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: I was deprived of my freedom and had nothing to do, but it also gave me a lot of time to reflect. I learned a lot of important lessons, like, what do you miss the most when everything is taken away? For me, the most important thing is actually human connection. 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 those things don't affect me much. This experience has helped me realign my priorities in life.
Austin: Do you think this is a fair judgment?
CZ: This is a very subjective question, and different people will have different views. At that time, there was a plea agreement, and I agreed to some terms in the agreement, and I will not make negative comments about it. I accept this outcome.
As for my sentence, I was sentenced to four months in prison. The judge's job is difficult, and different positions will have different views. Some people might think it's too light, while others might think it's too harsh. For the crime I committed, which is violating the Bank Secrecy Act, no one in US history has ever been sentenced for a single violation, I am 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 has become less important to me; the judge said many good things about me in court. Although I was sentenced, my sentence is indeed short compared to others. Most people who go to prison are sentenced to five, ten, or even longer terms. So from this perspective, I consider myself lucky, and I am looking forward to the end of my sentence.
Austin: Did you make friends while you were inside?
CZ: Yes, you have to make friends. If you are isolated, it will be hard to survive. Several guards did recognize me and asked what coins I should buy. I could only say that I had no internet and no information about cryptocurrency while I was there.
I made a few friends, and I still keep in touch. To be honest, there are many good people in prison. Many of them received long sentences for very minor offenses. Most of my peers I met were friendly. Although some guards were a bit indifferent, I did not suffer any physical harm. From this perspective, I consider myself lucky.
Before going to prison, the prison counselors (this is an industry) gave me a lot of advice. They warned me not to keep too much money in my account, only up to fifty dollars. When I went in, I found that others had two hundred dollars in their accounts, which made me look like a 'poor person'. Overall, I did not encounter any problems, and I made some friends. Now I am doing my best to help them reduce their sentences through legal channels.
Additionally, there was a friend in prison named Michael, who was sentenced to 27 years for holding marijuana 40 years ago, and now marijuana is legal. He obtained a university degree in prison and read six books. There are indeed some very outstanding people there, but it is difficult to achieve these in such harsh environments.
Every time I could use the computer for 15 minutes, and after 15 minutes, I would be automatically kicked off, and the computer couldn’t copy and paste, only manual input. So in that situation, if you wanted to adjust a paragraph's position, you could only rewrite it. In Michael's time, there wasn't even a computer. So, although conditions were harsh, many people still worked hard to study, read books, and obtain degrees. There are many excellent people there.
Austin: What is your current relationship with Binance?
CZ: I have resigned as CEO and no longer participate in the daily operations of the company. My shareholder rights have not been affected, so to this day, I am still a major shareholder of Binance. I can still request some information, but I cannot make decisions or give orders. Overall, the relationship is still good. Now there is a group of others working hard while I am 'forced into retirement'. The first month was a bit difficult. It was emotionally hard to let go because I put a lot of effort into this company over seven years.
But I have always believed that a CEO's term should not exceed ten years because the world is constantly changing. Now with AI, I did not spend much time learning about it before, nor did I have time to delve into details like DeFi. So looking back now, being forced to resign has many benefits. If I had resigned voluntarily, people might think I couldn't hold on, but now that I was forced, no one complains.
Moreover, now I have more time, and I feel very lucky. Although my reputation has changed, I still value my past achievements, which show that there was no fraud and no user lost funds. So to some extent, I believe my reputation is still solid. Additionally, I'm not young, but I'm not old either; I still have the energy to do more things. I feel very lucky to have the freedom and resources to do what I want to do now.
Austin: I heard you are banned for life from managing any cryptocurrency exchange. Is that true? Will you continue to invest in crypto projects?
CZ: Of course, first of all, according to my understanding, the words 'life' and 'ban' did not appear in the agreement between the government and me. The agreement is that I resign as CEO, with no time limit. However, the agreement can be updated, and the government will change. But I have no plans to return to the CEO position. I believe the team is doing well without me, and even if there were an opportunity, I wouldn't want to go back. I think the claim of a 'lifetime ban' is just media exaggeration; the actual agreement is public.
As for the second question, I will certainly continue to invest in crypto projects. Right now, I mainly do two things: one is Google Academy, and the other is investing. My investments are mainly focused on three areas: blockchain, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. I no longer want to personally lead projects; instead, I want to help other entrepreneurs grow their companies by providing them with funding, advice, resources, and other support. I have some very important mentors, and I hope to be a mentor to others as well.
Austin: Regarding the prospects of cryptocurrency in 2025, do you still feel optimistic about the coming year?
CZ: I will try not to give any financial advice, but history is not the future. I cannot 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, in fact, 2012 was a recovery year that many people won't look back so far. 2016 was a recovery year, and 2017 was a surge. 2020 was a recovery year, and 2021 was a bull market. This year has returned to previous highs.
So according to existing analysis, 2024 is a recovery year. I don't know what will happen next year, but in the long run, I remain very optimistic about the entire industry. I believe there is a lot to build, and as more people use cryptocurrency, its practical value will increase. I remain very optimistic in the long run.
Austin: What aspects of cryptocurrency do you find most promising? DeFi or meme coins?
CZ: I don't intend to focus on a specific area because predicting which will become the next hot spot is very difficult. For instance, at the beginning of 2017, I might not have predicted that ICOs would become a hot topic, but by June, the trend was very clear. So it depends on which projects explode in certain niche areas. This morning, I met with some entrepreneurs who are combining AI with blockchain and coming up with some very interesting ideas. If one of those projects explodes, then that field will expand. 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 cryptocurrency regulation?
CZ: Legislation is gradually improving. In some countries, such as the US, progress is very fast. In some major countries, due to many departments and personnel, progress is slower. But overall, the trend is positive. For example, in mid-April of this year, Elizabeth Warren announced a crackdown on cryptocurrencies, just a week before I was sentenced. Then by June, Trump publicly supported cryptocurrencies, and by the end of June, both parties supported cryptocurrencies while I was still in prison. This also shows that when people need cryptocurrencies, the government will respond. So I believe the overall direction is positive.
Austin: I live in the US, and from my perspective, cryptocurrency has already become an important election issue. Who do you think is more friendly to cryptocurrency, Harris or Trump?
CZ: Oh, I have no idea. I won't comment on any election-related topics because I already know enough about US laws. I know that there are election intervention laws in the US, and anything I say publicly could be taken out of context, so I won't touch this topic or even approach that 'line'. I just want to keep my distance. I think both parties support cryptocurrency, and that's enough.
Austin: Well, from the perspective of the US, what policy or legislation do you think is the most important?
CZ: I think the most fundamental point is the classification of cryptocurrencies. There is a lot of controversy now; for example, in most other countries, they regard cryptocurrencies as currency. Japan has recognized Bitcoin as a kind of currency, and many other countries also view Bitcoin as cryptocurrency. Of course, there are different types of cryptocurrencies depending on the specific coin. But in the US, this is indeed a major point of contention, and I don't want to comment too much.
Austin: Assuming a year from now, we meet on the stage of the 2025 Binance Blockchain Week, not necessarily about prices, but where do you think Bitcoin or cryptocurrency will be?
CZ: It is indeed very difficult to predict a year ahead, but I think history may repeat itself, and our future will be in a relatively good position.
Austin: I really like this prediction. CZ, what are your plans next?
CZ: I am currently investing at least half my time into the Giggle Academy project. I think this project is very interesting and impactful, although it won't be a highly profitable project.
Austin: Can you explain what Giggle Academy is to someone unfamiliar?
CZ: It is a digital education platform specifically serving those who have no opportunity for education. Currently, there are about 700 to 800 million illiterate adults worldwide, two-thirds of whom are women. Additionally, according to various reports, there are about 300 to 500 million children who have no opportunity to attend school. In other words, there are about 1.2 to 1.3 billion people globally without access to education, mainly concentrated in very impoverished areas.
Many educational applications and projects are carried out in areas rich in educational resources and are more of a supplement to the existing education system. I believe we now have sufficient technical capabilities, combining game developers, graphic designers, teachers, and AI, to create applications or tools that provide services to those in need of education without relying on teachers.
In those places, teacher costs are high, and there is a shortage of teachers. It takes a long time to send teachers there. But now we can provide education in a very interactive way digitally, mainly on the Android platform, because Android devices are relatively cheap in those areas.
If I can help 100 million people gain education, I think that would be a very meaningful thing for me. I don't care about economic returns, nor do I think a lot of money is needed.
Today, out of the 8 billion people in the world, about 1 billion are in school every day, with an average class size of 30 to 50 people, and there are about 20 million teachers globally. But think about how many different ways there are to teach first-grade English? We repeat similar teaching processes millions of times every day. If we could turn this content into applications, combined with AI support to answer questions interactively, although the initial investment might be high, requiring millions of dollars, once the AI engine is complete, the future cost for each course could be around a million dollars. With 12 grades, 12 courses, and 30 subjects, the total would be about $300 million. Even with a lot of buffers, it would only be $1 billion. I believe we can create content that meets all current educational needs and covers 500 languages.
The US government spends $100 billion on education every year, and we only need less than 2% of that funding to provide education for children without educational opportunities, and we could even do it better than traditional face-to-face teaching. In a class of 30, the pace of teaching is limited by the slowest student; with a platform, we can dynamically adjust the curriculum to allow students to progress quickly based on their strengths. After accumulating a large amount of data, we can also help students find jobs quickly. For example, an 8-year-old child can do annotation work, which is also a good source of income.
My nephew has been managing a flight simulation community with 14,000 gamers since he was 12. A 16-year-old can do customer support work, such as answering frequently asked questions. A 15 or 16-year-old can become a game tester or programmer. So I want to get children into the workforce earlier, not just to obtain a college or high school diploma.
We can help employers find suitable talents. For example, this child excels in math, ranking in the top 10%, and has completed many projects; other children are emotionally intelligent and voluntarily tutor younger children through the platform, etc. In this way, we can help children find jobs early, thereby helping their families, siblings, and other family members gain more educational opportunities.
Of course, electronic digital education lacks interpersonal interaction, but it also has its advantages. My vision is to have older children guide and interact with younger children to make up for the lack of interpersonal interaction. For example, physical education is hard to teach online, but the platform can organize 15-year-olds to lead 7-year-olds in activities, and the 15-year-olds can earn points or credits from this. When employers come to recruit, such children will naturally be favored.
We can design many different interactive ways on the platform, but the most pressing issue right now is to enable AI to consistently generate coherent video content. This task seems simple but is a challenge for AI. Currently, teachers can quickly create content, such as PPTs, but this content is usually designed for self-study by teachers.
However, in an environment without teachers, we need platforms or applications to convey this content themselves. In this case, to capture children's attention, we need very interactive videos, animations, and cute elements, which are usually not provided by teachers, and this is where AI can play a role. Currently, 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.
Austin: In the future, will certain parts of Giggle Academy integrate with Web3 or blockchain? I think everyone here wants to know if there will be airdrop events to participate in?
CZ: Not in the short term. I don't want to get involved in issuing new tokens or anything like that anymore. So we might support existing tokens, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, etc.
We will build a reward mechanism to ensure the system runs well, but we may not need to issue our own tokens. For example, if I want to hire customer support or community forum administrators, I could sponsor some BNB to pay these kids, etc.
Additionally, today I found another interesting thing: AI companies actually pay a lot of money to obtain human-generated data on the platform. If we let children and parents agree to provide their data to AI companies for training, then the data generated by these children while learning pronunciation, math, etc., can be used to train AI, and parents may receive rewards ranging from $10 to $100.
For our target users, this is a considerable amount. This way, we can achieve a direct payment method of 'earning while learning' without needing to use tokens. AI companies will become sponsors of the platform, so we don't necessarily need to issue tokens to achieve 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 starts from when children learn to speak and accompanies them until employment. Even when they are 70 or 80, they can continue to learn. By then, when they find jobs, we can suggest (not force) that they 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 believe we can build a sustainable platform in the long term. However, this is a long-term plan that may take around ten years. But that's okay; I have time.
Follow me! Get more cryptocurrency news!
