At the Bitcoin Asia 2025 conference in Hong Kong, CZ shared a series of insights on Bitcoin's evolution over the past decade, his views on the current wave of institutionalization in the industry, his observations on US regulatory changes, and his outlook on future trends such as Depository Assets (DATs), Reliable Asset Warranties (RWAs), and AI. Key points included: Bitcoin's evolution from its early ecosystem to institutional adoption; capacity as a core limitation to Bitcoin's scalability; institutionalization and regulatory clarity as significant positives for the industry; the DAT wave is bringing new capital to the market, but caution is warranted regarding management and cyclical risks; and RWAs and AI will be key drivers of the future of the crypto industry. CZ: I remember it was in early 2014 when the Apple App Store removed the last Bitcoin wallet app, which was the wallet from blockchain.com. Back then, it was still called blockchain.info, and there were viral videos on YouTube. So, I think we've come a long way since 2014, or since I started in the industry in 2013. I think from 2013 to 2017, the industry was more known as the Bitcoin industry. We didn't really call it blockchain or Web3. Ethereum became popular in 2017, giving rise to the ERC20 token and ICO industries; 2021 marked the summer of DeFi. Now we're seeing traditional financial institutions getting involved, with initiatives like Bitcoin ETFs. Bitcoin is becoming a global reserve cryptocurrency, and I believe it will be the global reserve currency in the future. So, we're seeing this evolution, and it's exciting to see traditional financial industries, nations, and countries adopting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. I think we've come a long way. However, Bitcoin itself has its limitations. It's grown significantly. Due to its block size and decentralized nature, Ethereum has become a computing blockchain, while other blockchains have become meme chains, and still others have become liquidity chains. So now there are different blockchains for different purposes, and there's a lot of other innovation happening. We've tried to bring many of these innovations back to Bitcoin, some with success, some without. But Bitcoin remains by far the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the gold standard in the industry. I think we're in a period of tremendous innovation right now. I personally hope to see many of these innovations brought back to Bitcoin. Technical Bottlenecks: What are the core challenges of scaling to billions of users? CZ: I think it's primarily capacity. Currently, Bitcoin still handles seven transactions per second, though there are different solutions to this problem, like Layer 2. But Layer 2 itself requires you to rely on and trust a third party, which increases centralization to some extent. If that were the case, we might as well have more centralized infrastructure within the Bitcoin network itself. But I truly believe capacity is the limiting factor. We need to find ways to continually increase capacity. This is one of the limitations of decentralization, making upgrades very slow and painful. In 2017, there was a block size war, which led to many different Bitcoin forks. I hate Bitcoin forks purely because, operationally, as an industry service provider, it's too much work to deal with so many different forks and wallets to provide your services. So, while I hope to see Bitcoin continue to grow rapidly, I also very much want to avoid too many forks. I think the industry still bears some scars from those block size wars and scaling years. The Institutional Wave: Why is the Entry of Traditional Finance a Huge Bottom? CZ: I think it's very bullish for BTC. Of course, there's a small group of hardcore cryptocurrency fans who would say we don't want countries and all centralized players entering the crypto world. But we have to understand that in a decentralized world, anyone can participate—it could be an individual, a group, a country, or a company. Anyone should be able to participate, and the more they participate, the better. So why wouldn't we want them to enter the industry? They bring more capital, funding, recognition, credibility, and use cases—in my opinion, the more the better. Also, once countries start considering national cryptocurrency reserves, they also have to consider regulation. They'll make the rules clearer. While in a decentralized world, you could argue that everything is software and doesn't require many additional regulations, having some guardrails makes it much easier for industry participants to determine what they can and can't do. So I think all of this is very good, and we're seeing price action reflect that. Bitcoin is nearing its all-time high. About nine months ago, Bitcoin was around $50,000 or $60,000. Even with today's drop, and even after the past week or so, it's still within 5–10% of its all-time high. We're also seeing other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and BNB approaching their all-time highs. So, the price action clearly shows that this institutional adoption is a good thing. CZ: I'm actually quite surprised by how quickly the US has adopted so many things. I think that's thanks to the Trump administration, which has moved very quickly. I think they also have great support from the industry. Bitcoin Magazine was very helpful there, as were many other crypto industry players. About nine months ago, many other countries were ahead of the curve, including the UAE, which was very forward-thinking. But now I think the US is leading the way in terms of open, forward-thinking regulation. Even yesterday or this morning, the CFTC announced that they might be considering allowing US citizens to trade on international platforms, which was huge news. Based on my conversations with different people this morning, it seems like that was an old rule, and they're just bringing it to the forefront. All of these things are very positive, and the US has such a large influence in global markets. So now every other government has to think about it; we can't be left too far behind. I'm sure the UAE is trying to go a step further and become more crypto-friendly and innovative. We're also seeing Hong Kong really opening up. I was in Tokyo just three days ago, and they're also trying to embrace crypto in a very strong way. So I think right now the US is basically leading the way for every regulator and national leader in the world in thinking about crypto and blockchain. That's great for our industry. But at this point, I don't think I fully understand the full implications of what's allowed or not allowed. Historically, this has been a very thorny issue. I got into a lot of trouble with the US government early on because we had US users on our platform without proper registration. Personally, I hope the world becomes a free economy, meaning anyone should be able to trade with anyone else. Anyone should be able to invest and raise funds anywhere in the world. Of course, there will be some restrictions, such as legal restrictions on sanctioned countries, but the fewer these restrictions, the better the global economy. I'm more of an advocate for a global economy because I'm a businessman, not a politician, and I don't divide territories. I believe we should have an open economy as much as possible, and blockchain technology can easily achieve this. We just need regulatory permission, and I firmly believe that old regulations need to be improved to adapt to a more globalized world. I understand that every country needs to protect its own economy and wants to grow it. We have borders and rules, but the more every citizen on Earth can trade with each other, the more resources we have, and the better the economy will be. With a better economy, we can accomplish more amazing things, like going to Mars and curing cancer. CZ: Regarding Depository Attribution Companies (DATs), I believe they are extremely positive for cryptocurrencies, and specifically Bitcoin. What's good for Bitcoin is also good for the entire crypto industry. Beyond Bitcoin, we're seeing many other cryptocurrencies doing the same thing, following the MicroStrategy model with the emergence of treasury companies for BNB, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies. The traditional stock market is much larger than the crypto market, especially in the United States. I believe 90–95% of funds are institutional and managed by institutions. In other countries, this percentage is lower, but generally speaking, in the world's largest economies, the majority of funds are in the hands of institutions. So far, these institutions have been unable to participate in the crypto market on a large scale, except through ETFs. But now, publicly listed reserve companies offer more choice and diversity. ETFs are more like indices and basket products, and you still have to pay fees. Treasury companies now allow many people who previously couldn't buy crypto to gain exposure to crypto by buying shares in publicly listed companies. So, we're essentially bringing the stock market to crypto, or bringing the crypto market to them, depending on how you look at it. At the same time, we're also trying to introduce crypto to the massive stock market, and this isn't just happening in the US, but also in Hong Kong, Japan, and every country with a stock market, opening up a small asset class to a much wider audience. Another direction is also happening: the tokenization of assets, or RWAs. It's still in its early stages, so there are some issues, but it's good that it's happening so that we can eventually resolve them. We can now tokenize stablecoins, treasuries, commodities, buildings, real estate—anything you can imagine, even people. I also think AI will be a huge help to the crypto industry. I think most people don't realize how much trading AI will generate, and it will be done in a programmable way, because they require programmable money, and the fiat currencies we have today, whether it's the US dollar, Hong Kong dollar, or RMB, aren't programmable money. So AI will use cryptocurrencies to create a massive amount of trading that people haven't even realized yet. So we're bringing all kinds of assets into the crypto world now. These sectors support each other. These concepts aren't new, but they're gradually being realized. We're seeing a very hot market for treasury companies, who are raising hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars and bringing that money into the crypto space, and we're seeing more and more of them. So I think overall this is a very positive development. Of course, there are some risks. Some people might use treasury companies, such as a publicly traded company, to simply inflate its stock price through reserves of cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin, which is obviously not a good idea. Furthermore, many of these companies lack good governance in how they handle cryptocurrencies. Some have more complex structures, holding baskets of cryptocurrencies. So who maintains this basket? Who maintains its balance? Some companies even do additional things, like investing raised funds in cryptocurrency companies, which is another business. I'm not against them, but you have to evaluate each treasury company independently. These different businesses require different skills. We've also seen some failures in this area, so remember that not every treasury company can achieve exponential growth. Finally, we're in a bull market now, but markets have cycles. There will be winters and bear markets, during which stock prices may fall and fluctuate. Therefore, most treasury companies need to go through at least one winter before they can average out their holdings and maintain a low average cost of ownership. MicroStrategy went through this process; their first cycle was quite painful, but they're doing well now because their average price is already very low. So, sooner or later, there will be a market winter within a few years; we all go through cycles. So be mindful of this and understand the risks involved. I think two things might be happening. First, more money flowing into an asset class generally increases its stability and reduces volatility. Essentially, the larger the market capitalization, the greater the total value of the asset class, and the more stable it is. For example, if you have an asset, token, or public company worth $100 million, and someone wants to buy $10 million worth of stock, the price will go up. But if you buy $10 million of Nvidia stock, now it's a $3 or $4 trillion company, the stock price won't budge. So, the larger the asset size and market capitalization, the lower the volatility. It's just physics, just like a bigger ship is more stable. However, for smaller assets, the risk is much higher. Fundamentally, you need to look at what the token or basket of tokens represents and whether the underlying ecosystem is truly growing. In other words, is the utility value of the underlying token truly increasing? Of course, newer things carry greater risk. The more mature and larger some ecosystems are, the lower the risk, but the rate of improvement may also be slower, depending on your perspective. So, some newer projects may offer higher risk and higher returns, while more established projects may be a safer bet. However, more capital inflows will definitely help stabilize things. At the same time, this inflow is coming from the stock market, which also has a lot of speculative traders. It's a very liquid market, which is good for liquidity, but it's also a trading market, so prices may fluctuate more in the short term. But in the long run, I think it's definitely a positive thing, and it may eventually stabilize.
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