The "richest man in Chinese" wandering around the world has no house and no car

"CZ may not come to the scene. I heard that he is infected with the new crown." OOKC labs partner Max said with a little regret.

OOKC labs is a blockchain/digital transformation solution provider headquartered in Dubai. On March 28, when Max participated in the "Blackchain Week" (Blockchain Week) organized by Binance in Dubai, he thought he could communicate with CZ up close during the event, but he was disappointed.

Binance is the world's largest digital currency exchange, and CZ is its founder and CEO. His real name is Zhao Changpeng. He is a Chinese-Canadian born in Lianyungang, Jiangsu. He is 45 years old this year and is called "the richest man in Chinese" by many media.

Four years ago, there was a set of "big boss poker cards" circulating in the currency circle. The king was Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin who had never appeared before, and the little king was Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum known as " V God ". , and Zhao Changpeng ranked 8th, codenamed "Heart K".

Nowadays, earth-shaking changes have taken place in the currency circle. Some of the bigwigs in front of him have left the currency circle, and some have disappeared. Zhao Changpeng is one of the few bigwigs who are still active in the front line, and has become the most powerful voice in the currency circle He has as many as 5.5 million fans on Twitter, while the former "Xiao Wang" V God has only 3.6 million fans.

According to the latest Forbes Global Rich List in April, Zhao Changpeng ranked 19th in the world with a net worth of 65 billion U.S. dollars, ranking second among Chinese, only 700 million U.S. dollars less than "the richest Chinese" Zhong Suisui, and third Zhang Yiming of China has an extra $15 billion.

At noon on March 30, Dubai time, "Blackchain Week" came to an end. According to the original plan, Zhao Changpeng was supposed to give a closing speech at the scene, but instead a 3-minute remote video.

In the video, he spoke briskly and thanked the friends who attended the meeting and the Dubai side for their support. Although he did not directly say that he was infected with the new crown, he still revealed relevant information in his words-"I will see you after the quarantine period".

The picture is a screenshot of the Blackchain Week live broadcast, and Changpeng Zhao is on the screen

In the short video, he did not talk about his observations and predictions on the industry, nor did he answer the question of concern from the outside world—whether Binance will locate its global headquarters in Dubai.

Previously in China, Changpeng Zhao's reputation was not too great. However, at the end of last year, he had attracted a round of widespread attention from the domestic society. At that time, the domestic media "Caijing" pointed out in a report that Zhao Changpeng's net worth was as high as 90 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing Zhong Suisui, the chairman of Nongfu Spring, and became the richest Chinese man.

It is not only Caijing that thinks that Zhao Changpeng is the richest man in China, but also Bloomberg, which has extensive influence in the world.

On the "Bloomberg Billionaires Index", which is updated in real time, Zhao Changpeng surpassed Zhong Suisui many times to become the richest Chinese in the world. For example, on February 10, his net worth reached 86.8 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing Zhong Suisui's 74.4 billion U.S. dollars, ranking 12th in the world, only one lower than Facebook founder Zuckerberg.

The picture is a screenshot of the official website of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index

However, Changpeng Zhao is not recognized by mainstream society like the billionaires on the list.

On the contrary, due to the inherent original sins of digital currency-money laundering, dark web transactions, etc., this industry has always been subject to strong supervision by various countries. But on the other hand, Changpeng Zhao frequently interacts with fans on Twitter and makes comments. He is regarded by the currency circle as an evangelist and prophet in the industry, and at the same time he has become one of the most active billionaires.

"The man worth $74 billion"

The first time Changpeng Zhao’s wealth received media attention was in February 2018, when it was reported by Forbes.

At that time, this magazine, which is famous for reporting the net worth of the rich, released the rich list in the field of digital currency. The assessment of Zhao Changpeng’s net worth was 1.1-2 billion US dollars, and he did not hesitate to report on the cover.

A subtitle on the cover is "From Zero to Billionaire in Only 6 Months", because Binance was only established 6 months ago at that time.

Many people would not have imagined that four years later, Changpeng Zhao would become a shareholder of Forbes. In February of this year, Binance made a strategic investment of US$200 million in Forbes, becoming one of its two major shareholders and promoting the listing of Forbes.

At the beginning of April this year, Forbes did not shy away from Zhao Changpeng's status as a shareholder, and reassessed his net worth. In the Forbes Global Rich List at that time, Zhao Changpeng ranked 19th in the world with a net worth of 65 billion U.S. dollars, ranking second among Chinese, only 700 million U.S. dollars less than "the richest Chinese" Zhong Suisui.

The picture is taken from the 2022 rich list of Forbes official website

In addition to Forbes and Bloomberg, in March this year, the 2022 Global Rich List released by Hurun showed that Zhao Changpeng's wealth reached 145 billion yuan, ranking 67th in the world, an increase of 269 places.

Of those rankings, Bloomberg has the highest assessment of his net worth. According to its official website, Bloomberg’s main basis is Zhao Changpeng’s equity in Binance. In some areas where information needs to be disclosed, Binance has made public statements and regulatory documents. According to these statements and documents, Bloomberg concluded that Zhao Changpeng owns 90% of Binance’s controlling stake.

"When Binance was founded, some domestic investors invested in it. Since then, Sequoia and IDG also want to invest in Binance. These can be found in public information." An investor in the currency circle said to the author, "However, None of them got equity, Changpeng Zhao has absolute control over Binance.”

Kuaidi Dache founder and investor Chen Weixing invested in Binance when it was established. However, the two sides later had conflicts. On August 31, 2020, Chen Weixing stated in his circle of friends that he had invested tens of millions of RMB in Binance, but had never obtained shares.

In an article, Bloomberg concluded after analyzing Binance’s trading volume and fees that Binance’s revenue will be at least $20 billion in 2021, which is almost the same as the revenue of Coinbase, the world’s second largest digital currency exchange, in that year. three times.

In April 2021, Coinbase was listed on Nasdaq, and its current market value is about 35 billion US dollars.

A Binance spokesperson has since responded that the valuation is "incorrect and by a wide margin," without providing further details.

In addition to holding equity in Binance, Changpeng Zhao also invested in BNB (Binance Coin) and Bitcoin. Among them, BNB is a digital currency issued by Binance. It is currently the fourth largest digital currency in the world, with a total currency value of about 65 billion US dollars.

"Digital currency is encrypted, and the outside world doesn't know how many BNB he has." The above-mentioned investor explained to the author, "When BNB is issued, it will indicate how much the team keeps and how much it circulates in the market, but how to divide it within the team, how much Zhao Changpeng takes, and the outside world I don't know."

Bloomberg also stated that the digital currency held by Zhao Changpeng is not included in the estimated wealth of Changpeng Zhao. When Bloomberg evaluates the wealth of rich people, it will give a "confidence level" to the results. For Zhao Changpeng's evaluation, they only rated 1 star, which is the lowest level of confidence, which means that the information they can objectively evaluate is very limited.

Today, the discussion about Zhao Changpeng's net worth has become a hot spot pursued by the financial media.

On March 30 this year, another well-known media for wealth ranking, "Fortune" (Fortune), carried out a cover report on Zhao Changpeng, with the headline "The man with a net worth of 74 billion U.S. dollars."

Changpeng Zhao responded twice on Twitter, emphasizing that he is not that rich, and said that he only cares about the money in his wallet, but he also thanked Fortune for his attention.

No house or car, "mobility is king"

Regarding Changpeng Zhao’s wealth, you can say that he is worth hundreds of billions, or you can say that he has nothing. It mainly depends on whether you recognize the value of digital currency.

In May 2018, at an online exchange meeting held by Binance, Zhao Changpeng’s partner and Binance CMO He Yi said in a question-and-answer interaction that besides digital currency, Zhao Changpeng’s most valuable things are mobile phones and computers. He didn't buy a house or a car.

He Yi also joked that according to the Chinese standards for a mother-in-law looking for a son-in-law, Changpeng Zhao is not qualified.

"No car, no house" has always been Zhao Changpeng's label. He once stated that encrypted digital currency accounts for 99% of his personal wealth.

Today, that label has been broken. At the end of last year, he bought an apartment in Dubai, which was reported by some media. However, some people in the currency circle speculated to the author that he may not buy an apartment for permanent residence or investment, but to show favor to Dubai-Binance is looking for a landing city for its global headquarters, and Dubai is a popular choice.

Liquidity is an important part of Zhao Changpeng's view of wealth. He has repeatedly emphasized the importance of liquidity to wealth, and said that the reason for not buying a house is that the liquidity of the house is too poor.

At the end of last year, when Caijing magazine reported that he was the richest man in the Chinese community, he responded by posting a circle of friends. He wrote: "Valuations without liquidity are false. Liquidity is king."

He also gave an example: If a coin is issued, 900 billion pieces, and one dollar is sold, there will be a market value of 900 billion.

In the currency circle, issuing coins used to be a shortcut to getting rich. Generally speaking, issuing coins is equivalent to listing a company, but the former is much easier. The price and quantity of coins can be set by yourself, and there is no supervision. It is not difficult to issue coins worth 900 billion. What Changpeng Zhao means is that if no one trades these coins, they will have no value.

According to public information, Zhao Changpeng was born in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province. His father once taught at the University of Science and Technology of China. In 1989, his family moved to Vancouver, Canada.

A local person from Lianyungang introduced to the author that Changpeng Zhao was born in Ganyu District, Lianyungang City, and the local people have noticed the news that he became the richest Chinese. If he is not recognized, the local people will not promote or even understand him too much.

Changpeng Zhao's work has always been related to transactions. According to the cover report of "Forbes" in 2018, he graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a major in computer science, and worked at the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Bloomberg, responsible for the development of trading software.

In 2005, he resigned from Bloomberg and founded Fusion systems in Shanghai. His main business is to build high-frequency trading systems.

His digital currency nugget journey began in 2013. At that time, he played poker with Bobby Lee, CEO of the digital currency trading platform "Bitcoin China", and learned about Bitcoin. Bobby encouraged him to invest 10% of his assets in Bitcoin. But after researching, he decided to sell his house in Shanghai, All in Bitcoin.

In the second year, he joined the exchange OKcoin as a co-founder and served as CTO.

But nine months later, he resigned from OKcoin on the grounds that he did not agree with the company's future development direction.

"He has the characteristics of an IT person, which is related to his technical background and experience in trading work. He is also more Western-style in his management team." Cai Kailong, former chief strategy officer of Huobi Group, introduced to the author that many years ago, because he was a colleague, He and Changpeng Zhao met at work. Huobi and OKCoin were once the top three digital currency exchanges in the world.

In Cai Kailong’s view, some companies pay attention to the authority of the founder and obey the founder’s order, but Binance is more open, and Zhao Changpeng can listen to different opinions, which is conducive to the development of Binance.

On Twitter, he's as active as Musk

"Changpeng Zhao's foreign status is an important reason for the rapid rise of Binance." In the author's dialogue with many people in the currency circle, this point of view was mentioned many times.

When Binance was founded in 2017, Huobi and OKcoin dominated the exchange market, and Binance was not favored by others. However, repeated strong supervision in China has caused these exchanges to suffer disaster, and unexpectedly gave Binance the opportunity to "overtake on a corner".

On September 4, 2017, seven ministries and commissions including the Central Bank, Cyberspace Administration of China, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Banking Regulatory Commission, and China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued the "Announcement on Preventing Financing Risks of Token Issuance", and digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum plummeted. In the currency circle, it is called "94 currency disaster" in history.

At that time, digital currency players were mainly in China. Most of the customers of Huobi and OKCoin were Chinese, and the teams were also in China.

Under continuous supervision, exchanges have begun to "go to sea" to save themselves, and the huge domestic business has become a burden for Huobi and OKCoin, and they are also hesitant to give up the domestic market. The start-up Binance can go on the road without hesitation, and chose overseas markets without hesitation.

“Changpeng Zhao himself is Canadian, and Binance’s user interface, user habits, and company promotion are all in line with the habits of foreigners, which allowed them to gain a firm foothold in the international market from the very beginning.” Cai Kailong analyzed to the author.

At the end of last year, in an exclusive interview with Forbes, Zhao Changpeng also said that Huobi and OKCoin mainly focus on the Chinese market. Even though they have a Chinese-English bilingual interface, their operating methods are very Chinese; the world’s second largest exchange, Coinbase, only has an English version. When Binance was established, it supported four languages, upgraded to support nine languages within a month, and later supported 31 languages.

On March 27 this year, Binance hosted an event in Dubai, a blockchain project roadshow in Vietnam, and had discussions with some of Binance’s leaders. What impressed Max in the previous article about this event is that Binance’s staff in charge of the Vietnamese market are all Vietnamese.

"Binance has always used local people for operations and customer service, which is one of their characteristics." Max said.

A few years ago, when digital currency was developing wildly in China, major exchanges and currency issuers also established their own communities. It can even be said that community maintenance is the most important operation of the currency circle, and the bigwigs in the currency circle also Very active on social platforms.

Those who overshadowed Zhao Changpeng in the limelight were Wu Jihan, the founder of Bitmain, Zhang Nangeng, the founder of Canaan Yunzhi, Li Lin, the owner of Huobi, Xu Mingxing, the owner of OKCoin, and Li Xiaolai, who is known as the richest man in Bitcoin. But in the past three years, these people have disappeared. Xu Mingxing has even been surrounded by speculators many times, and has been investigated by the police many times.

As a Canadian Chinese, Changpeng Zhao is active outside the control.

His Twitter followers are as high as 5.5 million, which is the person with the largest number of fans in the currency circle. He is like an evangelist, sending several tweets about digital currency almost every day, and he is as active as the world's richest man Elon Musk, and the two sometimes interact.

In November 2021, there was an interaction between Musk and Changpeng Zhao about Dogecoin. At that time, some media reported it under the title "Musk was knocked down by Binance CEO".

"In fact, he is relatively low-key. The digital currency exchange itself is hugely controversial, and no one wants to be too high-profile. His tweets may be necessary to maintain the company's image." Cai Kailong introduced to the author.

At the same time, compared with Huobi and OKCoin, Binance is also in the limelight.

In February 2020, Binance CMO He Yi, known as the "big sister of the currency circle", published a business recruitment advertisement in the Moments. . It didn't take long for photos of several young and beautiful girls to spread in various communities. These people are Binance business people who have successfully applied for the job.

This move caused huge controversy in the currency circle. Of course, Huobi and OKCoin would not dare to carry out such a high-profile promotional activity.

A person in the currency circle told the author that this strategy is understandable. Most of the big domestic currency speculators are upstarts and coal bosses, and they like young and beautiful girls.

Monopoly empire, trading volume exceeds the Shanghai Stock Exchange

The Blockchain Week held in Dubai at the end of March is a rare event in the currency circle that collects tickets.

According to Binance’s official website, they sold 1,500 tickets at a price of $600 each, and they quickly announced they were sold out. According to Max, during the few days of the event, many of his friends from all over the world flew to Dubai for several hours to participate in the event.

At that time, Dubai was at the end of the postponed World Expo 2020. The Blockchain Week and World Expo have made Dubai, a city famous for its wealth and luxury, the focus of the global currency circle.

Today's Binance has become a huge digital currency empire, with exchanges, digital currencies, data websites, wallets, everything, as well as research institutes, charitable foundations and other branches.

In this empire, the exchange is the most important asset. The official website shows that they have 90 million users, more than 600 digital currencies have been launched, and the 24-hour transaction volume has reached 76 billion US dollars. According to the rules, Binance can take up to 0.1% of the transaction fee, and 76 billion US dollars can collect up to 76 million US dollars in fees.

Whether it is in the traditional capital market or in the digital currency market, the transaction volume is amazing.

For example, the official website data of Coinbase, the world’s second largest digital currency exchange, shows that its quarterly trading volume is 547 billion US dollars. After conversion, the average daily trading volume is about 6.08 billion US dollars, which is less than 1/10 of Binance.

Compared to traditional stock exchanges, Binance can also rank among the top globally. For example, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the world's third largest exchange, will have an average daily trading volume of about 469.1 billion yuan, or about 73.7 billion U.S. dollars, in 2021.

It is worth noting that Binance trades 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, while the Shanghai Stock Exchange has limited trading hours. There are only 243 trading days in 2021. If the annual transaction volume is calculated, Binance is much larger than the Shanghai Stock Exchange. .

BNB is a digital currency issued by Binance. From June 26 to July 3, 2017, Binance held an ICO (Initial Coin Offering), BNB came out and raised $15 million. At that time, ICO was in a state of madness, and a large number of speculators made a fortune by issuing coins. It was this kind of ICO behavior that was mainly hit by the "94 currency disaster".

When BNB was issued, 1 bitcoin could be exchanged for 20,000 BNBs. Today, 1 bitcoin can only be exchanged for about 100 BNBs, and bitcoins have increased by more than ten times. Based on this calculation, BNB has increased by thousands of times.

Some people think that BNB is equivalent to the exchange's own stock. This explanation is not comprehensive, but it helps to understand BNB. In the traditional capital market, several major exchanges are not only trading platforms for other listed companies, but also issue their own stocks for investors to trade, such as Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, etc.

In fact, BNB is much more widely used in Binance's digital currency empire.

It can be realized through transactions, can be used to pay transaction fees, and can also participate in token sales hosted by Binance, book air tickets and hotels on designated websites, donate to Binance Charity Foundation, etc.

Coinmarketcap is a world-renowned digital currency data website. Its official website counts 9,860 digital currencies, and it is the most visited website for cryptocurrency retail investors.

On March 31, 2020, Binance acquired it and mastered the traffic portal of retail investors. Retail investors can jump directly to Binance Exchange from this website.

However, the deal has been criticized by peers. An investor in a small exchange once lamented to the author that after Binance acquired Coinmarketcap, it has formed a monopoly empire of "traffic entrance + exchange", which reduces the diversion channels of small exchanges and increases the cost of customer acquisition , Not conducive to industry competition and healthy development.

Wallet is a basic application of digital currency. Users can store digital currency in the wallet or take it out for transactions. At the beginning, Binance did not have its own wallet. In July 2018, Binance acquired a wallet called Trust Wallet. With the rise of Binance, Trust Wallet has also become the world's largest digital currency wallet.

No headquarters, no supervision?

For this huge digital currency empire, Zhao Changpeng once had an idealized design - no headquarters.

Decentralization and distribution are the characteristics of the blockchain, and the no-headquarters model makes the outside world think that Binance is practicing the blockchain concept. At an event in May 2020, Changpeng Zhao also said that Binance does not have a headquarters because Bitcoin does not have an office.

In May last year, Changpeng Zhao said in an exclusive interview with "Later" that Binance has less than 3,000 employees, distributed in more than 60 countries and regions around the world, and they collaborate remotely with various office software on a daily basis. They don't use the company to refer to Binance internally, but use the word "organization"; they don't use the word "employee" but "team member".

This distributed office method can also be seen in a recent incident.

On March 29, Trust Wallet founder Viktor Radchenko announced his departure on Twitter. The outside world thought that, as the person in charge of the wallet, Viktor should have had many opportunities to communicate face-to-face with Changpeng Zhao, but Changpeng Zhao said in reply to this tweet that they only met once.

In fact, this headquarter-less model helps Binance avoid regulation. Without a headquarters, there is no department that can oversee them.

In the early days, when the digital currency was developing wildly, the governments of various countries failed to introduce regulatory policies in time, and Binance quickly grabbed the market by virtue of its decentralized operating model. When these countries and regions reacted, they looked for new ways to continue to develop, and took the lead step by step.

For example, in the U.S. market, where Binance used to operate, after being regulated, they announced that after March 2021, U.S. residents will no longer be able to use Binance. But they have already prepared for a rainy day and continue to develop in another way.

In the summer of 2019, Binance announced that it has cooperated with an American company to establish Binance.US (Binance US version), and declared that Binance and Binance.US are two independent exchanges, and the latter is already in several states in the United States. Obtain a license to operate.

"When American residents download Binance, they will be reminded that it cannot be used, but they will also guide users to download Binance.US." A Chinese living in the United States introduced to the author, "Compared with the global version of Binance, Binance.US There are few digital currency transactions to choose from, and transaction fees are high.”

A tweet reposted by Changpeng Zhao in March this year showed that the trading volume of Binance.US in 2021 will be $2,780, which is far less than that of Coinbase.

Binance has always hoped to be recognized by the US market. They also hope to promote the listing of Binance.US and accept the supervision of the SEC, and have done a lot of work for this.

In May 2021, they invited Brian Brooks, the former acting director of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to serve as the CEO of Binance.US. This became a major event in the currency circle at the time and was considered an important step in Binance's compliance. But only three months into his tenure, Brian Brooks resigned due to conflicts with Changpeng Zhao.

Since then, Binance has also invited many US regulators and government officials to serve as executives of Binance and Binance.US.

This is mainly because the life of Binance and Binance.US in the United States is not easy. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating the relationship between Binance.US and Binance, Changpeng Zhao, etc. The U.S. Department of Justice has also investigated whether Binance facilitates money laundering and tax evasion.

The previous rapid development in the gray area has become a dark history that Binance cannot erase.

Cai Kailong introduced to the author that Coinbase has paid great attention to compliance work since its establishment, and regards compliance as more important than customers and operations, and even gave up many markets for compliance. Three years ago, he noticed that 1/3 of Coinbase's employees were doing compliance, while other exchanges hadn't realized the importance of compliance.

"The regulation in the United States is very strict, and it will not ignore the development history in the gray area. If Binance.US wants to be listed in the United States, it will face huge regulatory challenges." Cai Kailong said.

The expelled Binance came to Dubai

In May 2018, He Yi once described her and Zhao Changpeng's working status as "the world is my home". She said that sometimes, she doesn't know which country Changpeng Zhao is in, and Changpeng Zhao doesn't know which country she is in. They both have their own things to do.

In fact, in the early days, Changpeng Zhao and his Binance were "expelled" everywhere while growing wildly.

In 2017, Binance was founded in Shanghai. Changpeng Zhao once recalled in an online meeting that after the "94 currency disaster", the Binance team of more than 30 people left China and went to Japan. At that time, some bigwigs in the currency circle also went overseas. Some people who knew Changpeng Zhao told the author that since then, Changpeng Zhao may never set foot in mainland China again.

In the second year of entering Japan, the Japanese financial regulator issued a warning to Binance, reminding them that they cannot provide trading services to the public without a formal license.

Since then, the outside world has believed that Binance’s headquarters may be in Malta, a European country, but in February 2020, Malta announced that Binance was not under their supervision. Since then, there have been few rumors about the specific location of Binance headquarters, and many people do not know where Changpeng Zhao works.

Where is Changpeng Zhao? An article in the "Wall Street Journal" in November last year gave the answer: During the two years of the epidemic, he had been in Singapore and often rode an electric scooter to work.

A person in the currency circle analyzed to the author that Zhao Changpeng hoped to locate the headquarters of Binance in Singapore. Previously, Changpeng Zhao had stated to the public that Binance was striving for the participation of sovereign wealth funds in order to improve governments' understanding of Binance.

However, for Zhao Changpeng's overtures, Singapore did not buy it and issued an order to evict the guests.

In early July last year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said it would conduct a review of Binance’s Singapore subsidiary. On December 13 last year, Binance stated that it had withdrawn its application for a digital payment token service license to the Monetary Authority of Singapore and closed its trading platform in Singapore by February this year.

In May last year, Changpeng Zhao said in an exclusive interview with "Later" that two or three years ago, when they went to some countries for communication, they were often asked whether the blockchain was used by terrorists.

Different from the start-up period, Binance has become the most influential company in the currency circle. They can no longer set up headquarters as before, and walk outside the supervision of various countries. The compliant development that Coinbase has always adhered to and listing in the traditional capital market have also made Binance realize the importance of catering to regulations, and a crucial step is to establish its own global headquarters.

At present, it seems that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have found a new safe haven, and their state of being at home in the world is expected to end. At the end of last year, Changpeng Zhao became a frequent visitor to the United Arab Emirates and bought an apartment in Dubai.

Compared with Singapore, Dubai is much more friendly to digital currencies. According to a Reuters report in March, Binance has been given permission to conduct some operations in Dubai and has established a blockchain technology center at the World Trade Center in Dubai.

Max, who participated in the Blockchain Week in Dubai, introduced to the author that at this World Expo, pavilions in many countries have held NFT-related activities, such as the Israel Pavilion, the Australia Pavilion, and the Slovenia Pavilion. NFT is a way of playing the blockchain, and it has been promoted by many mainstream technology companies at home and abroad.

“Recently there are a lot of blockchain activities in Dubai, and some investment offices of the royal family will also come and give speeches. They attach great importance to blockchain and are very friendly.” Max told the author.

Cai Kailong introduced to the author that the most important thing before Binance is not business and profit, but more compliance. Before, they hoped to obtain licenses in some island countries and small countries, but the endorsement of those small countries did not allow them to be recognized by mainstream society.

"Dubai is an internationally renowned city, and they attach great importance to the blockchain. If they can obtain a license there, it will be a milestone for Binance on their road to compliance." Cai Kailong said.

Over the past year, Binance has been seeking recognition from mainstream society. They made traditional announcements on Forbes and became one of its two major shareholders; they sponsored the well-known football team Paris Saint-Germain, allowing Messi, Neymar, Mbappe and other superstars to wear the team with the Binance logo It also cooperates with the F1 team BWT to put the Binance logo on its body.

Looking at it now, more countries and regions seem to have changed their understanding of digital currency, and Zhao Changpeng has also begun to become a guest of some countries and regions' political leaders.

According to the information he posted on Twitter, he has recently been active in Central and South America. He went to Brazil, where he met the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, the governor of Sao Paulo state, and also went to Uruguay, El Salvador, and met the presidents of both countries.

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador met with Changpeng Zhao, the screenshot comes from Nayib Bukele’s Twitter

Author | Chen Fuye

Editor | Yang Pudding

Produced | Prism·Tencent Xiaoman Studio