At this week's World Economic Forum in Davos, held in the UTC+8 time zone, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) spoke as an industry leader about the future direction of the cryptocurrency industry, once again becoming the focal point of the intersection between traditional finance and the crypto world. As the founder of a platform operating licensed exchanges in approximately 22-23 countries, his judgments on regulatory trends, business layout, and technological iteration will, to some extent, influence how capital migrates within the global crypto ecosystem. In his speech, CZ distilled the medium- to long-term evolution of the crypto industry into three main lines: asset tokenization, the integration of crypto and traditional payment systems, and the combination of AI and blockchain. These directions are not isolated technological fantasies but are embedded in a macro resonance environment where Bitcoin has surpassed $90,000, large whales are actively leveraging, and the S&P 500 continues to rise, laying the groundwork for the upcoming new cycle, regulatory games, and changes in the attitudes of traditional systems.
The Complex Emotions of $90,000 Bitcoin and Davos
● Resonance of Risk Assets: Recently, BTC prices have surpassed the $90,000 mark, with large addresses on-chain frequently engaging in high-leverage operations, alternating between liquidation and margin calls, indicating a significant increase in risk appetite in the market. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index has also continued its upward trend, with tech stocks and crypto assets forming a certain synchronous resonance in terms of sentiment and capital. For holders, this is an asset "amplifier"; but for regulators and institutional compliance departments, the resonance of high volatility, high leverage, and macroeconomic easing is accumulating new systemic risk concerns.
● The Contradictory Perspective of Traditional Elites: In such a high-volatility context, traditional financial and policy elites at Davos can no longer simply regard crypto assets as marginal "speculative products." On one hand, new price highs and active liquidity force them to reassess the weight of crypto assets in global asset allocation and capital flows; on the other hand, high leverage and regulatory arbitrage deepen their vigilance against "bubbles" and "safe havens," fearing that these could amplify volatility in the next market adjustment. Crypto assets are gradually shifting in their eyes from "ignorable" to "must be managed," but there remains a significant gap before "full acceptance."
● The Symbolic Significance of CZ's Invitation to Speak: In the early days, CZ and his platform were long excluded from mainstream summits, seen as "outsiders" lacking compliance and negotiation qualifications. Now, on a global stage like Davos, he is invited to elaborate on the paths of asset tokenization, payment integration, and AI combination, which itself is a reflection of changing attitudes. The traditional system can no longer simply exclude the crypto industry from institutional design but must seek a new balance between risk prevention and innovation guidance, making each of CZ's public statements carry a dual meaning of being "mainstreamed."
The Reality of 22 Country Licenses and Fragmented Regulation
● The Landscape of Multi-Country Licensing: According to public information, Binance currently holds various forms of compliance licenses or registration qualifications in approximately 22 to 23 countries worldwide, covering various business forms such as trading and custody. Among many jurisdictions, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Middle East, and Pakistan are relatively more proactive in their regulatory attitudes towards crypto, willing to attract platforms and capital through clear rules. This multi-point licensing layout gives the platform a certain resilience in market expansion but also exposes the structural problem of highly fragmented global regulatory standards.
● The Difficulty of Establishing a Unified Regulatory Body: CZ stated at Davos that "it is currently difficult to establish a unified global crypto regulatory body," which is not diplomatic rhetoric but a straightforward judgment of reality constraints. Different countries have varying priorities in anti-money laundering, investor protection, taxation, and capital flow management, leading to significant differences in regulatory frameworks in terms of standards, thresholds, and enforcement intensity. For cross-border platforms, this means having to separately connect compliance teams, technical modifications, and reporting obligations for each country, significantly amplifying compliance costs and forcing business rhythms to constantly switch and compromise between different legal environments.
● Arbitrage and Opportunities Amid Regulatory Differences: Although fragmentation raises operational thresholds, it also creates "window periods" for some friendly jurisdictions. Countries that choose to provide clear registration paths, tax arrangements, and licensing systems can attract trading volume and innovative enterprises through policies and licenses, seizing the high ground in the new round of financial infrastructure competition. For platforms and project parties, finely tuning layouts between high-pressure and friendly environments is both an adaptation to regulatory red lines and a gamble on policy dividends. In the future, those who can find the best balance between compliance and innovation will directly determine their ability to navigate the next cycle.
Asset Tokenization: The Conspiracy and Tug-of-War Between Wall Street and Crypto
● The Logic Behind Being the Primary Direction: Among the three paths outlined by CZ, asset tokenization is placed first, driven by the traditional financial system's urgent need for efficiency and liquidity upgrades. Whether it is government bonds, stocks, or other financial products, they still rely on multiple intermediaries, fragmented ledgers, and complex settlement processes, while on-chain tokenization can technically provide faster settlement speeds, more transparent holding records, and more granular trading methods. This makes asset tokenization a natural first testing ground for traditional finance to safely enter, and it is also the interface where Wall Street and crypto-native infrastructure can most easily achieve "technical collusion."
● Coexistence and Competition with Crypto-Native Assets: If in the future government bonds, stocks, and real estate rights circulate on-chain in token form, it will inevitably reshape the distribution of capital in the on-chain world. Some conservative funds may prefer on-chain certificates backed by sovereign or physical assets, thus competing for capital with crypto-native assets like Bitcoin; but at the same time, these traditional assets, once tokenized, can inject new underlying assets into on-chain derivatives, collateral lending, and other scenarios, thereby enhancing the overall scale and complexity of on-chain finance. The coexistence and competition will become a long-term tension in the future cycle.
● Information Gaps and Cautious Expectations: It is important to emphasize that, although there are claims in the market that CZ is engaged in in-depth cooperation with multiple governments on asset tokenization, the specific number and progress of collaborations have not been publicly detailed. The briefing mentions "discussions with about 12 governments" still marked as information pending verification, so at this stage, the outside world can only make conservative judgments based on the directional statements disclosed by officials: there is indeed a willingness to explore in various countries, but in terms of compliance frameworks, technical standards, and the relationship between sovereign currencies and on-chain assets, it remains in a long-term game and pilot stage, and any specific implementation timeline should be viewed as a high-uncertainty event.
Payment System Convergence: From Card Organizations to On-Chain Balances
● The Real Outline of Integration Directions: When discussing the integration in the payment field, CZ sees it as one of the medium- to short-term paths for crypto assets to penetrate everyday economic activities. From the perspective of real progress, the number of cooperation cases between crypto platforms and traditional card organizations and payment institutions is gradually increasing, with the United States and some Middle Eastern countries showing relatively positive regulatory attitudes towards small payments and cross-border settlement pilots. These attempts are not simply "swiping cards to buy coins," but rather trying to allow users to use account systems supported by on-chain assets on familiar payment carriers, blurring the lines between "on-chain balances" and "fiat accounts."
● Infrastructure and Compliance Resistance: However, to achieve truly large-scale daily payments on-chain, the real obstacles are far more complex than conceptual narratives. KYC/AML compliance requirements, the existing structure of payment clearing networks, and different countries' restrictions on cross-border capital flows make it difficult to directly move consumption and wage settlements onto the chain on a large scale in the short term. For platforms and payment institutions, it is necessary to constantly make trade-offs between user experience, compliance costs, and regulatory tolerance, which is why most current landing forms still remain in a "recharge-consume-settle" semi-on-chain model rather than a fully disintermediated pure on-chain payment environment.
● A Warning Against Exaggerated Landing Narratives: The market is not short of narratives exaggerating that "the traditional payment system and on-chain assets have deeply integrated," with some even packaging scattered pilot projects as signals that will soon fully replace existing payment networks. However, based on the information provided in the research briefing, the relevant progress still belongs to the category of pending verification, lacking large-scale, sustained empirical data support. For investors and practitioners, it is essential to be cautious about equating individual pilot projects or cooperation agreements with full implementation, viewing them as part of the exploratory phase rather than evidence that a turning point has already arrived.
AI and Blockchain: From Concept Hype to Infrastructure Betting
● The Hypothetical Scenario of AI Agents on the Chain: In the third path, CZ turns his attention to the cutting-edge narrative of the combination of AI and blockchain, discussing scenarios where AI Agents may autonomously interact and settle on-chain in the future. In this vision, AI models are no longer just passive tools executing tasks but possess a certain "economic behavior capability" through smart contracts and on-chain identity systems, allowing them to pay for computing power, data, or services and retain auditable interaction records on-chain. This provides a traceable and settleable foundational framework for the "machine economy" and raises higher performance and security requirements for on-chain infrastructure.
● The Early State of the Native Currency Hypothesis: Discussions around whether AI will view crypto assets as "native currencies" are gaining traction in the market and on social media. However, based on current information, this viewpoint is still in the early exploratory stage, lacking large-scale empirical applications. The research briefing also lists the statement "AI Agents using cryptocurrencies as native payment currencies" as pending verification, indicating that it is more about conceptual and visionary extrapolation rather than a closed-loop business model formed at the industry level. When assessing the value of related projects, it is crucial to distinguish this forward-looking vision from the current speculative frenzy driven by sentiment and narrative.
● Narrative Amplifiers in High-Price Markets: Currently, BTC is oscillating at high levels, and tech stocks and AI-related assets are performing strongly in traditional markets, with the resonance of these two lines of risk assets naturally attracting higher attention and valuation premiums for the AI+Crypto narrative. In such an environment, capital is more inclined to chase "futuristic" stories, driving up the prices of tokens related to AI, Agents, and computing power. However, bubbles and innovation often coexist; those truly likely to navigate the cycle may be projects that build long-term infrastructure around data rights, model incentives, computing power markets, and security layers, rather than merely short-term speculative targets wrapped in concepts.
The Three Tracks in Regulatory Tug-of-War and the Next Cycle
In the context of the distribution of licenses across approximately 22-23 countries and the reality of highly fragmented regulation, the three directions emphasized by CZ—asset tokenization, payment integration, and AI on-chain—are essentially seeking a "compromise space" that can be partially accepted by the traditional system for the crypto industry. Asset tokenization corresponds more to the asset-side reforms that traditional finance is willing to pilot; payment integration aims to embed on-chain assets into existing payment networks, striving for greater use cases without completely overturning the current order; while AI on-chain looks to the distant future, attempting to embed the role of "underlying protocol" for crypto infrastructure in the new technological paradigm, rather than directly confronting the fiat currency system.
From a temporal perspective, these three tracks are likely to present a staggered advancement rhythm in the next major cycle. Asset tokenization, being more compatible with existing financial regulatory frameworks, may form replicable pilot models in some countries in the coming years, but its risk points lie in the coordination difficulties of sovereign credit, technical standards, and cross-border regulation; payment integration will advance more slowly in more regions, with resistance concentrated on the practical constraints of compliance costs and infrastructure modifications; while AI on-chain resembles a long-term option, with short-term price volatility being severe, and the true value of infrastructure needing to emerge after multiple rounds of technological iteration and capital cleansing.
For market participants, it is essential to clearly distinguish the gap between the grand visions of Davos and the reality of progress. On one side is the price frenzy brought about by Bitcoin surpassing $90,000, large whales leveraging high, and the S&P 500 rising together; on the other side is the long-term game and institutional adjustment of regulatory agencies in various countries regarding licenses, taxes, and cross-border capital flows. Whether betting on asset tokenization, payment integration, or the combination of AI and blockchain, the main thread of regulation and compliance cannot be avoided. The next round of betting will not only depend on technological imagination and narrative strength but also on who can find truly sustainable institutional and business landing points in a fragmented regulatory environment.
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