S. citizen, even though I voluntarily flew there to deal with these issues, I was placed in a low-security prison. My cellmate was sentenced to 30 years for murdering two people at the same time, but he served 12 years for good behavior. He was moved to a medium-security cell and then downgraded to a minimum-security cell, but I was placed there, and the prison groups you by race. So, they categorized Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans into a group called Pacific Islanders. So, I shared a cell with him for a few weeks, but we got along well. However, when you actually experience it, I was very scared.

The prison takes your photo, asks some questions, and changes the script for searches. This prison is like a three-story building with two rows of salespeople facing each other. Most of the time, you can walk around the prison; the cell doors are open, and there are about 240 people inside. As soon as you walk in, you see some people with similar tattoos, like face tattoos and head tattoos, tall guys who all look alike.

They all shout at each other when you walk by; it’s not fun. The guard told me I was in Room A Five. When I walked there and tried to open the door, it was locked. But after a minute, a guard who looked like a vampire came over to open the door. When I opened the door, everyone knew I was the new fish. In fact, everyone was very polite and friendly; once you get to know them, they know I have no issues.

They all looked like tough guys, but they were all good people, and there were no issues between prisoners or guards. But the most painful thing was mental; I was always worried they might keep me there for more than four months.

You know, there could be some other random issues during that time, generally happening in many emails. They could charge me again, like being trapped in a "California hotel," you can check in but can’t check out. That was my biggest worry; I believed I would get through it. But there were too many unexpected events during that time, even when I was taken to a halfway house (re-entry training center) when I should have had another month and a half left, but 14 days in, they arrested me again and put me in a detention center because the immigration office said my visa had expired. So, I was ordered to stay in this country; we applied for a longer extension, but they denied it. I said I wanted to stay in this country’s prison.

They put me in a detention center, and then my lawyer found out about it; illegal detention contact, and later they never took me back to the halfway house. All of this will appear in the book I am writing.

3. SBF, Trump's Crypto Tactics, and UAE Leadership

The third part focuses on CZ's insights regarding SBF, Trump, and his meme coin TRUMP:

It's Hard for Me to Comment on SBF

It's hard for me to comment on SBF. I think I don’t want anyone to have a prison experience, but I believe that such bad behaviors involving fraud, scams, and embezzlement should not happen. I also don’t think the U.S. sentencing time is very long; you have ways to reduce it. For good behavior, generally, every 30 days of good behavior can earn you 10 days off. So most people only serve two-thirds of their sentence. I sympathize with everyone in prison. It’s not an easy experience. And being in prison for a long time doesn’t make people honest; what I saw in prison were those who were sentenced to 10 years, and they still wouldn’t change, not considering our need to change ourselves.

They know that most of them did wrong, but some are excessively punished, and then they just conform to it; I don’t know what the best correction method is. For example, if you really want this person to change, you need to learn from mistakes and then make changes.

Trump's Crypto Tactics and UAE Leadership

I think he is starting to become more popular. Just like when he was charged with 34 crimes, that was crazy. Then he ran for president. I thought, well, this will be great. Then Trump became a cryptocurrency professional; you can see he really supports cryptocurrency and is not just talking about it. It’s clear that this is beneficial for our industry and anyone with criminal charges. I could see all of this in prison, so I think we are in a very fortunate industry; the current U.S. president is very professional, and he is smart, although I have never spoken to Trump.

As a foreign company and a foreign citizen, we cannot make election donations or donate to any political figures. This is something I am very cautious about; I don’t do anything related to elections. Even with Binance US, I am still a major shareholder there. There are many news reports saying I am trying to exchange our equity for a pardon, which is completely untrue. I have not discussed any issues regarding Binance US equity with anyone; many of these stories are fabricated.

I feel very optimistic about China-U.S. trade and that some consensus may be reached soon.

Regarding Trump’s TRUMP coin, I have heard many versions of the story from different people. Some say TRUMP is very closely related to him. Others say it’s not at all. Actually, I don’t know that much. I know there will be a TRUMP TOP Holder dinner on May 22, but I am not a holder of TRUMP, you know, because of media reports, I try to avoid certain relationships with political figures; otherwise, the media will connect us in some way.

Additionally, I think the leadership in the UAE is very advanced; they are smart and visionary, knowing how to handle very tricky issues. They understood blockchain earlier and realized that besides oil, they need to develop other industries they have. I think blockchain is an important industry. AI is too; the leadership here understands these future technologies very well. Moreover, the leadership here has a very good relationship with the U.S., but I don’t know the specific details. However, they have deep cooperation in areas like AI and blockchain.

4. CEX & DEX, CZ and Binance, and Five Small Predictions

The fourth part focuses on CZ's optimism about DEX, his decision not to return to Binance, and his five small predictions in response to the host's questions:

CZ: CEX and DEX are both tools for entering crypto, but I believe the future is DEX

CZ: Many people think CEX and DEX are different, but I think that’s a mistaken view. CEX and DEX are just opposite terms; they are both tools that provide access to blockchain, just different ways of access. So for any builder and solution provider, we should provide everything. Centralization is just a means to provide access. We have also made significant investments in CEX, DEX, Perps, blockchain development, and many other ecosystems.

But DEX is still a market with huge potential, in its infancy, and there is still a lot to do. I believe that a fully transparent model may be the best, or maybe not. But the current fully transparent method is not suitable for everyone. For example, a large holder closed a $300 million short position, but they don’t want their trades to be seen by everyone; the trading methods of whales and ordinary users are different.

The future is decentralized; DEX will be larger than CEX, and we hope to invest heavily in these areas. Yes, we invest in projects that will impact CEX business; in fact, we have already invested in multiple DEX and DEX Perps, but I am not managing those now.

Also, regarding the news about tokens being listed on CEX, short-term speculators will see the listing on CEX as the last dance for the project token, but for real builders, this is just the beginning.

PS: The next section is about CZ's group chat with executives from other exchanges, discussing disputes with SBF, etc., which will not be translated for now.

Can I still return to Binance?

Even if the situation allowed me to return to Binance, I feel that I wouldn't go back. I am lucky to be "forced into retirement." If I had retired voluntarily, I might have exhausted all my energy because I am a bit of a workaholic, working at least six days a week, usually six and a half, with meetings on Saturdays and Sundays. Even when I’m not working, I’m always thinking about work, trying to train my brain to think. I have some extracurricular activities; I enjoy kite surfing and am currently learning. I can do a little jump, but I can’t land well, but since it’s on water, it’s okay.

Most people define me as a workaholic, but I don’t think I would return to Binance as CEO; Binance now has excellent leaders. The company has been running very well for a year and a half without my involvement, and I am still a shareholder, so I still benefit. Binance is a cutting-edge team, and we hope to continue to drive and grow the team.

My current role is more like a mentor or coach, a bit like a coach standing on the sidelines, actually for new entrepreneurs, so I won’t be leading another project myself, even though I am still working very hard. I find it much easier now than when I was leading Binance; I don’t think I have the stamina to do it again. It requires too much effort, work, and mental strain. I am satisfied with one attempt, like someone who succeeded once by luck.

I don’t want to prove that I am a capable serial entrepreneur; I have done well, but I think my role should focus more on helping multiple founders grow. That’s my mindset now.

Five Small Predictions

What will the total market cap of the crypto market be by the end of this year (cycle end): possibly $5 trillion. I don’t know what the market cap will be at the end of this cycle; it’s a difficult question to answer.

What price will Bitcoin reach in this cycle: $500,000 to $1 million.

Will TRUMP surpass DOGE: I’m not sure.

Will fartcoin's market cap reach $10 billion: I’m unclear; I don’t even know what the price is now, and it’s highly unlikely.

Will you get another dog: Not in the short term.

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