Binance CEO reflects as exchange turns 6 — ‘It was never all smooth sailing’

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote that decentralized finance will continue to accelerate, and more people will interact with DeFi products.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote a letter addressing the exchange’s users, reflecting on past crypto winters and laying out key trends shaping up within the industry as the company celebrates its sixth anniversary.

Within the letter, Zhao highlighted some of the company’s challenges throughout its journey. The executive said that in January 2018, the firm saw new records for user registration. However, it was followed by a decline in the market. Despite this, the Binance executive noted that during this bear market, its team learned the importance of “prudent financial management.”

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In the company’s second crypto winter, the Binance CEO talked about the firm’s investments in the collapsed crypto project Terra and the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. Zhao wrote that the firm saw its initial $3 million investment in Terra Classic (LUNC) soar to $1.6 billion in value before crashing close to $0 in 2022. He added that the company exited fully on its investment in FTX at an early stage, more than a year before it crashed.

The incidents opened more regulatory scrutiny on the space, with Binance being grouped with FTX. Zhao wrote:

“Even then, a few regulators or news outlets tried really hard to group Binance and FTX together. To that, I will just say: We are different. Not every investment firm on Wall Street is Madoff.”

Despite the troubles it faced, the Binance CEO noted that it will continue to prioritize its users and protect their interests.

Besides reflecting on the exchange’s journey throughout the years, Zhao also laid out some trends currently taking shape within the space. According to the executive, traditional finance coming into the arena will ease institutional crypto adoption, decentralized finance (DeFi) will continue to accelerate, and more people will interact with its products, while regulated exchanges will continue to grow despite the uncertainties in the market at the moment.

“It is absolutely clear that the countries that get this right first will enjoy a huge advantage over countries that don’t, for centuries to come. We are at a pivotal moment in history,” Zhao wrote.

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