Compilation | BlockBeats
This article is the first public statement by Binance founder Zhao Changpeng after he was released from prison in the United States on October 31. He returned to Dubai and had a dialogue at Binance Block Week.
Austin: I’m Austin from Altcoin Daily, CZ, this is your first interview since you got out, how was your experience in prison, it must have been not great?
CZ: It was definitely not as fun as it is now. The whole experience was very restrictive, I was deprived of my freedom and there was nothing to do, but it also gave me a lot of time to reflect. I learned a lot of important lessons, such as, when everything is taken away from you, what do you miss the most? For me, the most important thing is actually the connection between people. I miss my children, my family, my friends, my colleagues, and my community. I miss other things, but not nearly as much as I miss people. You miss food, a comfortable bed, but these things don't affect me much. This experience has helped me refocus my priorities in life.
Austin: Do you think this is a fair verdict?
CZ: This is a very subjective question, and different people will have different views. There is a plea agreement here, and I agreed to some of the terms of the agreement, and I don't intend to make negative comments about it. I accept this result.
As for the sentence, I got four months in prison. Judges have a difficult job, and different perspectives will have different views. Some people will think it's too light, and some people will think it's too heavy. For the crime I committed — which was violating the Bank Secrecy Act — there had never been a single violation in the history of the United States that had been sentenced for that one violation, and I was the first.
Just a few weeks ago, a bank was fined $1.8 billion for similar issues, but no one was prosecuted. Whether it is fair or not is not so important to me anymore, and the judge also said a lot of good things about me in court. Although I was sentenced, my sentence was indeed very short compared to others. Most people in prison are sentenced to five years, ten years or even longer. So from this perspective, I am lucky, the judgment is over, and I am looking forward to it.
Austin: Did you make any friends in there?
CZ: Yes, you have to make friends. It would be hard to survive if you are alone. A few guards did recognize me and asked me what coins I should buy. I can only say that I have no internet access and no information about cryptocurrencies.
I made several friends and we still keep in touch. To be honest, there are a lot of good people in prison, many of whom were sentenced to long sentences for very small things. Most of the people I met were very friendly. Although some of the prison guards were a little indifferent, I did not suffer any physical harm. From this perspective, I am very lucky.
Before I went to prison, I received a lot of advice from prison counselors (this is an industry). They warned me not to put too much money in my account, only $50. But when I went in, I found that other people had $200 in their accounts, which made me look like a "poor person". Overall, I didn't encounter any problems, and I made some friends. Now I am trying to help them reduce their sentences through legal means.
In addition, there is a friend in prison named Michael. He was imprisoned for 27 years for a marijuana possession case 40 years ago, and marijuana is now legal. He also obtained a college degree and read six books while in prison. There are indeed some excellent talents there, but it is difficult to achieve these in such a difficult environment. Every time I can use the computer for 15 minutes, I will be automatically kicked offline after 15 minutes, and the computer cannot be pasted, only manual input. So in that case, if you write a paragraph and want to adjust the position, you can only rewrite it. In Michael's time, there were not even computers. Therefore, although the conditions are difficult, many people still work hard to study, read, and get degrees. There are many good people there.
Austin: What is your current relationship with Binance?
CZ: I have stepped down as CEO and am no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. My shareholder rights have not been affected, so I am still a major shareholder of Binance to this day. I can still request some information, but I cannot make decisions or give instructions. Overall, the relationship is still pretty good. Now there is a group of other people working hard, and I have been "forced to retire." The first month was a bit difficult. It was emotionally difficult to let go because I put a lot of effort into this company for seven years.
But I have always believed that a CEO’s term of office should not exceed ten years, because the world is constantly changing. Now with AI, I didn’t spend too much time to understand it before, nor did I have time to delve into the details of DeFi. So now looking back, being forced to step down actually has many benefits. If I resigned on my own initiative, people might think I couldn’t hold on, but now I was forced, so no one complained.
Also, I have more time now, and I feel lucky. Even though my reputation has changed, I still value my past achievements, which shows that there is no fraud and no users have lost funds. So in some ways, my reputation is still solid. Also, I am not young, but I am not too old, and I still have the energy to do more. I am really lucky to have the freedom and resources to do what I want now.
Austin: I heard that you were banned from managing any cryptocurrency exchange for life. Is this true? Will you continue to invest in crypto projects?
CZ: Of course. First of all, according to my understanding, the words "lifetime" and "ban" do not appear in the agreement between me and the government. The agreement is that I step down as CEO, and there is no time limit. However, the agreement can be renewed and the government can change. But I have no plans to return to the position of CEO. I feel that the team is doing a good job and does not need me to return. Even if there is a chance, I don't want to go back. I think the term "lifetime ban" is just an exaggeration in the media. The actual agreement is public.
As for the second question, I will of course continue to invest in crypto projects. Now I mainly do two things: one is Giggle Academy, and the other is investment. The investment is mainly concentrated in three fields: blockchain, artificial intelligence and biotechnology. I don't want to lead the project myself anymore. I want to help other entrepreneurs develop their companies and provide them with funding, advice, resources and other support. I have some very important mentors, and I also hope to be a mentor to others.
Austin: Regarding the outlook for cryptocurrency in 2025, are you still bullish about the year ahead?
CZ: I will try not to give any financial advice, but history is not the future. I can't predict the future, but I can analyze history. Historically, Bitcoin has gone through very clear four-year cycles. 2013 was a bull market, 2017 was a bull market, and actually 2012 was a recovery year, and a lot of people don't go back that far. 2016 was a recovery year, and 2017 was a surge. 2020 was a recovery year, and 2021 was a bull market. This year is back to near the previous highs.
So based on the existing analysis, 2024 is the recovery year, and I don't know what will happen next year, but in the long run, I am still very bullish on the entire industry. I think there is still a lot to be built, and as more people use cryptocurrency, its utility value will increase. In the long run, I am still very optimistic.
Austin: What aspects of crypto are you most optimistic about? DeFi or meme coins?
CZ: I'm not going to get specific about a certain area, because it's very difficult to predict which one will be the next hot spot. For example, in early 2017, I might not have predicted that ICO would become a hot spot, but by June the trend was very obvious, so it depends on which projects explode in certain niche areas. I met with some entrepreneurs this morning who combined AI with blockchain and came up with some very interesting ideas. If one of these projects explodes, then this area will become bigger. It's hard to predict, but I will continue to support other builders in the industry and see what happens.
Austin: Regarding legislation, what do you think about the future direction of crypto regulation?
CZ: The legislation is improving gradually. In some countries, like here, it's progressing very quickly. In some large countries, because there are many departments and many people, it's progressing slower. But overall, the trend is positive. I'll give you an example. In mid-April this year, Elizabeth Warren announced that she was going to crack down on cryptocurrencies, just a week before I was sentenced. As a result, by June, Trump publicly supported cryptocurrencies, and by the end of June, both parties supported cryptocurrencies, and I was still in prison. So this also shows that when people need cryptocurrencies, the government will respond. So I think the overall direction is positive.
Austin: I live in the United States, and from my perspective, cryptocurrency has become an important election issue. Who do you think is more friendly to cryptocurrency, Harris or Trump?
CZ: Oh, I have absolutely no idea. I won't comment on any election topics because I've dealt with US law enough. I know there are election interference laws in the US, and anything I say in public could be taken out of context, so I'm not going to touch on this topic, or even get close to this "line", I just want to keep my distance. I think both parties support cryptocurrency, which is good enough.
Austin: Okay, so again from a U.S. perspective, what piece of policy or legislation do you think is the most important?
CZ: I think the most basic point is the classification of cryptocurrencies. There are many disputes now. For example, in most other countries, they regard cryptocurrencies as currencies. Japan has recognized Bitcoin as a currency, and many other countries also regard Bitcoin as cryptocurrency. Of course, there are different types of cryptocurrencies, depending on the specific currency. But in the United States, this is indeed a big point of debate, and I don't want to comment too much.
Austin: Let’s say a year from now, we meet on stage at Binance Blockchain Week 2025, not necessarily about price, but where do you think Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies will be?
CZ: It’s really hard to predict what will happen a year from now, but I think history will probably repeat itself and we will be in a relatively good position in the future.
Austin: I love that prediction, CZ, what are your plans next?
CZ: I’m currently spending at least half of my time on Giggle Academy, which I think is a very interesting and impactful project, although it won’t be a very profitable one.
Austin: Can you explain what Giggle Academy is for people who aren’t familiar?
CZ: It is a digital education platform that serves those who do not have access to education. There are about 700 million to 800 million illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds of whom are women. In addition, according to different reports, there are about 300 million to 500 million children who do not have the opportunity to go to school. In other words, there are about 1.2 billion to 1.3 billion people in the world who do not have access to education, mainly concentrated in very poor areas.
Many educational applications and projects are carried out in areas with rich educational resources, and are more of a supplement to the existing education system. I think we now have enough technical capabilities to combine game developers, graphic designers, teachers and AI to make applications or tools that provide services to people who need education without relying on teachers.
In those places, the cost of teachers is very high and there is a shortage of teachers. It takes a long time to send teachers there. But now we can provide education digitally through a very interactive application, mainly on the Android platform, because Android devices are cheaper in these areas.
If we can help 100 million people get an education, I think that would be something very meaningful to me, and I don't care whether there is a financial return or not, and I don't think it would require a lot of money.
Today, of the world's 8 billion people, about 1 billion are in school every day, with an average class size of 30 or 50 people, and about 20 million teachers worldwide. But think about it, how many different ways are there to teach first-grade English? We repeat similar teaching processes millions of times a day, and if we can make this content into an app, add AI support, and enable it to answer questions interactively. Although the initial investment may be high, requiring a few million dollars, once the AI engine is completed, the cost per course may be around a million dollars. 12 grades, 12 courses, 30 subjects, a total of about $300 million. Even with a lot of buffer, it's only $1 billion. I think we can create content that meets all educational needs today and covers 500 languages.
The US government spends $100 billion on education every year, and we only need less than 2% of the money to provide education to children who have no educational opportunities, and we can even do better than traditional face-to-face teaching. In a class of 30 people, the pace of teaching is limited by the slowest students; through a platform, we can dynamically adjust the course content so that students can quickly advance in their strengths. After accumulating a large amount of data, we can also help students find jobs quickly. For example, 8-year-old children can do annotation work, which is also a good source of income.
My nephew has been managing a flight sim community of 14,000 gamers since he was 12, and 16-year-olds can do customer support jobs, like answering FAQs, and 15- and 16-year-olds can be game testers or coders. So I want to get kids into the workforce earlier than just getting a college or high school diploma.
We can help employers find the right talent. For example, this kid is at the top of the class in math, in the top 10%, and has completed many projects; other kids have high emotional intelligence, volunteer to tutor younger kids through the platform, etc. In this way, we can help kids find jobs early, thereby helping their families, siblings, and other family members get more educational opportunities.
Of course, electronic digital education lacks interpersonal interaction, but it also has its advantages. My idea is to let older children coach and interact with younger children to make up for the lack of interpersonal interaction. For example, physical education classes are difficult to teach online, but the platform can organize 15-year-old children to lead 7-year-old children in activities, and the 15-year-old children can get points or credits for this. When employers come to recruit, such children will naturally be given priority.
We can design many different ways of interaction in the platform, but the most important problem we need to solve now is to enable AI to stably generate consistent video content. This task seems simple, but it is a difficult problem for AI. Currently, teachers can quickly produce content, such as PPT, but these contents are usually designed for teachers to teach themselves.
However, in an environment without a teacher, we need a platform or an app to deliver this content on its own. In this case, to attract children's attention, we need very interactive videos, animations, and cute elements, which teachers usually cannot provide, and this is where AI can come into play. Right now, no AI model can generate ideal content. I have discussed this with many top AI experts, and we are working hard to solve this problem. However, this problem should be solved in the next few months to years. Once we break through this problem, we can deliver content in a digital way, hoping to benefit hundreds of millions or even billions of children and people around the world and provide them with free education.
Austin: Will some part of Giggle Academy be integrated into Web3 or blockchain in the future? I think everyone here wants to know, will there be airdrops to participate in?
CZ: Not in the short term, I don’t want to be involved in issuing new tokens, etc. So we may support existing tokens, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, etc.
We will build in rewards so that the system works well, but we may not need to issue our own tokens. For example, if I want to hire customer support or community forum moderators, I can sponsor some BNB and use those funds to pay the kids, etc.
Also, another interesting thing I found out today is that AI companies actually pay a lot of money to get the data generated by people on the platform. If we get children and parents to agree to provide their data to AI companies for training, then the data generated by these children in the process of learning pronunciation, learning mathematics, etc. can be used to train AI, and parents may get paid anywhere from $10 to $100. For our target users, this is a considerable amount of money. In this way, we can achieve a direct payment method of "learning is getting" without using tokens. AI companies will become sponsors of the platform, so we don't necessarily need to issue tokens to implement this model.
Of course, in the long term, I hope to gradually integrate the economic model of Web3 into the platform. This is a platform that accompanies children from the time they learn to speak until they get a job. Even when they are 70 or 80 years old, they can still continue to learn. At that time, when they find a job, we can propose (but not force) them to consider donating a certain percentage of their income back to the platform in the next one to three years. Even if only a small number of people are willing to do this, I think we can build a sustainable platform in the long run. But this is a long-term plan, which may take about ten years. But it doesn't matter, I have plenty of time.
