CZ frankly admitted that he deliberately avoided the United States in the past few years, but observed that in the past year and a half, the U.S. cryptocurrency policy has undergone a 180-degree turn, and it currently leads the world in terms of legislative clarity and talent return.

Translated by: Wu Says Blockchain

This article is from a fireside chat by CZ, the founder of Binance, at the Consensus Miami 2026 conference. CZ frankly admitted that he deliberately avoided the United States in the past few years, but observed that in the past year and a half, the U.S. cryptocurrency policy has undergone a 180-degree turn, and it currently leads the world in terms of legislative clarity (such as the CLARITY Act) and talent return. He pointed out that while the U.S. has top talent and financial markets, it still lacks optimal cryptocurrency liquidity globally, and the BNB ecosystem will be committed to filling this gap and promoting Binance Exchange and the BNB Layer 2 (opBNB) layout in the U.S. market.

Regarding technological outlook, CZ believes that cryptocurrency will become the inevitable choice for AI agents. Because AI has attributes of cross-border and high-frequency trading, traditional credit card networks (such as those without API support) will not meet its micropayment needs; blockchain will become the financial infrastructure of the AI era. He emphasized that the goal of BNB Chain is to become the “currency of agents” and to push exchanges towards becoming “AI Ready.”

When talking about his personal status, CZ stated that he has entered a new stage in life and no longer plans to operate a new startup. He allocates his energy in four core areas: investing in and mentoring founders through YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), supporting the BNB Chain ecosystem, engaging in the Giggle Academy project, which provides free education, and offering cryptocurrency regulatory consulting for governments in over a dozen countries, including the UAE and Thailand.

Guest speeches do not represent Wu Says' views and do not constitute any investment advice; please strictly adhere to local laws and regulations. Audio transcription and translation were completed by GPT and may contain errors.

Cryptocurrency Policy Assessment: U.S. Regulatory Shift Leads Globally

Michael Lau: You haven’t spent much time in the U.S. recently. This is your first significant public communication with us in a while. What does it mean for you to be here?

CZ: I want to be very candid and say that I have been trying to avoid the United States for the past few years. So I've been trying to stay low-profile, out of sight, out of mind. But I think it's obvious that U.S. policy on cryptocurrency has changed in the past year and a half. Now we must make up for the previous absence.

Therefore, I think we previously lacked contact with the U.S. community, lacked communication with U.S. developers, regulatory agencies, policymakers, etc. There are also quite a lot of misunderstandings about me, BNB Chain, and our ecosystem. So I am here to spend more time communicating with more community members and hope to address these issues.

Michael Lau: You have traveled the world speaking with influential people in policy and regulation. I wonder if you could provide us with an assessment of what is happening in the U.S. How does it compare to what’s happening elsewhere in the world? Share your views on the current situation.

CZ: I believe the United States has a very powerful document, which is the U.S. Constitution. So the U.S. can make a 180-degree turn on certain policies, self-correct and do so very quickly. The U.S. has fundamental advantages with talent reserves, financial markets, and traditional regulatory frameworks, and the current authorities are very forward-looking. So things can change quickly.

I believe the U.S. is currently in a leading position globally regarding cryptocurrency policy. Most other countries do not have such rapid progress, nor do they have the confidence to swiftly implement cryptocurrency regulatory policies. Clarity in regulation is being discussed in various new bills. While there are still some minor issues, the U.S. is moving forward very rapidly.

Many U.S. crypto practitioners are now returning. Previously many left the U.S., going to Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Singapore; many developers left and did not plan to return. But now we are seeing developers flowing back. What the U.S. currently slightly lacks is optimal liquidity. The best liquidity in the crypto space is outside the U.S. So, the crypto market is one of the few markets where the U.S. cannot obtain the best prices. I hope we can help solve this problem.

I believe in our ecosystem, Binance has the best liquidity in this market. We are very much hoping to provide this liquidity in some way. Whether it’s bringing Binance back, revitalizing Binance US, or in some other way, we want to provide the best liquidity and prices for U.S. consumers.

Re-evaluation of BNB Ecosystem: Filling the Liquidity Gap and Unlocking Institutional Capital Potential

Michael Lau: Speaking of liquidity, I’d also like to touch on BNB. Are you considering liquidity in DeFi as well?

CZ: Over the past few years, BNB Chain has also tried to distance itself from the U.S. market, so their business layout here has not been sufficient. I think they have made some changes since last year. They now have a developer house in New York, and I believe they have some business layout in San Francisco as well. They are also hosting more and more events here.

YZi Labs is now also making more investments in the U.S., while in the past few years, we tried to avoid doing so. So now all activities are getting back on track. I think BNB Chain hasn't gained much exposure in the U.S. I feel that other Layer 1 blockchains have done more in marketing, community building, and establishing developer houses in the U.S. I think this will change, and is already starting to change. I hope to see more of such initiatives.

Additionally, regarding the BNB token, U.S. institutions could only access BNB until recently. Therefore, the BNB ETF isn’t as widespread or advanced as those of other tokens. BNB is somewhat lagging in this regard. However, the lack of channels for institutions to access BNB is actually an opportunity for BNB investors. When institutional funds enter, it is generally favorable for the token. Therefore, there is still a lot of room for growth in the U.S. market.

Michael Lau: Let's talk about BNB a bit more. As you mentioned earlier, genuine promotion or education in the U.S. has not been the focus in recent years. There are many people developing on-chain here. If I asked you to do a pitch, considering that recent information and knowledge may not have been well communicated to the U.S., why should they consider developing on the BNB Chain?

CZ: BNB Chain is actually a very large, comprehensive, and complete ecosystem. It is the most active blockchain network. It actually comprises three blockchains: BNB Smart Chain, opBNB as a Layer 2, and a decentralized storage blockchain called Greenfield. Most importantly, there are many different ecosystem participants within BNB Chain.

There are some of the most active decentralized exchanges like PancakeSwap, and there is a perpetual contract decentralized exchange called Aster, which is currently the second-ranked in trading volume. Although it is still slightly smaller than Hyperliquid, it is second and growing rapidly. Additionally, there are lending protocols like Lista and Venus. These are very popular in places like Asia and Africa, but they are not very well known in the U.S. I think the U.S. community hasn't yet ventured into these areas.

Then within the same ecosystem, you also have Binance Exchange, Trust Wallet, and CoinMarketCap. So this is a quite complete and very active ecosystem that is just not widely used in the U.S., which effectively excludes U.S. consumers. Thus, we want to address this issue.

Industry Trend Judgment: AI Agents Will Reshape Payment and Transaction Models with Cryptocurrency

Michael Lau: Is the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) undervalued or overvalued?

CZ: Actually, I think it is undervalued now. A year ago, I felt it was overvalued, but my view has changed. I believe it is real, RWA is a tangible thing.

Michael Lau: What about institutional adoption of cryptocurrency?

CZ: It has just begun. We are just starting to see a trend.

Michael Lau: What about our industry's obsession with various conferences?

CZ: I think it’s quite good. I mean, for us, attending too many conferences feels very repetitive. But I think the crowd is slightly different every time, and the geographical location is different, which is important. It’s also a great way for builders to meet briefly because everyone gathers at the same time, and you can arrange many quick meetings. Otherwise, if you were to arrange meetings separately, you’d have to hunt them down and each time take several hours. So this is a great way for people to connect. I think conferences are quite good, and the Consensus conference has done an excellent job over the years.

Michael Lau: I believe you commented earlier this year in Davos that the native currency for AI agents will be cryptocurrency. You also believe that payments made by agents will be millions of times more than those made by humans. Can you elaborate on why you think this is an inevitable future and why it will be cryptocurrency instead of, say, more traditional payment channels?

CZ: Let's take a brief look back. In my adult life, there are really three foundational technologies: the Internet, blockchain, and AI. All three of these technologies are borderless and global, right? So you can send information to anyone anywhere in the world. You can do that at 3 a.m. this morning. But at 3 a.m. on the weekend, you can't remit money. Money is subject to national restrictions. But now we have the technology to make money borderless. It should be a highly aggregated, low-cost, instant operating global market, generally permissionless.

AI is also a borderless technology. Similarly, AI is more centralized than cryptocurrency. So there are only a few AI companies, and they will become embroiled in geopolitics for reasons like national security. I am a technologist, so I don't deal with those things. But fundamentally, your agent can interact with an agent in another part of the world.

For example, if your agent interacts with someone in Pakistan, that person might be a programmer, a designer, someone working for you, or vice versa, and you need to transact, so the transaction can occur between your agent and his agent.

Or a person coming from Singapore wants to go to Miami for a conference; their agent can talk to Expedia’s agent to book flights and hotels. The agent will take the time to find options for you. For example, hotels here are expensive and fully booked. Which ones are within budget, which have vacancies, all this should be accomplished by the agent.

Then when the person in Singapore wants to make a payment, a credit card works, but the agent doesn't know how to swipe your credit card. Credit cards don’t have APIs, so the most native thing for agents to use is obviously blockchain. If Expedia has actually accepted cryptocurrency for a while, I don’t know if they still do. If they accepted your cryptocurrency, then direct transfers by the agent would be very simple and fast. This is the most natural technology. This is just how we would use it at a very basic level.

I believe there will be a tremendous demand for agent payments in the future. And agents will make more micropayments. It’s like, I don’t want to spend $200 to subscribe to a newspaper, but sometimes I’m willing to spend $1 to read an article. Then I would want my agent to make the payment for me. For that $1, I don’t want to input my credit card information and all that stuff. The agent would make transactions at a very high frequency.

Today if you open the Binance app, you will see a bunch of charts and numbers, and then you have to select a chart, zoom in, find the price, input the price on your phone, enter the amount, and click the red or green button. This is very counterintuitive. What you should be doing is opening your phone and saying, “Show me my portfolio. What happened in the past 24 hours? What changes are there in my portfolio? Is the Clarity Act passed? Is the war over?”

Then say, “Okay, I want to swap 10% of my stablecoins for BNB.” If you have a large position, this should be done in the background by the agent. The technology that makes it work today already exists, it’s just that no one has built it yet. So, interactions between agents and you are a more natural way of human interaction. If you think about it, I believe all the quant firms have already been using AI to some extent for training, data analysis, etc. In the future, it should be agents doing the trading. All exchanges need to be agent-ready.

I believe that AI is a foundational technology that can change many different parts of our world, but AI still needs money. Therefore, blockchain will not disappear. AI will not make us suddenly not need money just because we have agents. Money is a basic concept of the economy that drives everything. So blockchain will not disappear. I see many blockchain developers moving to work on AI.

You can go compute AI. But if you look at Nvidia, graphics cards have not been a big thing for years; CPUs were. So they took 40 years to get to today. Now AI is here, and they became the most valuable company in the world. So I believe that for blockchain developers, money is not going away. For me, YZi Labs allocates 70% of our funding to blockchain, then 20% to AI, and maybe 10% to biotech.

Industry Layout and Personal Plan: BNB Chain Aims to Become the Currency of Agents, CZ Focuses on Education and Founder Mentorship

Michael Lau: Regarding the future of the agent business you described, how will the BNB ecosystem respond? Is this the direction they are currently investing resources in? What form will it take?

CZ: I think this is just the beginning of AI. All blockchains need to be ready for AI. You need to support agent payments, you need to have open capabilities or skills like Claude that support everything related to AI. This field is very new and will continue to evolve. For example, those AI capabilities that can manipulate computers just emerged about two months ago, and they have already been replicated by top players.

This is the first time agents are not just chatting with you, but actually executing operations on your computer, genuinely doing things for you. I believe this will evolve very quickly. We are still far from the final form. If the entire process is a 24-hour journey, we have only passed about a millionth of a second. So we will see more innovations; now is the time to build the infrastructure for AI. Many people are building large language models and other related technologies, which is great. For us, I believe the goal of BNB Chain is simple; it should become the currency of agents.

Michael Lau: Who is today’s CZ? What is your vision? What are your goals? How should we view you now, and how will your new chapter unfold?

CZ: I think people come into this world hoping to make a positive contribution. If you have the ability, you should go do it. When we leave, we can look back and say, “Look, we made some positive contributions.” You must first take care of yourself before making positive contributions. If your ability is limited, make small contributions; if you are very capable, make bigger positive contributions. This is my mindset.

I believe any animal is genetically selected this way. If any animal does not want to help its kind, the competitiveness of that species will decline and eventually be eliminated through evolution. So now that we still exist and are the dominant species on this planet, our genes determine that we want to help others. When we do this, we feel very happy; it’s an intrinsic reward.

When I started Binance, our goal was actually to become a top ten exchange in three years, but we became number one in five months. We wondered what happened. We didn’t plan to achieve that; we just wanted to provide the best products, the best servers, the best security, and the best user experience. We didn’t know it would happen so quickly. Once we reached that position, of course, we have maintained our lead over the past nearly nine years.

For me, this has never been my original intention. I never said I wanted to be the best or wanted to climb the Forbes Rich List; in fact, I would prefer to drop off that list. So my goal is really just to make an effort to contribute. As long as you can tell yourself you’ve done your best, that’s enough. For me, I don’t care much about fame, power, or even money. People need enough money, but I already have enough. Money beyond that threshold doesn’t help me much. So my goal is, when I am old and look back, I can say, “Look, I made an effort.” That’s my attitude. With this mindset, I just want to continue to work hard to make positive contributions.

I feel like I don’t have the energy to run a new startup or lead another company anymore. I’m a bit like someone who has mastered only one skill; I have accepted this status and consider it a graceful exit. So I want to help other founders, help other entrepreneurs build. We invest in them, and if they are willing, I can mentor and guide them. If they are in the cryptocurrency space, I can give them advice on token economics, pitfalls to avoid, how the industry works, and what to expect when launching tokens or projects.

I can also offer advice to ordinary entrepreneurs and provide guidance on how to build products, how to form teams, etc. I always tell them that my approach is not the best method, but it is one of the paths that people can refer to and consider. I want to help other founders succeed, which is my indirect contribution to the world.

I allocate my time to four different areas: helping founders at YZi Labs, aiding ecosystem builders at BNB Chain, I also spend some time on Giggle Academy, which is a very interesting project. Giggle Academy today is providing free education to 260,000 children, and this project has only been established for a year and a half. Every time I have a call with them, I feel very happy. When you commit to something truly meaningful, that’s the intrinsic reward you get.

Lastly, the fourth thing I do is provide crypto regulatory policy consulting for governments in different countries. Only a handful of governments, about a dozen, need my advice, and I am very willing to提供它。例如阿联酋、巴基斯坦、泰国以及许多非洲国家等。

所以这就是我分配时间的方式。我现在放松多了，工作不再像运营币安时那么拼命。运营币安时我每天大概工作 20 个小时，不停地开 30 到 40 个会议。现在我每天工作大概 10 个小时，开一些简短的会议，轻松多了。现在的生活挺不错的。