Above and Beyond for Users: Going the Extra Mile in Web3 Education
Main Takeaways
An important component of Binance’s user-focused culture is a strong focus on Web3 and blockchain education. We help users to be on top of essential crypto knowledge by developing educational materials and providing comprehensive resources to close knowledge and opportunity gaps.
Binance Academy helps millions of people globally to learn about the world of digital finance, providing an extensive collection of articles, online courses, learning programs, and in-person workshops.
Binance also promotes constant education for its users, regularly updating information on trading risks, new features, and providing in-depth industry analysis to ensure users are informed and secure.
At Binance, we have a unique user-obsessed culture, part of which is always striving to lead by example and set the industry standards on best serving users. This includes furthering financial innovation sustainably for our community and the broader ecosystem through education.
The Web3 and crypto space is growing rapidly, and it is imperative to do as much as we can to help close the knowledge and opportunity gaps for our current and future users. Widening industry knowledge also protects users by allowing them to make more informed decisions when interacting within the crypto ecosystem and be aware of attendant risks and threats, all the while increasing opportunities for growth.
From creating courses with universities all around the world to offering accessible online courses designed to enhance learners’ blockchain and Web3 skills to helping people earn crypto as they learn, we see user education as a fundamental part of sustainably building the future of the industry and onboarding the next billion people to Web3. After all, a robust understanding of blockchain and digital assets is a necessary prerequisite for people to take advantage of the many opportunities that digital finance offers safely and securely.
How We Think And What We Do About Web3 Education
It doesn’t matter whether you’re at the beginning of your crypto journey or a seasoned crypto investor: as the digital asset industry is constantly evolving, with new crypto products being launched every day and new opportunities and risks emerging, there is always something new to learn.
As Rachel Conlan, Binance’s chief marketing officer, explains: “At Binance, we’re doubling down on education. The technical aspects of the Web3 space can be daunting. Thus, we’re committed to providing resources and assistance to make Web3 knowledge more accessible, allowing more people to engage in this innovative realm.”
Here are some of Binance’s main education efforts, as well as our aspirations for the future of Web3 education.
Dedicated courses and learning materials
Binance Academy, which launched in 2018, is a learning hub specifically designed to help expand crypto and Web3 education, regardless of a user’s level of baseline knowledge, by offering a comprehensive set of free learning materials across many languages. The dedicated learning site has a mixture of educational articles and courses that range from beginner to intermediate.
Beginners can dive straight into the Complete Guide to Cryptocurrency Trading or test your existing knowledge by completing the short six introductory crash courses offered to all users for free. For those already familiar with the basics and wanting to dive a little deeper, Academy offers a selection of intermediate-level courses covering topics like blockchain, cryptocurrency, and DApps, with more to follow in 2024. To date, Binance Academy courses, which are completely free for everyone to access, have helped more than 200,000 people learn more about digital assets.
Alongside the courses, Binance Academy has also produced over 500 educational articles and glossary entries in English alone, covering everything from security to tokenomics and technical analysis. These articles have reached over 27 million people around the world who have been keen to learn more about blockchain, Web3, and crypto.
On top of this, Binance Academy has an ongoing program running blockchain-focused workshops at top educational institutions worldwide. To date, it has delivered introductory blockchain technology workshops to over 19,000 students at 200+ universities spanning 45+ countries.
Binance co-founder Yi He said: “The Web3 sector is maturing rapidly. That’s why we think it’s so important to equip people with the necessary knowledge – it’s a mission we take to heart at Binance. As the industry leader, we are committed to driving innovation not just through our technology, but also by making education accessible to all.”
While these numbers are impressive, we recognize that there is still more to do if we are going to help even more people understand the world of blockchain technology.
Creating accredited learning programs
Our ambition is to help as many people as possible better understand crypto and the technology that powers it, blockchain. Following the success of Binance Academy’s tour of Universities around the world, we have gone on to create a structured crypto learning program that forms part of a recognized curriculum.
In October 2023, Binance Academy and Blockchain Center, an independent non-profit organization focused on developing blockchain talent, announced a collaboration to formally integrate blockchain education into the curriculum of over 200 universities across more than 50 countries. The initiative plans to educate over one million students in blockchain engineering and compliance by 2026.
The program offers a 20-week Blockchain Engineering course covering distributed ledger technology, BNB Chain fundamentals, Web3, and Solidity development, and a 13-week Compliance program focusing on the intersection of blockchain and regulatory policy.
“In our rapidly developing world of digital finance, crypto education is the cornerstone of transformation. Crypto education is needed across all levels of society to achieve adoption and increase financial equity and freedom. I believe we will see more educational institutions integrate blockchain courses into their curricula, which will unlock the larger potential of this technology and boost industry growth," said Yi.
And for those who want to earn crypto while acquiring knowledge, Binance Academy also runs a learning series where people can educate themselves and earn crypto at the same time. In 2023 alone, $2 million worth of rewards were given away to those participating in Learn and Earn campaigns.
We hope that with programs like this, we can help educate the next generation of future users on technology that will no doubt be part of their future.
Encouraging ongoing learning
We see education as a fundamental part of the overall user experience, so we work hard to integrate education at every stage of users’ journey with us.
Whether it’s making sure that people thoroughly understand the risks of investing with dedicated and specific risk warnings or getting to grips with how to use one of our new features via a detailed product explainer video, we want to provide as much helpful information to our users as possible so that they have everything they need to make informed decisions, at their fingertips.
The Binance team regularly reviews and updates information on trading to help our users stay educated on the latest risks and developments in the industry. The same goes for when we launch a new product or feature on Binance. We want to make sure that users can dive in and learn about new functionalities, so we provide as much as possible on how best to use them. For example, when we recently launched trading bots on our platform, we created “how to” blog posts and a tutorial video to help people get to grips with this new tool.
Objective industry analysis from Binance Research
Gone are the days when only big institutions and sophisticated investors used high-quality research to navigate the digital asset space. Thanks to Binance Research, users now have access to the latest data and insights from the field of crypto intelligence. In 2023, Binance’s research arm dramatically stepped up its public outreach with 56 insights and analysis reports and 39 project reports released to the public, covering everything from monthly industry insights to the hottest topics such as the intersection between AI and crypto.
In the last year, there has been a huge uplift in people accessing the reports, with readership growing by 36% in the second half of 2023 compared to the first half, showing huge growth in appetite from users to proactively educate themselves on what’s happening in the industry. This increase becomes even more stark when we examine the in-depth ‘insights & analysis’ reports, where readership grew by 67% during the same period.
Sharing Knowledge to Empower
Thinking about our users first is built into how we operate, and that’s why we invest so heavily and think carefully about how best we can help educate, drive understanding and close knowledge gaps for our current and future users.
We also know that the crypto community in itself holds more valuable knowledge than any centralized organization ever will. Inspired by the decentralized spirit of our industry, we want to make sure that we facilitate information-sharing and education in the community where possible.
There are a number of ways that we do this, in person and online. In 2023, there was a wide range of online and in-person crypto community meetups set up by Binance around the world, attended by a whopping 7.5 million people. Members of our community come together to hear from Binance and top voices in the crypto industry, discuss the latest hot topics in crypto and share knowledge on what’s going on in the space.
As well as events, we also encourage our users to share what they know with each other via our social channels, with the latest campaign to encourage more experienced crypto users to share tips, tricks, and lessons to help crypto newbies launching this week on Binance’s social channels.
At Binance, our commitment to delivering the highest standard of service to our users is at the core of all we do. With a fundamental belief in the power of education, we strive to provide an environment where learning about the constantly evolving world of digital assets is enabled and encouraged. Regardless of how fast the crypto landscape changes as innovation unfolds, we are with you every step of the way, dedicated to empowering each of our users as we navigate this exciting journey together.
Further Reading
Above and Beyond for Users: Delivering Aid and Supporting Communities
Binance Academy and Blockchain Center to Educate Over a Million Students Globally by 2026
*includes online event viewing figures - for example, people tuning in to watch Binance events