Original Title: Binance CEO: 4 Months in Prison, $4 Billion Fine, and What Comes Next
Original Author: All-In Podcast, YouTube
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: This interview documented the complete and controversial journey of CZ (Changpeng Zhao), one of the most influential and controversial figures in the global cryptocurrency industry, from his peak, imprisonment, to rebirth.

Breaking the myth and mystery surrounding the billionaire, it revealed an extremely real and minimalist ordinary person: he flipped burgers at McDonald's, coded at Bloomberg, and even after achieving financial freedom, he still prefers to fly economy. Apart from Binance's rise, the most shocking part was his first detailed disclosure of the back-and-forth with the government's Department of Justice, how he maintained absolute emotional stability during weeks of psychological warfare, extortion risks under media sensationalism, and the complex racial gang rules inside the Seattle prison.

CZ candidly reviewed the ins and outs of his relationship with SBF, as well as the tearful moment when he was forced to step down from Binance's management. Now, he has turned to a tokenless, purely philanthropic global educational initiative. This is not only a chronicle of the crypto industry but also a profound introspection on power, money, and the boundaries of freedom.

Key Points

· Early experiences from China to Canada

· CZ's early career experiences: surprisingly "ordinary"

· Founding the first company in Shanghai

· Encountering Bitcoin

· Going all-in on the crypto industry

· Why create Binance?

· The FTX incident: Relationship with SBF and its fallout

· Confronting the Biden administration's "anti-crypto" DOJ

· What is life like inside a federal prison?

· Life after leaving Binance and new ventures

Below is the full podcast transcript:

Early Experiences from China to Canada

Chamath: CZ, welcome to the "All-In" podcast. I want to rewind back to the beginning because I feel like many people don't really understand your background, at least not as much as they should. Your early experience in Canada is something I'm particularly interested in. You worked at McDonald's, and I worked at Burger King.

CZ: My father went to Canada to study in 1984.

Chamath: How did he get that opportunity? Did he stay in Canada after that?

CZ: He would come back to visit us, maybe once or twice a year, but most of the time he was in Canada.

Chamath: Was he a teacher in China?

CZ: He was a teacher, a professor. He first went to the University of Toronto for an exchange program, and then after a few years, he went to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Later, we also started to apply to go there. Back then, it was actually very difficult to get a passport; it took three to four years to get one. We started applying around 1985, and it took about two to three years to get the passport.

Chamath: You mean you got a Chinese passport?

CZ: Yes, a Chinese passport. Then we had to wait several more years to get the visa. The process was just that slow back then.

Chamath: How did it feel to move to Vancouver?

CZ: It was completely different, like arriving in a whole new country. I had studied English in school in China for a year or two, but I wasn't fluent at all. But Vancouver was great, as you know, Canada, with good greenery, open spaces, quite beautiful everywhere, high living standards, and everything was very clean. The fruits were also bigger. The overall environment was very comfortable.

Chamath: After the family reunion, did your parents both work?

CZ: My dad was an assistant professor at the university, making about 1000 Canadian dollars a month. The school also provided very cheap faculty housing, so we lived on campus.

On the third day after we arrived in Canada, my mom went to work at a clothing factory, sewing and stitching clothes. She used to teach math and history in China, but her English wasn't that good, so she couldn't find a job at the same level and could only work in the lowest-paid factory job. She worked there for seven to ten years, just doing that.

Chamath: My mom was a nurse in Sri Lanka, but after we immigrated and got refugee status, my father couldn't find work. My mom went to work as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Later, she went back to a job similar to a nurse assistant. I think when I was around 14, I got my first paycheck.

CZ's Early Career Experience: Surprisingly "Normal"

CZ: Yes, that's right, I also started working at around 14 or 15 at McDonald's for my first job.

Chamath: We are the same age, so I guess that makes us both 14 too. Do you remember what the minimum wage was in British Columbia back then?

CZ: I do. The minimum wage at that time was $6 CAD.

Chamath: That's incredible. In Ontario, it was $4.55 CAD at that time.

CZ: But at McDonald's, they only paid $4.5 CAD. That was below the mandated minimum wage because McDonald's seemed to have some special exemption back then, given that they employed a lot of young people. I remember applying there on my 14th birthday, and a week later, I was flipping burgers there, which was my first-ever income.

Chamath: So, were you one of those precocious "tech prodigies" back then? The kind of kid who was coding and studying computer science 24/7?

CZ: No, I don't think I was that kind of person. I was a tech enthusiast, studied computer science in college, got interested in programming in high school and taught myself, but I definitely wasn't some coding genius. I was a decent programmer, I guess, and I've written some decent code in my career. But around the age of 28 to 30, I started moving away from the code layer to do more business development and sales-related work.

Chamath: Did you have many friends back then?

CZ: Quite a few.

Chamath: Were they all Asian friends, or did you have friends of all races?

CZ: I had both. I had Asian and non-Asian friends, but in our school, most Asian kids hung out only with other Asian kids. I was an exception; I had many white friends, had various circles of friends. My teenage years in Canada were fantastic. Those were some of the best years of my life. I think that period really shaped my optimistic personality; I'm generally a pretty happy person.

Chamath: When you didn't get into my alma mater, the University of Waterloo, and had to settle for McGill University, how did you feel? Did you think you were dumb?

CZ: Well, actually, at that time, I was torn between Waterloo, McGill, and the University of Toronto. But I knew I definitely wasn't going to the University of British Columbia because I wanted a change of city. UBC actually accepted me, but I just didn't want to go. At that time, a very respected elder advised me to become a doctor because it's a respectable profession with a high salary. I listened to her advice and chose Biology. And Waterloo wasn't particularly known for Biology, right? So I went to McGill. But after a semester, I told myself, "I'm not doing Biology; I'm switching to Computer Science."

Chamath: Is that a typical college experience? Did you find a cool job for the summer break? Or were you, like most college students, hustling to pay for tuition?

CZ: I worked every summer, and I also had part-time jobs during the academic year.

Chamath: So, no student debt? Were you thinking back then that you had to graduate without any debt?

CZ: Yes, I didn't apply for a student loan in my first year. Actually, I borrowed 6,000 Canadian dollars from my dad. The next year, money was still tight, and my sister gave me 3,000 Canadian dollars. After that, I never asked my family for money again and became completely self-sufficient. So, I was very lucky not to have any student debt, but it was all thanks to working every summer.

Chamath: Do you know the best and most life-saving thing about the University of Waterloo? It's their co-op program. I found some really great internships back then. Still, I graduated with about 30,000 Canadian dollars in debt, but I was quite active in stock trading at that time.

Later, my boss, a guy named Mike Fisher, did something extremely generous for me. I was working as a derivatives trader at a bank, which was my full-time job, but I also traded stocks privately and helped him make a lot of money. He asked, "How much debt do you have?" I said around 30,000, more precisely 32,000. He said, "Go downstairs to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce right now and pay off your debt; I'll write you a check."

CZ: Wow.

Chamath: He immediately wrote me a check for 32,000 Canadian dollars.

CZ: You should have told him you had a debt of 33,000 or even 300,000.

Chamath: That's the incredible thing about Canada. You can receive a great education and not be crushed by the insurmountable debt that plagues many people in the United States.

CZ: Even at McGill, there are many people who come from the US to study, paying international student fees, only to find out that it's still cheaper than studying in the US. I thought that was crazy at the time. So we are really fortunate; Canadian tuition is still reasonable.

Chamath: So what did you do after graduating from McGill's Computer Science program?

CZ: Oh, I actually didn't graduate from McGill. I studied there for four years, found an internship in my third year, extended it into my fourth year, and never returned to McGill. So I don't have a degree from McGill.

Later, I found out that I needed a bachelor's degree to apply for a work visa in Japan. Around the year 2000, during the peak of the dot-com bubble, I participated in an online education program called the "American Academy of Computer Science" and obtained my degree there.

Chamath: Wow! So, technically, you are a graduate of that school?

CZ: Technically, yes.

Chamath: Okay, so what internship did you have at that time that made you decide to stay there?

CZ: It was an internship in Tokyo. I had been doing programming-related work since my freshman year. I wrote simulation software for a company called Original SIM. In my junior year, I joined a company in Tokyo called Fusion Systems Japan. They were developing an order execution system for brokerages on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Chamath: Was that a Japanese company with offices in Montreal or Canada?

CZ: No, I flew directly to Tokyo.

Chamath: You went to Tokyo?

CZ: Yes, it was actually a company founded by a few Americans in Tokyo.

Chamath: So, you felt like it was an adventure, like, "I'm going to Tokyo for a summer."

CZ: Just think, I was just a college student at the time. Being able to live in Tokyo was like a dream.

Chamath: So, what kind of software development were you mainly responsible for at that time?

CZ: Mainly order execution software. Simply put, it was a system responsible for handling and transmitting trade instructions.

Chamath: Similar to the underlying logic that supports Binance's business today?

CZ: That's a good way to understand it, the architectural style is very similar. However, all the software I was involved in developing did not involve decision algorithms; they were only responsible for efficiently executing instructions.

Chamath: When you first entered this field, was your reaction, "Wow, I love this," or just, "Since I've been given a coding task, I understand the logic, so I'll complete it"? Were you attracted to the business itself, or was it just a job to you?

CZ: Initially, it was purely a job. I was too young at that time and lacked a macro view of various industries. When I first joined the company, I was assigned to develop a digital image storage system, not something as simple as an iPhone album, but a professional system used for medical imaging.

However, soon after, the company's core business shifted to the order execution system, and I got involved in it. This became the focus of my career. What I liked about it was the high technical expertise it required. The core of this field is efficiency: ultimate responsiveness and ultra-low latency. This pursuit of efficiency subconsciously resonated well with my personality.

Chamath: Going deeper, for high-frequency trading firms like Jump, they optimize efficiency and latency almost at any cost, even developing custom circuit breakers and physical fiber optic infrastructure just to save a few milliseconds. How is this extreme optimization reflected at the software level? When writing code, how do you handle these edge cases?

CZ: This can be divided into multiple levels. Firstly, there's optimization of the software architecture, where you must ensure the system is absolutely efficient. For example, to eliminate latency, we remove all database queries and perform all operations in memory. Simultaneously, you need to streamline the computational logic, especially for risk checks pre-order and pre-trade. A more advanced stage involves hardware, such as using Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, which are programmable chips integrated on the network card.

Chamath: This way, data doesn't have to shuttle back and forth between memory and processor, further increasing speed.

CZ: Exactly. About a decade ago when I was still coding, a round trip of data took about 100 microseconds; through hardware optimization, we were able to reduce latency to 20 microseconds. Then there's optimization of physical facilities, like seeking server hosting to minimize physical distance.

Chamath: This reminds me of Groq in the AI field. A decade ago when we started, we had similar insights. Having data shuttle between GPU and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is very inefficient. So we opted for SRAM, keeping all data on the chip.

This approach is very effective in the inference decoding phase. Given that high-frequency trading involves such massive funds, why haven't these institutions tried developing custom Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs)? I understand the use of FPGAs, but it seems no one has ventured into self-designed ASICs, or have they done so but kept it under wraps?

CZ: I believe chip customization at this scale is not widespread, mainly due to the rapid iteration of algorithms. While chip design is very efficient, modifying logic extends the development cycle too much. In comparison, FPGAs strike the optimal balance between performance and reconfigurability. Yet, even so, the programming cycle for FPGAs is still ten times longer than pure software.

Chamath: Did the company you worked for in Japan succeed later on?

CZ: Quite successful. Just on the eve of the bursting of the 2000 Internet bubble, that company was acquired by a Nasdaq-listed company.

Chamath: Was the acquisition amount significant?

CZ: At that time, it was approximately $52 million. In that era, this was considered a huge sum.

Chamath: Was that the opportunity you noticed to venture into entrepreneurship, or was there another hidden reason?

CZ: No, I was just in my early twenties then, still too young. In the company, I was just an ordinary programmer, as they say in Japanese, a salaryman.

Chamath: I see. What happened after that?

CZ: After the company was acquired, a serious cultural clash arose between the parent company and the original team. That was the first time I realized the challenges that corporate mergers and acquisitions might face. The management did not get along, so the original partners decided to start afresh and founded another company.

Although I didn't get any money from that acquisition, the partners made a good profit. They rented a luxurious office space, yet the new company only lasted a year. This proved that past success does not guarantee the future, and may even be misleading. They spent money lavishly but had no revenue, and the company went bankrupt in 2001. In early 2001, I started looking for new opportunities, and Bloomberg happened to be hiring. This was before the "9/11" incident, and I received the offer letter but had not officially started yet.

Chamath: Was the position in New York?

CZ: I was still in Tokyo at that time, but the position was in New York. After "9/11," I called Bloomberg to ask if the position was still valid and if they still wanted me to come. They asked me back, "Are you still willing to come?" I said, "No problem." So, I arrived in New York in November 2001.

Chamath: What was the atmosphere like at that time?

CZ: The streets were eerily quiet, but I adapted well. Although New York was silent for a few months, it quickly regained its usual vitality, which didn't bother me much. I worked at Bloomberg for four years.

Chamath: During that time, were you still playing the role of an employee? Working in a large corporation, receiving a salary, bonus, and perhaps some stock options.

CZ: Yes, at that time, I joined as a senior developer and was assigned to the Tradebook Futures team. It was their newly established department aimed at integrating and developing the futures trading system on the Bloomberg terminal.

Chamath: Did you not have any entrepreneurial aspirations back then?

CZ: No, not really.

Chamath: What were you pursuing at that time? Stability? Why did you choose to work at Bloomberg in New York?

CZ: I was only 24 or 25 at the time, just a young person looking for a good job, to experience different worlds, and to explore the direction of life. I knew very well that I lacked independent entrepreneurial experience at that time. In Tokyo, the company had only about 200 people, while Bloomberg at that time had around 3,000 employees.

For me, that was already a behemoth: the office was extremely luxurious, with a fish tank, and free food. After joining, I met a great boss and was promoted three times within two years. Eventually, I started leading a team that grew from 60 people to 80 people. That was a turning point in my career. I no longer coded but transitioned to a management position. For me, that was the most difficult transition in my career.

Starting the First Company in Shanghai

Chamath: Then you resigned and went to China? How did that happen?

CZ: In early 2005, my former colleagues from my time in Japan planned to start a new fintech company. They were all in Asia at the time, debating between Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Believing that Shanghai had the most potential for fintech development in the future, we chose Shanghai, although it later turned out that there were actually more business opportunities in Hong Kong at that time. In 2005, I moved to Shanghai. The founding team consisted of six people: four Caucasians, one Japanese, and myself. I was the only one who could speak Chinese, even though my Chinese was a bit rusty at the time.

Chamath: So, the few of you just parachuted into Shanghai, what was the business idea at that time?

CZ: We believed we had the most cutting-edge Wall Street trading technology experience.

Chamath: Did those friends of yours later go to New York? Or did they stay in Japan?

CZ: Two of them were with me in New York at the time, and the other three stayed in Japan. The six of us joined together, with the original intention of introducing Wall Street trading technology to China and providing services to Chinese brokers and trading platforms. So, the team rented a very luxurious office...

Chamath: Hold on, this was your first true entrepreneurial venture. Did you know to ask about equity distribution or a cap table at that time? Or were you just blindly participating?

CZ: The distribution was not entirely equal. The core person in charge held about 39% to 40%, the remaining five of us split the rest of the shares equally, and I held about 11%. At that time, I only knew this ratio, but I was clueless about legal details such as shareholder rights, preferred stock versus common stock, and so on.

Chamath: So you moved to Shanghai with this 11% stake.

CZ: Yes, I had no idea about it, just based on a passion. As a junior partner, because I could speak Chinese, I was responsible for communicating with potential clients once in Shanghai. After contacting domestic brokers, I discovered a fatal problem: we registered as a wholly foreign-owned enterprise, but the policy at the time did not allow domestic securities firms or financial institutions to cooperate with this type of company. It was only after the company was established that we realized this. So we had to transform. To survive, we started taking on various IT outsourcing projects.

Chamath: Did you become a consulting firm like Deloitte?

CZ: Not even close to Deloitte. We took on all kinds of jobs: fixing printers, implementing SAP systems, and so on, with a very wide range of business. We persisted like this for several years. Surprisingly, we really survived on these jobs and accumulated a large number of clients in the automotive industry, such as SAIC Motor, Shanghai Volkswagen, and FAW Group. About three to four years later, we opened an office in Hong Kong and started dealing with international giants like Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse.

Chamath: So the business eventually took off.

CZ: Yes, that company still exists to this day. I stayed there for eight years until I left in 2013.

Chamath: Did you stay in Shanghai for those eight years?

CZ: Mainly in Shanghai. But I also spent a lot of time preparing the Hong Kong office and often went to Tokyo to serve clients there.

Chamath: How did the company grow later on?

CZ: As far as I know, the company grew to about 200 people and maintained that size for a long time.

Chamath: As a junior partner, were you directly involved in profit sharing?

CZ: In fact, we didn't share much of the profits. I reinvested most of my savings back into the company and never cashed out a penny. However, after a few years, the company's revenue was enough to support high salaries for the partners. By then, I had a family, children attending international schools, and my annual salary had reached six figures.

Chamath: Were you married by that time?

CZ: Yes, I got married while working in New York.

Chamath: How did you meet your ex-wife?

CZ: I first met her when I was interning in Tokyo. It was around 1999. Later, she came to New York to find me, and we got married and had children. Although we are now separated, during our time in Shanghai, the salary was enough to afford our children a good education in an international school, which was already satisfying for me.

Chamath: Looking back on your past experiences, there was still no sign that you were about to found Binance.

CZ: Absolutely not, at that time I had no idea about it.

Chamath: That was between 2013 and 2014, how old were you then? Around 36 years old?

CZ: In 2013, I was exactly 36 years old.

Entwined with Bitcoin

Chamath: In the prime of your life. At that time, you were still a salaried worker, a junior partner at that company, successful in your career, and your children were attending private schools. So, what happened next?

CZ: I got involved with Bitcoin. At first, a friend recommended it to me, asking me to pay attention to this thing called Bitcoin. It took me about six months to truly understand its essence, starting around July 2013.

Chamath: Was it because you read the whitepaper and found that you needed to reread it multiple times to grasp it?

CZ: That's basically it. And at that time, the main communication platform was the BitcoinTalk.org forum, where I read almost all the content.

Chamath: Did you read the article I published on Bloomberg in 2012? Did it have any impact on you?

CZ: To be honest, I don't remember. I read a huge amount of materials at that time, so it's really hard to recall specific sources.

Chamath: Just kidding, but I did write it. Interestingly, I had a good relationship with Michael Bloomberg at the time. Although he was much senior to me and not exactly my mentor, he appreciated me. Around 2012, his team invited me to write a column. In the article, I suggested that everyone should allocate 1% of their net worth to Bitcoin as a form of insurance.

After the article was published on Bloomberg Terminal, I had an awakening about Bitcoin. It was the most fascinating technological product I had ever seen. The most impressive thing — I don't know if you feel the same — it is the only piece I have read from start to finish and marveled at its elegant non-technical prose. It's not like those obscure papers written for PhDs; you can hand it to anyone who doesn't understand technology, and they can still understand it.

CZ: And the entire document is only a mere nine pages.

Chamath: That's right. To articulate such complex logic so succinctly requires a high level of intelligence.

CZ: Being concise is much more challenging than being verbose. If someone else were to rewrite this whitepaper, it would probably end up being 90 pages long.

Chamath: Who was the friend that introduced you to Bitcoin? Was it a former colleague or a friend you met in Shanghai?

CZ: It was a friend of mine named Ron Cao. We didn't have any business dealings. He was the Managing Director of Light Speed Ventures China at the time. We used to play poker together, in those kinds of relaxed private games where the participants were either entrepreneurs in the hustle or venture capitalists.

During one of our games, Ron suggested I look into Bitcoin. We then had an in-depth conversation, and Bobby Lee, who was still working at Walmart at the time, was preparing to resign to become the CEO of BTC China.

As part of the transaction, Ron invested in BTC China on behalf of Light Speed Ventures. That was July 2013. Seeing how serious both of them were about it, I invited Bobby to lunch the next day. Bobby suggested I allocate 10% of my net worth to Bitcoin, his reasoning being: even if it goes to zero, you only lose 10%; but if it goes up 10 times, your net worth doubles. That sounded very persuasive. So, I began to research until the end of 2013 when I was completely convinced of its value. But the awkward part was, Bitcoin surged from $70 to $1000 within six months in 2013.

Chamath: Watching it rise 15 times, what were you feeling at the time?

CZ: I felt like I had missed the best opportunity. Because in the Bitcoin industry, no matter when you enter, you always feel like you're late, as everyone you encounter seems to have been in it before you.

Chamath: During your research phase, was there a community you could engage with?

CZ: There was a very small community in Shanghai at the time. I was in touch with almost anyone in the world willing to discuss Bitcoin. I also had some friends in Taiwan working at TSMC who were resigning to try to develop Bitcoin mining chipsets. Additionally, there were some miners, such as the industry figure known as "F2Pool Fish" (Mao Shixing), who was the founder of F2Pool.

They were in Hangzhou at the time, and we would meet in Shanghai to exchange ideas. The most crucial turning point was the Bitcoin conference held in Las Vegas in December 2013. I flew over to meet everyone in the industry.

It was a small conference with only 200 people in attendance, where giants of today like Vitalik (Ethereum's founder) and Charlie Lee (Litecoin's founder) were present. At that time, the "Silk Road" website had been shut down, and the media portrayed Bitcoin as a tool for drug lords. However, at the conference venue, what I saw was a group of very polite tech geeks and young people. When you interacted with Vitalik, you would find that he is a very innocent and kind person.

Chamath: Were you still working at your original company when you were doing these things? Did you just tell your partners directly that you were going to Las Vegas to play for a few days?

CZ: Yes. When I came back, I suggested to my partners that the company should develop a Bitcoin payment system. At that time, Bitpay had just completed a $4 million financing round and was a leader in the industry.

Chamath: Speaking of Bitpay, I have a very interesting personal experience. I was eager to demonstrate the transaction capability of Bitcoin, so in 2012 or 2013, I bought a Land Rover through Bitpay with Bitcoin. At today's coin price, that car was worth about $90 million. Even more absurdly, I also bought a piece of land in Lake Tahoe with Bitcoin just to prove the feasibility of real estate transactions. Looking back now, that piece of land was worth around $1 billion.

CZ: You can't calculate it that way. Even if you didn't use Bitcoin back then, you would have used the equivalent amount of cash to buy it. And that cash could have been used to buy more Bitcoin. This is fundamentally a mental accounting problem.

Chamath: Getting back on track, when you proposed to your partners to create a Bitpay competitor, they obviously couldn't understand. Did you buy Bitcoin at that time?

CZ: At that time, I only bought one coin to try it out.

Going All-In on the Crypto Industry

Chamath: What happened next?

CZ: I told my partners that this was the biggest opportunity I had ever seen in my life. I have witnessed three fundamental technological changes in my life: the Internet (I was too young to deeply participate at that time), Bitcoin, and later AI. I was 36 years old at the time, and I didn't want to miss out on Bitcoin. I decided to resign and fully immerse myself in this industry.

To raise funds, I decided to sell my property in Shanghai. It took several months to sell the house, and in the end, it sold for about $900,000. My whole family moved to a rented house in Tokyo, and I frequently traveled between Shanghai and Tokyo. The house payment was received in installments. The first payment arrived when the coin price was $800, and then it kept falling. I kept buying more at $600, $400, and eventually my average holding price was around $600.

Chamath: You converted all your savings to Bitcoin, but you were not employed at that time.

CZ: I was looking for a job at the same time, with a very clear goal of focusing only on the Bitcoin industry. From the moment I decided to resign to securing a new job, it took less than three weeks.

Chamath: Who hired you?

CZ: Initially, I talked to Bobby from BTCZ, who wanted to recruit me. But then Roger Ver from Blockchain.info (now Blockchain.com) reached out to me. At that time, their team consisted of only three people: founder Ben Reeves, newly appointed CEO Nicholas Cary, and myself as the third member.

I took on the role of Vice President of Engineering. I flew to York, north of London, to work for a while. However, that experience did not go smoothly. After the team expanded to 18 people, the newly appointed CFO, Peter Smith, restructured the management to raise funds, leading to a dramatic shift in company culture. Many developers, including myself, chose to leave. I only stayed there for about six to seven months. Although it was a short period, I gained a lot from that experience.

Chamath: What did you learn not to do.

CZ: Quite a few things. When I joined Blockchain.info, Ben Reeves said, "See, we have no company, no office; everyone works remotely; we pay everyone in Bitcoin." These practices taught me a lot. Even today, this philosophy is still widely adopted within Binance.

Another thing I learned was that at the time, Blockchain.info was one of the largest user platforms in the industry, with around 2 million wallets, even surpassing Coinbase at one point.

However, they had almost no traditional marketing strategies; the entire marketing was based on a single post on BitcoinTalk.org. The post spanned 150 pages, with Ben Reeves continuously replying and engaging with the community, leading to the platform's user base growing to 2 million. That made me realize that with the right approach, even very "guerrilla" marketing tactics can achieve significant results. I learned a lot from that company, but as the corporate culture shifted and was no longer a fit for me, I decided to leave. After that, Haipo Yang recruited me to OKCoin.

Chamath: Doing development?

CZ: Becoming CTO. During this process, I felt that BTC China helped me once again. Because after I left and was looking for a job again, He Yi happened to be discussing this with me, and Bobby Lee also contacted me after hearing about it. At that time, OKCoin's offer was 5% equity; then BTC China came and directly offered 10%. As a result, OKCoin matched the offer within three hours.

At that time, I was hesitating between Shanghai and Beijing, and finally decided to go to Beijing to join OKCoin. At that time, He Yi only had 1% equity himself. When he recruited me, in a sense, he hoped that I would become a more important partner—taking on greater business responsibilities. I stayed at OKCoin for about eight months, but still didn't stay too long.

Chamath: Why?

CZ: Mainly due to cultural and values misalignment, some practices I could not agree with. For example, when they did events or fee discount promotions, the advertising made it sound like everyone could enjoy it, but in reality, you had to actively apply to receive it; it wasn't automatically applied. Details like this made me uncomfortable. So, in early 2015, I decided to leave. That's about it, mainly during those months in 2014, extending into early 2015.

Why Start Binance?

Chamath: So, how did you end up starting Binance?

CZ: In 2015, a few former colleagues and I decided to establish a Bitcoin exchange platform in Tokyo, Japan. Because it was one year after the Mt. Gox incident, there was a significant vacuum in the Japanese market.

On the same day I decided to leave OKCoin, two developers approached me, and they had just resigned as well. I suggested that the three of us do something together. We agreed that I would be the CEO, receive more equity, and be in charge of financing; I used my own savings to pay the two developers' salaries, and I didn't take a salary myself.

We quickly created a demo version, downloaded an open-source trading platform system, and slightly improved the interface.

Chamath: So, Binance started from forking an open-source project?

CZ: Not exactly (laughs). That was even before Binance; we didn't say this to the public back then. I was very honest at the time; this demo was just a concept verification we rushed out in two to three days to demonstrate the direction, not the final product.

Additionally, we wrote a script to fetch Bitfinex's market data. Bitfinex was one of the large exchanges at the time, and we essentially replicated its order book, making the interface constantly flash with trades, looking very active. When investors saw it, they thought the technology was strong.

But more importantly, when they asked questions, I could delve deep into the issue, such as how to optimize order matching, how to build an in-memory matching engine, how to design the database structure, and so on. These were all knowledge I had accumulated before.

Chamath: So, you basically laid out all your knowledge of in-memory matching and databases.

CZ: Yes. I could provide in-depth answers to their technical questions, so they believed this was not just a nice-looking demo. But they also pointed out that running a trading platform in Japan might not necessarily be successful because you don't speak Japanese. So, they suggested, why not sell this trading system to another platform? Because many Japanese trading platforms lack strong technology.

I thought it was feasible, so I talked to a few companies. About two weeks later, we signed a contract with one of them, selling this system for $360,000, with an initial payment of $180,000. That money was enough to stop me from paying employee salaries out of my own pocket, so I was definitely relieved. Thus, we transitioned from running our own trading platform to being a trading system provider.

Chamath: So, selling software.

CZ: Yes, selling software. By July 2015, a group of Chinese companies also approached us, saying they wanted to buy the system.

Chamath: Sorry to interrupt, but this experience is amazing. In many entrepreneurial stories, when asked, "How is your company doing, and how much is it worth?" people always think of that kind of "eureka moment, destined for greatness" legend.

For example, Binance is now roughly at the $200 billion level, and many people think that such a company must have had a particularly explosive start. But your experience is more like real entrepreneurship: groping along the way, learning, trial and error, iteration, the path is not straightforward, and a catalyst happens at some point. Even then, what you were doing at the time was not a final form, but rather, providing authorization, providing services. Many people misunderstand the essence of entrepreneurship; it is more about resilience, enduring the hard and tiring work repeatedly.

CZ: I completely agree. Many people romanticize entrepreneurship, thinking that inspiration comes from the beginning.

Chamath: Like the story of Facebook, casually written in college, suddenly with millions of users.

CZ: Yes, Facebook, Microsoft, Google stories like these are the most easily spread, starting from a garage, dorm room, or from zero to one taking off.

Chamath: But in reality, especially in finance, or companies like Tesla, it's more about a long and difficult struggle.

CZ: That's right, it's a continuous struggle. You have to try many directions repeatedly, and at the beginning, you can't see which path will work at all. Those three companies are more like rare exceptions that got it right from day one, but they shaped the public's imagination of entrepreneurship. In fact, 99% or even 99.9% of successful companies are not on that path.

So going back to our situation at that time, the software licensing business was doing well, and we served a total of about 30 exchange platform clients.

Chamath: Wait, really?

CZ: Yes, really, it lasted for about two years. During those two years, we signed many clients, and it was actually a multimillion-dollar licensing business. It can also be considered SaaS; we called it 'Exchange as a Service,' charging a fixed monthly service fee. The business was very stable, and with each additional client, the revenue would increase exponentially. This was actually a very good business model.

But by March 2017, the Chinese government shut down most of our clients. By May, we realized we had to pivot.

Chamath: But they didn't directly impact you because you were just a software provider.

CZ: Right, we were just a software provider, not operating the exchange platforms, not involved in the business itself. But the problem was when the clients were gone, the business was gone. So in April and May, we kept thinking about how to pivot.

During that time, there were also many attempts, such as three colleagues who worked with me wanted to create a Poloniex replica, Poloniex was one of the largest exchanges at that time. I said we had cash on hand and could invest, but three days later, they wanted to create on-chain chat rooms, on-chain trading software, and I felt it wasn't worth investing again.

Finally, I said, since we already have a trading system, why not build our own exchange platform focusing only on spot trading? The system needed some customization, but the foundation was there. So at the end of May, we decided to rebuild the exchange platform, focusing on spot trading only.

Chamath: How big was the team at the time?

CZ: About 20 people, mostly technical staff, but almost no marketing team because we were originally B2B, relying mainly on sales. We only had two salespeople plus myself. After deciding to pivot, we said, let's just do it ourselves: build a spot trading platform.

Then from June 1st to June 10th, Vinnik, the co-founder of BTC-e, did an ICO in China and raised $15 million in 10 days. I was very shocked when I saw it; he only had a whitepaper and a website, no product, nothing, and could raise $15 million. So I thought if he could do it, maybe I could do it too.

Chamath: What you need is venture capital. You're thinking that if you get 15 million, you can expand the team, invest in marketing, get the company on a growth trajectory, and not worry so much about cash flow pressure.

CZ: Right. Initially, we did plan to go the VC funding route, but after seeing that, I realized how efficient an ICO could be. In mid-June 2017, I attended a conference where everyone was talking about ICOs, and they all told me, "CZ, you have to do an ICO."

Around June 14th, I made up my mind, gathered the team, and decided we were going to do an ICO and immediately started writing the white paper.

Chamath: Were you already well-known in the Bitcoin or crypto community at that time? Whether in China, Japan, or elsewhere?

CZ: A bit. I was already somewhat known when I was at Blockchain.info. Blockchain.info was the most popular platform at the time, and I was also the CTO at OKCoin. I was quite active on social media and was responsible for their international markets, mainly non-Chinese markets because hardly anyone on the team spoke English better than me, even though my English wasn't that great. So I had some level of recognition in the community, and people more or less knew who I was.

Chamath: Because to do an ICO, you needed some level of fame or endorsement, right?

CZ: Yes, that's correct. It was an advantage of being an early entrant in the industry. I attended a few conferences where there might have been around two hundred attendees. The first time, no one knew you; the second time, some people remembered you; the third time, others considered you an insider and even thought you were an expert. During that time, I did build up a bit of reputation.

I also noticed that the person in China who did that ICO, Vinnik, was well-known domestically but not internationally, whereas I had some exposure both domestically and internationally. So I figured I probably could also successfully do an ICO and raise a similar amount. Later on, it turned out we indeed achieved that.

Chamath: I've always been puzzled, and it remains so to this day, about who the buyers were in that ICO of yours.

CZ: To be honest, even up to today, I find it challenging to paint a completely accurate picture.

Chamath: Chinese? Japanese? Or people from around the globe who already knew you? Or was it because your white paper was exceptionally well-written?

CZ: From the investor composition, maybe 80% to 90% were Chinese, with some international investors participating as well. The data roughly indicates that around 20,000 people subscribed to that ICO.

Chamath: 20,000 people?

CZ: Yeah, about 20,000 people. For a brand-new project, the true endorsement really only has two points: a few people know me, and we made things clear.

Chamath: So even when China kicked exchanges out of the market, ICOs were still allowed?

CZ: Let's clarify, at that time ICOs were not explicitly banned.

Chamath: Right, they weren't banned at the time, but it's not like they were allowed.

CZ: Strictly speaking, they were not approved, in a gray area. Adding another key context, the exchange platform clients we served at that time were mainly "fiat-to-crypto exchanges," not purely crypto-to-crypto exchanges. Crypto-to-crypto exchanges were not shut down in March, but faced regulatory crackdowns in September after we launched. The timeframe we're talking about is roughly June-July 2017.

Chamath: You were basically navigating in the regulatory gaps at that time.

CZ: Indeed. But we didn't know what policies would come later; we made decisions based on the reality at that time.

Chamath: How much of the company did you sell off back then?

CZ: We didn't sell any shares. We issued tokens, not involving any equity arrangements. We issued a new token, BNB, which still exists today. Our plan was to sell 60% of the tokens, raising about $15 million. Of course, the fundraising was valued and settled in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Chamath: What was the tokenomics model designed for BNB initially?

CZ: We proposed several use cases, but the most core and quickest to implement was that users holding BNB would receive a 50% trading fee discount on the future exchange, providing the most direct value proposition. We also mentioned that it would evolve into its own chain in the future, forming a more comprehensive ecosystem, roughly in three or four main directions.

Chamath: You must have been excited back then, raising $15 million and immediately starting the exchange. But in September, the policy came, banning the exchange itself in China. What did you do?

CZ: On September 4, 2017, various Chinese government departments jointly issued a document: first, virtual currency exchange platforms are no longer allowed to operate in China; second, ICOs are also not allowed; third, mining is likewise prohibited. We had only one choice: to move out of China.

At that time, China was still an important market, contributing about 30% of users, but we had about 70% of users from other global regions. We believed that even if we lost that 30%, the business could still survive, and there was still decent room for growth, so I suggested moving the team to Tokyo.

Chamath: You really like Tokyo.

CZ: I'm not unfamiliar with Japan, at least not the first time adapting to a new culture.

Chamath: And by then, you would also speak Japanese.

CZ: I can speak a little, at the level of a taxi ride: I can say thank you, good job, understand some restaurant menu items; I can mostly name sushi. That's roughly the extent. But the key is that Tokyo wasn't a completely unfamiliar city to me. At that time, we were about 30 people, so we decided to relocate as a whole.

Chamath: Everyone moved?

CZ: Almost everyone. That was eight years ago. Only one or two people in the team were married, hardly anyone had children, so the migration cost was relatively low. Everyone packed up and left. I remember a product manager crying because her boyfriend was still in China. But she eventually followed the team to Tokyo, and later married that boyfriend, which still seems incredible looking back on it now.

In short, after we moved to Tokyo, the platform continued to grow.

Chamath: When you initially launched Binance, did it take off right away? Or did it require a lot of effort to find PMF? How did early viral adoption occur? And how was liquidity built?

CZ: I would say the product grew well, but the token price once fell below the ICO price, dropping by about 30% to 40%, taking about three weeks to recover. As for PMF, the crypto market was still hot at the time, and what we did was a spot exchange platform, which was not a brand-new concept, so the demand already existed.

Chamath: So the ICO was crucial; everyone held the token, enjoyed trading fee discounts, so they would prefer Binance, right? But was your system architecture also noticeably better? Faster speed, stronger stability?

CZ: Yes, the system performance was indeed significantly better. At that time, not even needing a complex comparison, you could tell just by the intuitive experience that placing orders and matching on Binance was significantly faster than competitors, showing a very prominent performance advantage of the entire trading system.

Chamath: In 2017, who were you mainly competing with?

CZ: At that time, Poloniex and Bittrex were the two largest ones. In the Chinese market, there were also Huobi, OKCoin, etc., and in the Western market, there was Coinbase. Gemini had not emerged back then; it came later. Bitstamp and Bitfinex were around at that time, but now they are relatively much smaller.

Chamath: When you were close to 40 years old at that time, as things really took off, how did you digest that success? Did you ever think to yourself, what is happening here? Is this real?

CZ: There were indeed some very unreal moments. For example, a finance colleague told me that our revenue during that period was approximately several hundred bitcoins. My initial reaction was disbelief, how could this be possible? Did we really earn this much? Are you sure? The person said yes. So we double-checked, triple-checked, and still arrived at the same result, which was a very shocking feeling.

There was also a period when BNB was recovering in price for about three weeks. The initial price of BNB in our ICO was around $0.10, dropped to around $0.06, and then started to rebound. During that time, it was almost like waking up to a 20% increase after a nap, another 20% increase after a meeting, and even coming back from the restroom felt like it had gone up again. Of course, that's an exaggeration, but the pace was indeed dizzyingly fast.

Chamath: At those times, you quickly realize, wait a minute, I seem to have become very wealthy.

CZ: The impact of wealth came a bit later. Around early 2018, after six or seven months, Forbes put me on the cover. That was when I truly began to realize that maybe things had completely changed.

Chamath: How did they reach out to you for the cover story back then?

CZ: I'm not very clear on the specific process. Forbes was working on a crypto-themed special issue at the time and reached out to many industry insiders. They contacted us through our PR team, which had about four or five people, saying they wanted to interview me and do a photoshoot.

Initially, I didn't want to go, but the team believed that as a new brand, exposure in Forbes could significantly increase awareness, so I agreed. That photoshoot was also my first time wearing makeup and being in front of the camera for that kind of formal studio shoot.

Chamath: What does money mean to you? Don't get me wrong, but you became wealthy after middle age. In your forties, is money still important?

CZ: Money is certainly important, but not everything. Several things have influenced me:

First, I am indeed not young anymore. People in their forties are less likely to chase after sports cars, parties, or flashy consumption like those in their twenties, and I am not interested in those.

Second, my personality is relatively stable, not easily swayed by external changes.

Third, wealth accumulation has not been a gradual process for me. I almost went from just achieving some financial comfort to suddenly appearing on the cover, with others saying you might be a billionaire. But when I opened my wallet, life beyond the numbers did not change immediately. Someone would tell me, "You might already be a billionaire," and I would actually think, Really? Why do I not feel that at all?

Even during the time we moved from China to Japan, I was still booking red-eye economy flights. It was only later that someone reminded me to upgrade to business class so I could lie down and sleep that I realized my habits did not automatically change due to a sudden increase in wealth.

If someone's wealth grows step by step, from 1 million to 10 million, they might buy a car; when it reaches 200 million, they might buy a yacht, and they would gradually develop a set of consumption and identity habits. But I did not go through that step-by-step process, so many habits of the wealthy did not develop in me.

Chamath: So now? Sometimes you are a billionaire, sometimes even a "multi-billionaire." What do these numbers really mean?

CZ: To me, they do not mean much. I think money has roughly two meanings:

First, ensuring basic living needs: food, shelter, security. Honestly, the amount required to achieve this is not high. People often complicate life, but basic needs are not expensive. In that sense, I have had it for a long time. I live very comfortably but not luxuriously.

Second, the changes brought by being wealthier are not as significant as imagined. For example, the house I live in now still has occasional leaks in the living room because it's quite old. People may think I live in extreme luxury, but that's not the case: I live in a house that is the right size, conveniently located, and meets my family's needs. It's not new or ostentatious, just functionally appropriate. If something breaks, we fix it, that's all. We had a leak just last month.

Chamath: Does this mean you are practical? Or are you not easily impressed by these things?

CZ: I value functionality more. If it can solve problems and operate normally, I am satisfied. I don't care much about decoration, style, color, or flashy gold or similar symbolic things. As long as it works well, it's enough.

Chamath: Do you ever have a strong sense of insecurity?

CZ: Not really. I am aware of my own weaknesses and have learned how to deal with them. I hope I am not someone who is overly arrogant.

Chamath: It may sound somewhat arrogant to say this, but I really only started to understand you in the past two years. I watched your videos from the late 2010s to the early 2020s, and my most direct response, because it has also been my ongoing struggle, is the tug-of-war between inferiority and arrogance. At that time, I thought: Wow, this person is extremely calm. It seems that you have a very strong emotional regulation ability and a great sense of introspection.

CZ: Other people's emotions can fluctuate greatly, showing extreme joy or sadness. I also feel happy or anxious, but my range of fluctuations is narrower.

Chamath: This trait allows you to be adept in many ways. This means that when you are immersed in solving a difficult problem, the so-called "success" is to some extent illusory, because outsiders do not know the hardships you have endured, and no one really cares about those tedious labors.

People tend to judge things in a simplistic and crude way, such as pointing to something and exclaiming, "Wow, look at everything you have." Indeed. If you have been working hard all the time without time to enjoy, in fact, no one can truly understand that state.

CZ: That's right, that's indeed the case.

Chamath: Okay, let's talk about the start of Binance. You launched this platform, which grew extremely rapidly, but also experienced some setbacks. Do you feel that at some point you were overly obsessed with this growth?

CZ: I wouldn't say I was obsessed with growth, but I was indeed obsessed with work. In fact, work itself brings me great satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

Chamath: What was a typical day like for you back then? What were you mainly busy with?

CZ: I basically had to deal with more than 20 meetings every day, including scheduled conference calls or formal meetings, as well as various miscellaneous tasks, and also had to reply to users on Twitter, and so on. But this makes me feel very meaningful because it contains an indescribable sense of achievement. This feeling does not come from money or scaling.

Chamath: What is it then? During your tenure at Binance, how did you measure it? Some people would stare at lagging indicators, such as revenue, but revenue and profit are actually lagging reflections of work done six months or even a year ago. What is your most valued leading indicator? What is your true north, which reflects the health of the system, that you really care about?

CZ: I believe the core metric is daily active users, not transaction volume, nor revenue.

Chamath: Why daily active, and not other metrics?

CZ: That's the essence. I believe as long as you keep serving more users, you are creating value for them. I strongly believe that a product is only valuable when people are willing to use it. Therefore, the more people use it, even if the revenue is zero, the product still holds value.

Any product is like this, the broader the audience, the higher the value. That's my philosophy. In contrast, you can optimize for revenue or profit for short-term gain, but that may sacrifice long-term growth potential. I always believe that in the long run, if the platform has a large user base, that's where the value lies—it's not just creating value for yourself, but also for the users.

People choose to use your platform because it brings value to them. So, this is my "North Star metric." Besides that, realizing that there are billions of people using our service and benefiting from it is meaningful in itself. My view is, if users are willing to pay fees, it is because we have provided corresponding value.

Chamath: But daily active can also be a double-edged sword because these active users may include bad actors. When was the first time you realized this could become a serious issue that needed to be addressed seriously?

CZ: There is actually a very clear time point, which was New Year's Day 2018. At that time, Binance was only about five months old, and we had already grown to be the world's largest exchange. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official contacted me at that time. He sent an email requesting our assistance in tracking some hackers who may have moved funds from the Ether Delta hack.

Ether Delta was a decentralized exchange in 2017 that closed down after a hack. That was the first time a U.S. government official reached out to us, and I had no idea how to handle it at the time. No one on our team had experience interfacing with law enforcement. So, I gathered a few partners and discussed, "How can we help him?"

Later on, after verifying his identity, we provided the information he needed. He expressed his gratitude to us afterward. I asked him then, "Joseph, can you recommend some talent experienced in dealing with law enforcement for us to hire in the future?" He did make a recommendation, but that person was in the U.S. at the time, and we didn't have a U.S. entity to hire locally, so it didn't work out. But it was on New Year's Day of that year that I realized this kind of situation would occur more in the future.

Chamath: That's the moment you realize that, with the expansion of user base, this kind of thing is inevitable.

CZ: Yes, it's a must.

Chamath: Even with a surge in the number of users.

CZ: It was on that day that I realized we had to hire professionals with law enforcement backgrounds.

Chamath: So what did you do next?

CZ: In the end, we did indeed hire more professionals in that area.

Chamath: Obviously, you wouldn't personally monitor every transaction, so you can't catch all the details. But fast forward to later on, the core of the charges brought against you by the Biden administration is that organizations like Hamas or others were using Binance for transactions, and your regulatory measures were insufficient.

CZ: On this point, constrained by legal agreements and litigation factors, I have strict legal limitations on what I can and can't say. While I'm not a lawyer, I will try my best to avoid touching on these sensitive topics. However, from a macro perspective, I would say that the Biden administration is overall quite hostile towards the cryptocurrency industry, openly declaring war on cryptocurrency even. So, seeing a 180-degree shift in attitude from the new administration, I think it's a good thing for the United States and the world as a whole. I don't want to simply blame the previous administration, but I feel they indeed did not understand this industry at that time.

Chamath: Why do you think they were so hostile?

CZ: It stems from fear of the unknown, plain and simple. I think in their minds, they partly wanted to protect the existing financial system, banks, and related stakeholders from impact. In addition, these traditional industries may have engaged in a lot of lobbying activities, thus brainwashing or influencing the thinking of decision-makers. It's human nature, not ideal, but understandable.

Chamath: You run a trading platform, and your business is thriving. From 2018 to 2020, you gradually reached the peak. Eventually, you decided to establish a U.S. entity.

CZ: Yes, we launched Binance.US in 2019.

Chamath: Why did you feel the need to do that at the time?

CZ: There were some news in 2019, in my layman's terms, that the U.S. government was going after BitMEX. Negative news about BitMEX and Bitfinex was frequent at that time. I remember the Polish government froze about 600 to 800 million dollars of their assets, while their market cap was only around 4 billion dollars at the time, which was a huge amount.

Subsequently, the U.S. government sued them for insufficient reserves. Upon seeing this news, we realized that the U.S. government was starting to pay attention to this industry, and it would be best for us to register. Similarly, I consulted many friends with legal backgrounds, and the general consensus was that we should operate in the U.S. in a compliant manner. So, in 2019, we registered Binance.US, which is a completely independent entity with its own deployed systems, matching engine, and liquidity pool. From day one, Binance.US has been under regulatory oversight.

Chamath: Between 2019 and 2021, everything was running relatively smoothly.

CZ: Overall, yes.

FTX Event Timeline: Relationship with SBF and Its Downfall

Chamath: Then you began to see other competitors rise rapidly, such as SBF and his FTX, with very strong momentum. Tell me about that experience, how did you get to know him?

CZ: At some point, we held a 20% stake in them, but we exited a year later, not holding it for too long.

I remember the first time I met him was in January 2019 at a conference organized by Binance in Singapore. I remember FTX had not even been established at that time. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was still running Alameda Research back then. They hosted a party at the S.E.A. Aquarium in Sentosa, Singapore, and even had divers holding up signs in the fish tank.

At that time, they were VIP clients of Binance, with very high trading volumes. So our relationship was very friendly, that was in January 2019. A few months later, they approached us, expressing their interest in building a futures platform. They proposed a joint venture plan; I don't remember the specific details, but I recall they proposed a profit split of 60/40, with us taking the larger share.

At the time, I did consider negotiating because after all, the users were in our hands, and they had nothing back then. I even thought about proposing a 95/5 split, but I felt that would be impolite. They were still our significant traders and VIP clients, so we turned down that proposal.

Chamath: Because they were a crucial part of the liquidity pool back then.

CZ: Socially we didn't have much interaction; they were big customers of the platform at the time. But you have to understand, Binance at that time was also very young, not a well-established institution that had been around for many years, probably only about half a year to a year old. Later in the summer, they came back with a better proposal, but I declined. By November, they attempted to collaborate for the third time. By then, FTX had launched and had some trading volume, and they proposed we could transfer 20% ownership at that price.

」That transaction involved a token swap, specifically an exchange between BNB and FTT, through which we also acquired some early FTT holdings. At that time, BNB's liquidity far exceeded that of FTT. However, shortly after the transaction was completed, I began hearing from friends about SBF spreading negative comments about us in Washington D.C. and elsewhere in the United States. I found it incredibly unbelievable at the time.

Furthermore, they did some infuriating things, such as offering 5x salaries, poaching two customer managers from us who had access to the VIP database. When one of the employees left, I thought, if we were to offer her a raise to stay, it would mean giving everyone a 5x raise, which was clearly not feasible, so she ended up joining FTX. However, on her second day at FTX, our VIP clients started receiving calls stating that they could get more favorable rates for trading on FTX.

So I called SBF and said, "Can you stop this behavior? We are still your shareholders." At the same time, he would politely ask, "CZ, can we participate in a cryptocurrency event roundtable together?" As an investor, I initially wanted to help promote them. In fact, I sincerely hoped that there would be multiple successful exchanges in the industry so that we wouldn't always be the target of attacks. However, things didn't go as planned, and I continued to hear messages of him bad-mouthing us behind our backs.

In early 2021, due to their claim of raising funds at a $32 billion valuation, we decided to exit. According to the investment terms, we had veto power over future funding rounds, and if we wanted to hinder them, we could have exercised that right. But I didn't want to make things difficult for them; I thought, since that's the case, why not just exit directly and compete fairly in the market.

If I remember correctly, the transaction was finally completed and the transfer was made in July 2021, a full year and a half before their eventual crisis erupted. At that time, no one could anticipate the subsequent collapse.

Chamath: That's right. There were rumors at the time that many of their issues started after you sold your shares, and there was some kind of connection between the two, and your current words powerfully refute that claim.

CZ: That claim is entirely baseless. Due to the business competition, even though we were once shareholders, I never asked to review their financial statements, never inquired. I am a very passive investor who never interferes with the other party's operations after investing. Moreover, since we compete on the futures platform, I deliberately kept my distance, allowing them to develop on their own.

Chamath: Following FTX's collapse, the most discussed points were that the compensation plan was not optimal for some cash-holding creditors and the valuation issue of these assets in the later stages. Looking back on all this, what do you think this reflects about the industry's current state?

CZ: Honestly, I do not understand the specific process of bankruptcy liquidation, nor am I clear about its fairness; I've only read some online comments. And to maintain transparency, I must disclose that FTX's bankruptcy trustee is currently in litigation with us, attempting to recover the funds we withdrew when we delisted a year and a half ago. Therefore, what I can openly comment on at the moment is very limited.

I have indeed heard some Chinese users complain about not receiving compensation. But to my knowledge, due to the rise in cryptocurrency prices, if valued in USD, they now have enough assets for compensation; however, if the users held cryptocurrency at the time, they should have received more. I am unsure of the specific transaction details.

Confronting the Biden Administration's "Anti-Encryption" Justice Department

Chamath: When did Binance's situation start to become complex? I'm referring to its relationship with the U.S. government.

CZ: It started between 2021 and 2022 when they began requesting information from us, and we always cooperated. But by the end of 2022, the situation became increasingly serious. By early 2023, things became clearer, and we either had to reach some settlement agreement or face prosecution. This was followed by long behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Chamath: As a party involved, how do you deal with this pressure? When you are sitting in the conference room and hear the lawyer say, "CZ, I think you might face criminal charges," how does that feel?

CZ: First of all, I do not have a legal background, so I heavily rely on professional advice. That was the most challenging period for me because I had no experience. This kind of thing, no one who has been through it once would want to go through it a second time. I hired a group of top lawyers, but managing these lawyers was actually quite tricky. Although they are professionals, each has different expertise and opinions, and everyone wants to act as the ultimate decision-maker. Furthermore, lawyers work in an extremely detailed and time-consuming way, after all, they bill by the hour.

I'm not saying they are unethical; they do want to do the job well, but they often get caught up in various minutiae, making you feel pulled in countless directions, which was the most frustrating part for me. What I needed at that time was someone to tell me, "These are the three things you need to focus on, this is the strategy we need to follow." Since our legal team was then quite young and lacked experience in handling such significant cases, the situation became even more complicated.

Chamath: Where was your team at that time?

CZ: We are now scattered around the world. By 2023, most of my time was spent in Dubai. Those days were extremely stressful. My way of dealing with the pressure was to analyze the "best" and "worst" scenarios. The best scenario: pay a fine, sign a deferred prosecution agreement, and close the matter. The worst scenario: the other party tries to have you jailed.

Chamath: Is that really the worst-case scenario? Because it seemed like, at the time, similar cases often just resulted in probation.

CZ: This is indeed an extreme risk. While no one has gone to jail for this before, they have the authority to make such demands. There is actually another "worst-case scenario": if you choose to dig in your heels, refuse to settle, and stay in the UAE (which has an extradition treaty with the US). Even though the likelihood of me being extradited is extremely low due to my citizenship, my freedom to travel would be restricted. Whenever I cross borders, even to a country without an extradition treaty, there might still be some form of political dealing. That would be a life lived in fear.

Chamath: And if the two countries are allies, this could further complicate government relations.

CZ: Exactly, this would put immense pressure on the UAE government. I do not want to cause trouble for the country that granted me citizenship. Even worse, if you do not cooperate, they could sue you and issue a red notice, and that kind of life is unimaginable.

Chamath: How did you deal with it?

CZ: The negotiation process was extremely difficult. Over the course of more than a year, I had to meet with 12 to 20 lawyers on standby almost every day, playing a game with the Department of Justice under the Biden administration. The most frequent thing my lawyer said to me was, "We have never seen them behave so adversarially in dealing with such cases."

Chamath: At some point, do you become numb to it? Or do you constantly reflect and think, "Why is this happening to me"?

CZ: It's a gradual process, with several stages that are extremely hard to overcome. In the negotiation, when the other party proposed terms that we absolutely could not accept, you had to refuse, even if they wouldn't budge an inch. This would then lead to weeks-long "stalemates." During those weeks, you had no idea what would happen, and it felt like being in "purgatory." You could be sued at any moment because you had rejected their proposal. During that time, you had to mentally prepare for the worst: like spending the rest of your life in one country, having to be extremely cautious. Interestingly, two weeks later, they would come back on their own asking, "Can we start negotiating again?"

Chamath: What do you think happened during those two weeks?

CZ: Looking back, I think it was a very clever negotiation tactic on their part to maintain silence. For someone like me going through this for the first time, it felt like a gamble with life, but for them, it was business as usual. They were very smart, knowing that two weeks was a perfect inflection point. If the period of silence was too long, you would get used to living under that extreme pressure and become fearless, and when they came back, you might still say "no." They are very good at this psychological warfare. This kind of pressure is not something you can get used to; it poses a significant challenge to your psyche.

Chamath: How did you ultimately convince yourself to accept these final settlement terms?

CZ: After multiple rounds of tough negotiations, we finally reached a consensus. I agreed to a single charge of violating the Bank Secrecy Act, which was essentially for "failure to fulfill registration obligations." While this is a federal offense and a serious matter, no one has ever been imprisoned for it in history.

Chamath: This charge sounds more technical. In the perception of the U.S. media, it is generally believed to involve money laundering, aiding and abetting criminal activities, and failure to enforce KYC and AML. Is there a connection between the public perception and the actual legal charge? Are they equivalent or independent?

CZ: I can try to explain my understanding. First, I need to clarify that I am not a legal professional, and this only represents my layman's understanding, which may be subject to deviations. My understanding is as follows: Layer one: Violation of the Bank Secrecy Act. This is the most basic layer, i.e., the failure to fulfill registration obligations. Binance provided services to U.S. users without registering with U.S. regulators as a financial services company.

Layer two: Inadequate KYC and AML procedures. Even if the company is unregistered, it should have robust anti-money laundering procedures. People often think of compliance as black or white, but in reality, it involves the rigor of enforcement, the systems used, and the human resources invested.

Layer three: Knowing and aiding illegal transactions. This is a higher-level charge. If the AML procedures are not stringent, bad actors may slip through, but that does not mean the company intentionally aided.

Layer four: Direct involvement in illegal transactions. For example, the case of Charlie Shrem handling transactions for the Silk Road. I personally have never directly handled any transactions, as it is entirely outside my scope of work.

The final consensus reached was that Binance failed to register as required, and there were weaknesses in the KYC/AML procedures. For these two points, we were willing to accept fines and reach a settlement. Legally, based solely on these two charges, with no additional charges and no precedents of imprisonment in U.S. history, the government at the time tried to add two so-called "aggravated penalty charges" (layers 3 and 4), alleging my personal involvement in facilitating illegal transactions.

Chamath: Can they provide specific transaction records or evidence?

CZ: No, they cannot. They attempted to attribute certain company-level lapses to me personally. The court unequivocally dismissed these two aggravated charges. However, before I traveled to the U.S., we agreed to litigate this during the trial. Based on legal advice, I then believed that the worst-case scenario would be something like BitMEX's Arthur Hayes, who received six months of home confinement, a situation much more severe than mine due to his direct customer interaction. Therefore, at that time, I was confident that going to the U.S. to resolve the issue was the best choice.

Chamath: So your strategy was to acknowledge the base charge and refute the 3rd and 4th layer charges in court. You arrived in the US, went to court, and then what happened?

CZ: There were a lot of details. The first day was for the plea hearing, and the terms had been meticulously drafted and polished by both extensive legal teams.

Chamath: By the way, where were you staying at that time? Were your family with you?

CZ: I was staying at a hotel in downtown Seattle. My sister and mother were with me, but I didn't bring my kids as they had to go to school. My business partner also had a company to run, and since I was no longer in charge of Binance's operations, I didn't want him to be distracted. After the plea hearing, the lawyers started arguing about the bail conditions. My lawyer thought I should be allowed to return to the UAE and await the sentencing in three months. The government argued that I might flee and requested that I be detained in the US but with no restriction on my movements within the country.

Initially, the magistrate approved my return to the UAE, but the government immediately appealed. My lawyer mentioned that in his 40-year career, he had never seen the government appeal bail conditions. He thought this aggressive move could backfire and work in our favor by antagonizing the court. However, the outcome was unexpected. Two weeks later, the court ruled in favor of the government, and I was compelled to stay in the US for three months. After the three months elapsed, the government requested an additional three-month extension.

Chamath: During those six months, did you get to see your kids?

CZ: No, I didn't want them to witness that situation. During that time, I traveled within the US or stayed at my sister's house, trying to keep a calm mindset.

Chamath: Your sentencing date is April 30, 2024.

CZ: Yes. A week before the sentencing, the government submitted a sentencing recommendation requesting 36 months of imprisonment, which was twice the upper limit recommended by all legal guidelines. Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren once again declared war on cryptocurrency on TV and wrote a letter to the Department of Justice, displaying heavy bias against the industry.

On the day of sentencing, the judge first acknowledged my contributions and character, but then came the pivotal word—however. The lawyers fiercely defended me in court, and it was that argument that led to the complete rejection of the two core charges the government was trying to impose on me. The judge confirmed that I had not been involved in those transactions and was not aware of them.

What Is Life Like Inside a Federal Prison?

Chamath: So the final sentence was four months of imprisonment. How did you react at that moment?

CZ: Initially, it was very difficult to accept. My concern was not the four-month duration, but rather my personal safety. After the verdict, major media outlets reported that I was the "wealthiest person ever to enter U.S. prison."

Chamath: This kind of media coverage will make you a target.

CZ: Exactly. Both my lawyer and prison consultant warned me that such high visibility would make me the prime target for extortion in prison.

Chamath: What is a prison consultant?

CZ: It's a specialized industry, usually composed of former guards or wardens. They educate you on the rules of survival in prison: how to live, how to deal with challenges. They told me that if someone is unusually friendly on the first day, never accept anything from them because it usually means you'll pay tenfold in the future. I also consulted with some individuals who had served time in prison. The U.S. prison system is massive, incarcerating 2 million people, with government spending on prisons exceeding that on education. Each prison has its own unwritten rules. I eventually realized that, no matter how much advice you receive, you will ultimately have to face it all alone.

Chamath: You mentioned you were sentenced on April 30. When did you start serving your sentence?

CZ: Generally, after sentencing, the individual does not immediately know where they will be sent or which prison they will enter. The court usually offers two recommendations, and then you will receive a notification letter.

Chamath: So, you could have still been at a hotel or elsewhere at that time, and then you had to report on a certain date to begin your prison term as required.

CZ: Yes. But my situation was somewhat special. The judge ruled that I did not need to undergo any form of supervision, which is quite rare in similar cases. Therefore, I didn't need to report on a specific date, just wait for a letter to be sent to my sister's house — that's the contact address I provided to the court.

In fact, the Department of Justice requested in their application to subject me to "pre-arraignment detention," which means they would have apprehended and taken me away in Hong Kong; I guess they wanted to get that "perp walk" photo for PR purposes.

But the judge explicitly stated: I pose no risk, there is no flight risk, and no threat to society, so there was no need for that approach. The judge even added specifically: I do not require supervision. Later on, I learned that this was crucial in a legal sense. This also explains why I did not have probation or parole after serving my term, and I didn't need any supervision. For me, there were indeed some unexpected legal details in this experience.

Chamath: How did you spend that time? Were you scared? Did anything serious happen?

CZ: Fortunately, there were no particularly terrible incidents. The overall experience was certainly very painful, but I did not suffer any physical harm, was not involved in any fights, and did not experience any true extortion. Before going to jail, my prison advisor repeatedly reminded me: once inside, do not join any gang, try to keep a low profile, keep to yourself, speak less, avoid getting caught up in disputes. But the first minute I walked through the prison gate, a guard said to me, "You need some protection. The Pacific Islanders over there are recruiting, you might want to join them." I heard this as soon as I crossed the threshold.

Chamath: He said that to you?

CZ: Yes, at that moment I had no idea what that meant. The process on the first day in prison was extremely tedious: a series of procedures, strip search... After that, you would be taken to your assigned block. There were about 200 inmates: three rows of cells, about 20 cells per row, facing each other, three stories high, with the bottom being a common area. The moment you walked in, you could almost feel everyone's eyes on you.

Later, I realized that prisons group inmates by race and ethnicity: Asians with Asians, white people with white people, black people with black people; Hispanic, Mexican, and Spanish-speaking groups are also grouped together. Surprisingly, this actually significantly reduces conflicts, as people with similar cultures and lifestyles get along more easily.

For example, Muslim inmates have fixed prayer times and routines and are also arranged into more easily coordinated groups. The prison authorities actually tacitly approve and encourage this grouping because it reduces the probability of violence. And once there is friction between groups, it is first resolved within the group hierarchy: if you have a conflict with someone from another group, it is no longer a personal conflict, but a group-to-group problem, which will be negotiated by respective representatives.

Chamath: It sounds like union representatives.

CZ: To some extent, yes. They sit down to coordinate and say, "You take a step back first, and we'll resolve the issue." There is a whole set of mechanisms and hierarchical structures behind this. I just had no idea about all this before going in.

I remember when I had just arrived in the block, a person who looked half Asian and half Hispanic came up to me and said, "My name is Chino, welcome to join us." He used the term "car." I was stupefied on the spot: should I shake hands? Will there be a problem if I don't? Does this count as being "pulled into a gang"? My mind was a mess at the time. That person was actually of Filipino and German descent. Since there are not many Asians, prisons often group anyone who "looks Asian" into the same group, and even include indigenous people, Pacific Islanders, and Hawaiians in the same group.

Among those 200 people, our Asian group only had 6 people. I was placed in a low-security prison, which, based on my case, should have been a lower-level minimum-security prison, usually where white-collar criminals are housed. But because I am not a U.S. citizen, they placed me in a low-security prison where the primary type of inmates is drug-related offenders. This experience was very intense and surreal, and I will delve into this part in detail in my upcoming book.

Chamath: What was the first thing you did after being released?

CZ: Take a good shower and eat a proper meal. The shower in prison was very small, just about the size of a box. The door was like those half doors in western bars, only covering the middle part, with legs and head sticking out. What's worse is that it's very difficult to shower without touching the walls. The first shower after release, the most noticeable luxury was finally not having to lean against the wall and make do in a cramped space.

In terms of food, there was very little fruit and quality protein; but a lot of carbohydrates—lots of bread, flour products, fried foods, very few vegetables, very little protein, and almost no fresh whole fruit to be seen. I might not have seen a whole piece of fruit for several months. After getting out of prison and seeing a plate of fruit, my first reaction was that this was truly a long-lost luxury.

Chamath: Did you immediately leave the U.S. after being released?

CZ: It took me about 26 minutes from walking out of the prison gate to boarding a plane and leaving.

Chamath: What were you thinking at that moment? Did you feel like you could understand why they did this in certain parts, maybe some parts were reasonable, but there were also some obvious over-enforcement that made you feel wronged? Or did you feel this was entirely a politically motivated setup, extremely unfair, and why was this happening to me? What was your internal monologue at that time?

CZ: I have some speech restrictions regarding details about plea agreements, legal terms, etc., that I cannot elaborate on.

Chamath: I'm just asking about your emotional response.

CZ: Emotionally, I just wished for all of this to end as soon as possible. And when I had just been released, it was still during the Biden administration, the election had not yet taken place, the outcome was still unknown, and the direction of U.S. policy was still unclear.

Chamath: You entered prison on May 30, 2024, right?

CZ: Yes. I entered prison on May 30, 2024, and was fully released four months later, on September 27. The election was in November.

Chamath: By the way, at that time, you had already been in the U.S. for a year and hadn't seen your child for a year.

CZ: So my only thought at that time was to end all of this. I was also prepared that if the policy continued in its original direction, the crypto industry would continue to face sustained high pressure, and we could only survive in that kind of environment.

Life After Leaving Binance and New Ventures

Chamath: After you came back out, did you also gradually come to terms with the fact that you could no longer continue to manage Binance, which was also part of the plea deal?

CZ: Yes, I later accepted that. Stepping down was very difficult, and I did cry about it. The last time I cried so hard was when my father passed away several years ago.

But after going back to a normal life for a while, I actually felt some relief about "no longer managing Binance": I had more free time. If I had voluntarily stepped down, the outside world might say "he couldn't handle it anymore"; but now the situation is "I can't continue," which is not entirely a personal choice, at least not a narrative of "lack of energy."

And after a while, I also realized that there are many valuable and meaningful things to invest in life. I am in a very fortunate position overall, with resources and enough funding to support the projects and initiatives I want to drive, such as Giggle Academy, free education, and so on.

Chamath: I also want to discuss AI and these new projects. But before that, let's clarify the part about the pardon: how did you start applying for a pardon, and how did you receive the pardon? What did you specifically do?

CZ: To be honest, I feel like almost no one really knows what the pardon process is because it doesn't seem to have a fixed process. My understanding is that you need to find a lawyer to write a petition, lay out the arguments clearly for why you should be pardoned, why you suffered from over-prosecution, how your conduct and past were, and so on.

Chamath: What is the essence of a pardon? Is it acknowledging over-prosecution?

CZ: The effect of a pardon is to restore you to the legal status of an ordinary person, essentially erasing the previous burden. There can be many reasons for why a pardon is considered.

Chamath: Ultimately, is it the president exercising discretion after reading the petition?

CZ: That's probably how it goes. The U.S. Constitution grants the President the power to pardon, and the text itself is not very detailed. As for how it actually operates, it depends more on the political and social environment at the time, as well as the President's personal judgment.

Chamath: In other words, it more reflects the current social norms and political climate, as well as how the president interprets these factors.

CZ: I think so. Historically, many presidents would concentrate pardons on the last day of their term. Biden, on the other hand, started pardoning in the mid-term of his term, and even introduced "preemptive pardons."

Chamath: Preemptive pardons are indeed quite innovative, probably widely discussed since the pandemic.

CZ: He even did a preemptive pardon for his son for a period of time, during a time rarely openly discussed. In any case, in my view, there is no clear, fixed, transparent process. The president can theoretically exercise the pardon power at his own will.

All I know is: after you submit a petition, you just have to wait. There is a person in the White House responsible for pardon affairs, I remember her name is Alice Johnson, she has spent many years in prison, and she has written a very good book, which I have read.

Lawyers keep asking, "Is there any progress? Any feedback?" but often receive no updates. Then one day, things happen. That's all I can say about the pardon process, I suspect few people outside really understand how it works.

Chamath: Many people instinctively think that you must have done something to get a pardon, I hope you can clarify this.

CZ: I didn't do anything, nor did any operations. But I think, from a practical standpoint, if there were no pardon, it would be very difficult for Binance to enter the U.S. and operate in a compliant manner. Because I am the ultimate beneficiary of Binance and Binance US, without a pardon, business in the U.S. would be severely restricted.

If the U.S. wants to be the global capital of crypto, it would be difficult to exclude the industry's largest liquidity pool, and it would not be possible to prevent U.S. users from accessing the largest market and ecosystem. And Binance is both one of the largest liquidity centers and one of the largest crypto ecosystems. So my guess is the new president himself is a pro-crypto president, who has also had experiences of being de-banked and targeted.

Chamath: He has talked about his experiences with de-banking and being systematically targeted.

CZ: Not just de-banking, he has also faced 34 criminal charges. I saw this news on TV while in prison, and even one charge detail was: he took files into the bathroom to read, which sounds extremely absurd. I think he has personally experienced the toughness and aggressiveness of the Biden Justice Department, this experience may make him more empathetic. To some extent, this may help me get a pardon.

Chamath: How do you currently manage your time?

CZ: I am still quite busy. I am working on Giggle Academy, a free educational platform; I also provide consulting for some countries to help them develop more sensible cryptocurrency regulatory policies; I am involved in investments, focusing on blockchain, AI, and other areas, and we have a very active investment team.

Chamath: Are these activities done within Binance or externally?

CZ: Externally to Binance, under YZi Labs. Additionally, I also mentor and support some entrepreneurs in the BNB Chain ecosystem. Overall, there are a lot of things going on.

Chamath: Tell me about Giggle Academy, what is it exactly?

CZ: My vision is that educational content can be entirely digitalized and delivered through mobile devices.

Chamath: Why is this important?

CZ: Because there is a set of very cruel data in reality - globally, there are approximately 700 million to 800 million illiterate adults, two-thirds of whom are women; in addition, there are about 500 million children out of school. Combined, it's about 1.2 billion people outside the education system.

Chamath: This is equivalent to 12% to 13% of the global population.

CZ: And most of these people live in extremely impoverished areas, either with no schools nearby or unable to afford the fees. Even if there are schools, the quality is often unsatisfactory. The mechanism of the traditional education system is to "pull everyone up to the average level": with so many students in a class, teaching progress can only cater to the "median."

Chamath: So what is the software form of your project?

CZ: It's an app on a mobile phone or tablet. My belief is that combining gamified design, human psychological mechanisms, and AI capabilities, an app can provide the necessary educational content for free.

Chamath: Have you seen a model similar to Alpha School? What are your thoughts?

CZ: I think Alpha School is great and has done an excellent job. However, it is high-cost and challenging to reach the most in-need population.

Chamath: Have you seen Timeback?

CZ: I haven't used it extensively, but I have met their founder and some core team members. They are addressing the problem of "improving the existing education system"; I am addressing the problem from the other end, "making education accessible," with different directions.

Chamath: So your goal is to spread as widely as possible, do you envision having schools?

CZ: No, I don't want to create schools, I want everyone to learn through the same app.

Chamath: I noticed that your software emphasizes a reward mechanism, like badges. My intuition at the time was: this seems like a trail of "breadcrumbs," easily leading to tokenization, earning incentives, a payment system... Am I overthinking?

CZ: No, your intuition is very natural. I actually thought about it seriously for a long time, and for a long time, I deliberately resisted issuing tokens for Giggle Academy. Indeed, issuing tokens has many benefits, such as implementing learn-to-earn, incentivizing teachers, and motivating content production. But the problem is, with my background, once tokens are issued, external attention will likely shift quickly from "education" to "speculation": everyone will be buying coins, trading coins, completing tasks for coins. It will become difficult to distinguish whether real children are learning on the platform or just chasing rewards.

I hope Giggle Academy is a truly free education platform, not a token project disguised as education. As soon as tokens are introduced, everyone will focus on the tokens.

Chamath: Honestly, Giggle sounds great, but I also admit that my initial instinct was to think in that direction.

CZ: Almost everyone thinks that way, which also indicates that this path is too obvious, but I hope it will eventually be understood as an educational project, not a crypto speculation project.

Chamath: So is your plan to continue personally funding it to expand and popularize it?

CZ: That was the original plan. But then something unexpected happened, a community project donated about $12 million to us in the form of a memecoin. Frankly, so far, I have only spent $3 million to $4 million on the entire project. It has turned into a situation where "spending money positively" is much more challenging than imagined.

Chamath: Yes, spending money to bring about positive change is fundamentally a completely different thing.

CZ: It's indeed very difficult. But my plan is still that as long as it is needed, I will continue to fund it until the goal is achieved: to fully digitize educational content and deliver it in a gamified, sufficiently engaging way to those who need it most.

Chamath: I want to bring up an AI-related question. You mentioned that AI is the third pillar of your life, and you see it as a massive cyclical shift. The most interesting thing about AI is that when you delve beneath the surface into embeddings and embedding layers, you'll find it is a machine-readable language, not English itself. It has very high information density, perfect for an intelligent agent. It can navigate within it, encrypt queries, perform tasks, leading to a significant leap in productivity. This also means that intelligent agents will become participants in commercial activities, requiring a payment system. You've also mentioned that in the near future, it could become the biggest user of cryptocurrency. Can you describe this vision for us?

CZ: I think the logic is quite straightforward. Soon, each of us will have hundreds, if not thousands, or even more intelligent agents working in the background. They will conduct transactions, schedule funds. For example, if you want to listen to this podcast, your team can charge a few cents using some business model, and of course, you can design more complex models.

Chamath: Don't settle for just a few cents, CZ.

CZ: Of course (laughs). What I mean is that regardless of the model adopted, there will be a significant need for automated micropayments and settlements. We've talked before about intelligent agents buying tickets, ordering meals, booking hotels for us. It's not fully realized today, but it will definitely happen in the future. More importantly, the transaction frequency of intelligent agents may be millions of times that of humans. They cannot possibly do all this through the traditional banking system. The compliance processes of banks cannot handle this scale and speed at all. You can't perform KYC on "intelligent agents"; it simply doesn't make sense logically.

Chamath: And the transaction volume and frequency of intelligent agents will overwhelm traditional network systems.

CZ: Exactly, the traditional systems cannot support it at all. For example, in terms of investment and trading, today when you open a trading app, look at the candlestick chart, click on prices, enter values, click on red and green buttons, this should not be the end state at all. A more reasonable interface should be "Convert 10% of your stablecoin assets to BNB." As for how to execute it, for large positions, it should be done in batches over time, for small positions, it should be done directly at market price. All of these should be automatically done in the background, and intelligent agents can execute these operations for us.

Chamath: So, what is the most feasible and realistic intelligent agent payment system today?

CZ: I'm not sure; currently, there isn't one system that is significantly mature.

Chamath: Are you talking about specific crypto projects? Which one could theoretically be used by intelligent agents?

CZ: It's still early, and I don't want to name any specific projects to avoid unnecessary price fluctuations. But indeed, many teams are working on it, especially after the recent surge in concepts like AI-powered social networks. This direction has become hotter, and I believe it will gradually move forward.

Chamath: Moving on to a more macro question, when you see a lot of discussions around free speech, in the crypto world, what role does privacy play? One of my biggest concerns about Bitcoin is its lack of fungibility, which could hinder its mass adoption; at the same time, it lacks privacy. Many people believe this could be the biggest obstacle to Bitcoin becoming ubiquitous. How do you view the importance of privacy?

CZ: I believe privacy holds a fundamental position in society. As you mentioned, Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies lack sufficient privacy features. Bitcoin was initially designed to be pseudonymous, but the reality is that every transaction on the chain is traceable, especially when you introduce KYC from centralized exchanges, further reducing the difficulty of tracking. People

often simplify the privacy issue as "someone will use it for illegal activities," but in reality, privacy has many legitimate and necessary use cases. For example, if you use an on-chain address to pay a hotel, the outside world only needs to know the hotel's receiving address to potentially deduce your location of stay, which directly threatens personal safety.

This is also why people do not publicly disclose home addresses online; in some countries, leaking someone's address may even be illegal. Of course, law enforcement's pursuit of criminals is a reasonable demand, and I am not against it. However, the fundamental value of privacy still exists. The industry must seriously promote the evolution of privacy capabilities, a direction that currently few people are truly investing in. Indeed, there are some privacy coins, but they lack scale and influence.

Chamath: Let's talk about your book.

CZ: Progress is okay, but writing a book always takes more time than I expected. I started drafting it in prison just to have something to do and not be idle all the time. I typed with a very rudimentary terminal and sent the manuscript to my assistant. After my release, I found that the content was enough to support a book, so I decided to continue refining it.

But the editing process is extremely time-consuming, with each round of edits possibly taking two to three weeks. The entire book is now about 95,000 words, nearly 300 pages, and I am editing both the English and Chinese versions simultaneously, extending the timeline further. The purpose of this book is to first tell the story clearly. There are too many misunderstandings about me, about Binance, and about the entire industry from the outside world, and there is also a lot of negative coverage. Some of the politically related narratives are very complex and will not be the focus of my book. I hope readers can understand who I am, what I have experienced, and what this company is in a sense from my perspective.

Chamath: Is this book also important to your children?

CZ: I think it's important. Of course, children are more inclined to stand by my side, they also know that the media narrative is not entirely accurate, but I haven't had the opportunity to explain the whole story to them in such detail. The book can contain more details, helping them understand parts that I can't explain clearly in everyday conversations. Although the book cannot cover everything, I will write to the best of my ability.

Chamath: What kind of person do you hope your children will become?

CZ: I hope they are healthy, happy, and define life in their own way. If they are content with being an ordinary person, I fully accept that; if they want to start a business, that's great too; if they want to be artists, or dedicate themselves to humanitarian and charitable work, that's also great. Whatever they choose, I hope to be a supporting figure in their lives.

Chamath: Does this align with your parents' expectations of you?

CZ: Very much so. My parents never forced me to follow a certain path, they didn't even demand that I become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or the like as some typical Chinese parents do. Their expectations of me were very simple: don't harm yourself, don't harm others; don't do drugs, don't commit crimes, don't do things that hurt others, that's all.

Chamath: I think many people, after hearing this, will have a thought — this is actually highly commendable, and if the circumstances were different, "that person could also be me." We often mythicize success as if it is invincible, unattainable, a kind of miracle. But that's not the case. Because after spending time with you, I believe the audience can also sense that you are actually a very ordinary person.

CZ: Yes, I am indeed an ordinary person, many people say that.

Chamath: This actually holds value because when you are doing what you love, time naturally passes. You keep learning, keep trying, and when you look up, there are new problems, new directions. Can you say a few words to those who are thinking, "maybe that could be me"?

CZ: Of course. First, I am just an ordinary person. I don't consider myself particularly smart, but success does not require innate talent. Of course, you can't be too bad, but you also don't need to be extremely intelligent. What's more important are principles, values, emotional management, and so on.

Furthermore, luck is also crucial. For most people, many external circumstances are not immediately changeable by you; what you can often do is change yourself. If you push yourself a little every day, you don't need to exert excessive force. Pushing too hard will lead to fatigue and burnout, and you won't get far. A better rhythm is a long-term sustainable effort slightly above your comfort zone, such as an intensity of involvement from 110% to 130%, as long as you can sustain it. If you can stick with it for 30 years, with a bit of luck added, you will most likely live well, maybe not become a billionaire, but usually have a pretty decent life.

Chamath: Do you think it's necessary to debunk a myth that becoming a billionaire is not as people imagine?

CZ: Yes, it is very necessary. Money is just one axis on the spider web of life. Once you reach a certain level, more money will not make you happier. There are many other dimensions that truly affect happiness: health, family, values, sense of contribution, positive impact—these intrinsic rewards are often more important.

When you have enough money, the marginal gain from more money is very low. But how about your health? Are your family members well? Can you freely control your time? Are you investing time in what you really want to do? Are you living with the people you want to be with? These are more critical. If your family is healthy, that is already a huge gift.

Mental health is equally important: how to deal with stress, how to stay stable. I am also very lucky to have a relatively stable mentality. Instead of being obsessed with money, it's better to continue improving yourself in these dimensions. Many people only pursue money but sacrifice everything else: work themselves to the bone, lose free time, neglect their families, and see a significant decline in health after ten or twenty years. It's even more ironic that they do not enjoy the pursuit; they exhaust their lives for something they "don't need that much after getting it.".

Chamath: They are not even happy during the process of chasing their goal, just mechanically going through the motions.

CZ: So I am actually very grateful to no longer need to manage Binance; I finally have more time. In the past, I certainly enjoyed entrepreneurship and management, but in other aspects of life, I did not do well. Now I can reallocate my energy.

Chamath: CZ, thank you for coming on the "All-In" podcast.

CZ: Thank you for the invitation, happy to participate.

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