In the ever-changing crypto industry, the only thing that remains unchanged is that Binance has always been the leader in this ever-changing industry since it became the world's largest crypto trading platform.

In its seventh year, Binance encountered the biggest challenge since its founding, facing prosecution by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the two parties finally reached a settlement, Binance founder CZ also resigned as CEO and was imprisoned for 4 months.

The community began to FUD and leave CZ's Binance. After a brief outflow of funds, Binance quickly took action to disclose proof of reserves to respond to doubts and stabilize user confidence.

A new turning point came after Binance changed its CEO. After Richard Teng took office, he led the team to move forward steadily, ensuring the stable operation and continued growth of the platform. Under Richard Teng's leadership, Binance has surpassed 200 million users, marking the platform's widespread acceptance and influence around the world. This achievement not only demonstrates the seamless transition of the leadership team to the platform's development, but also indicates that cryptocurrencies are about to reach a turning point in mass adoption.

200 million users, mass adoption turning point

In June 2024, Binance announced that its user base had exceeded 200 million. It took Binance about five years to reach the first 100 million users, and only 26 months to reach the second 100 million users.

This number is not only a major achievement in Binance's own development, but also, to some extent, indicates that the turning point in the popularity of cryptocurrencies may be approaching. This milestone shows that cryptocurrencies are gradually being accepted and used by mainstream society, and have moved from the circle of niche investors and technology enthusiasts to a wider range of ordinary users.

In his book Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore divides the user technology adoption life cycle into five stages, corresponding to innovators, early adopters, early masses, traditional users, and laggard users. Among them, the dividing point between innovators and early adopters is 2.5%.

The current global population is about 7.95 billion. This means that crypto users have broken through the first stage and entered the second stage. Cryptocurrency is at a critical moment of transition from innovators to early adopters, the Mass Adoption inflection point. Of course, it is difficult for Binance to include all crypto users, and the number of crypto users is definitely far more than 200 million, but its milestone of 200 million users marks that the entire market has crossed the first stage.

Subsequent cryptocurrencies may become more popular at a faster pace and become part of the mainstream financial system and daily life.

Crypto infrastructure builders, accelerating popularization

Rome was not built in a day. Similarly, cryptocurrencies are not accepted by all users in a day.

As cryptocurrencies that were once considered to be used for money laundering, Ponzi schemes, and even waste of energy, it is more difficult for them to gain recognition and acceptance than other new things. Thanks to the continuous investment of leading companies such as Binance, cryptocurrencies have now been accepted by the mainstream financial system.

In the early days when the crypto industry was roughly managed and lacked supervision, it was common for platforms to arbitrarily use user assets or even engage in speculative transactions. While Binance abides by its own responsibilities, it is the first to launch Merkle Tree Proof of Reserve (PoR) to prove that it can redeem user assets. Today, Merkle Tree Proof of Reserve has become the standard for mainstream trading platforms.

In the past few years, Binance, as the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platform, has not only achieved great success in the trading field, but also made outstanding contributions in promoting the integration of cryptocurrency with the real world. Through a series of innovative initiatives, Binance is building the infrastructure of Web3 and promoting the widespread use of crypto assets around the world.

Binance is committed to integrating cryptocurrency into daily life and has launched Binance Pay and Binance Card. Binance Pay is a contactless cryptocurrency payment technology that aims to simplify the user's payment experience. Currently, more than 24 million people around the world use Binance Pay for domestic or cross-border transfers. Binance Card is a cryptocurrency debit card that users can use to make consumer payments around the world.

These tools not only make the use of cryptocurrency more convenient, but also significantly promote the implementation of cryptocurrency in the payment field. In addition, Binance has also cooperated with third-party banks to launch the world's first cryptocurrency tripartite agreement. The agreement connects the traditional financial market with the cryptocurrency market, further promoting the mainstream application of cryptocurrency.

Binance Academy plays a vital role in cryptocurrency education. In 2023, Binance Academy helped 27 million learners improve their understanding of the digital financial world in 31 languages. At the same time, Binance Academy also conducted a global university tour in 45 countries, attracting more than 10,000 students to participate in blockchain learning. Since its launch, Binance Academy has helped more than 39 million users understand blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, becoming an important educational resource worldwide.

Binance further expands the global influence of crypto assets through strategic partnerships with the sports and entertainment industries. In 2022, Binance became the official sponsor of the African Football Confederation, the Argentine Football Association and the Brazilian Football League A, and signed an exclusive NFT licensing agreement with Portuguese football legend Cristiano Ronaldo. Khaby Lame, who has over 160 million fans on TikTok, became Binance's global brand ambassador, further promoting the popularization of Web3.

User-centric principle practitioner

In the past seven years, Binance has achieved brilliant results, and no company or individual in the crypto industry can bypass it. But perhaps because of its success, many people began to worry whether Binance's original intention would change after the CEO was replaced. CZ once said in a handwritten letter on Binance's sixth anniversary that Binance's success is due to its user-centric principle.

In fact, Richard Teng has always been an important part of Binance's internationalization and a practitioner of Binance's user-centric principle.

Richard Teng joined Binance as early as 2021, initially as CEO of Binance's Singapore subsidiary. Subsequently, he was promoted to head of Binance's Middle East and North Africa region, and gradually took charge of European affairs, Asian affairs, and all regional markets except the United States until he became CEO of Binance in November 2023.

Interestingly, as Richard Teng expanded his area of responsibility, Binance has also made significant progress in the field of compliance. Binance has successively obtained a Class IV license in Bahrain, a fully regulated virtual asset trading platform license in Dubai, and obtained in-principle approval in the Abu Dhabi Global Market. In addition, Binance has also successfully obtained registration licenses in France and Italy.

Richard Teng is able to play an important role in promoting Binance's compliance and regulation, which is inseparable from his more than 30 years of rich professional experience in the field of financial services and regulation. Prior to joining Binance, Richard Teng served as Financial Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Chief Regulatory Officer of the Singapore Exchange (SGX), and CEO of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). He was responsible for leading the formulation and management of Singapore's Securities and Futures Act, helping ADGM grow from a newly established financial center to one with nearly 2,700 issued registration licenses and more than 150 approved financial institutions. It was named "The Best International Financial Company in the Middle East and North Africa" by Forbes four times in a row.

When taking over as CEO, Richard Teng said in a public statement that he would use his experience in financial services and regulation over the past three decades to focus on working with regulators to maintain and promote high standards of innovation around the world while providing important consumer protection.

Like CZ, Richard Teng attaches great importance to communication and transparency with the community and often appears in the community's Twitter Space. He believes that only through open and transparent communication can user trust be established and the company's long-term development be promoted.

In the context of a large number of project executives being invisible and communication with the outside world being handled by the public team, Binance is one of the few platforms that retains a direct dialogue channel with management. Users can communicate and provide feedback directly to Richard Teng. At the same time, both CZ and Richard Teng chose to inform users of the situation as soon as possible for industry dynamics, explaining the measures taken by the company and future plans.

During Richard Teng's tenure, BNB broke through its previous historical high. Obviously, the market also believes that under the leadership of Richard Teng, Binance is expected to further consolidate its position in the global market and usher in the Mass Adoption of crypto assets.

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