Speaking with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua on Tuesday, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance, talked about crypto ETFs, legislation, and the future of the company’s leadership.
Zhao stated, “it’s hard to tell” whether regulations will be fair and more restrictive when asked about Binance being seen more positively in the U.S. and what he needs to do to get regulators on side.
In response to how much of his time he spends thinking about regulation or how to change Binance, so the firm’s seen more positively by regulators, CZ confirmed:
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“Most of my time doing that probably I would say 80% or more, one of the few top-down driven initiatives with Binance pivoting from tech innovators to a financial services company, so we need to be fully compliant.”
Zhao added:
“I believe all the regulators around the world view crypto as financial instruments, it is valuable, it is money, it represents financial instruments one way or another, we need to pivot from one area to another, and these pivots take time.”
Binance’s pivot priority list
It is worth mentioning that, in order to make sure Binance is on-time transitioning from a tech innovator to a financial service company Zhao listed his priority list:
“Off the top of my head, number 1, we need to hire more people, especially with regulatory compliance experience and senior people, to increase the size of legal compliance teams.”
Secondly, according to the Chinese-Canadian businessman, Binance’s decentralized organizational structure causes many problems as people think they are “dodgy” without a headquarters. The exchange therefore wants to establish a headquarters, a proper structure, governance, and office.
Thirdly he wants “to make sure all products are fully compliant,” meaning that some products are not allowed in certain countries, such as futures derivatives products which is why they have been limiting them in Europe and Asia.
Lastly, Zhao added:
“Apply for licenses and requests for regular meetings where they proactively inform regulators on the new things that they do<..> this is what I spend all my time doing; I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of the exchange; I am just thinking how to execute it.”
Binance to change its tact
Due to increased regulatory scrutiny, Binance has decided to modify its strategy and set up licensed regional headquarters worldwide. Although the change has not been smooth recently, Brian Brooks, the once CEO of Binance US, resigned from his position after a three-month tenure.
Brooks announced his resignation on his Twitter account, stating that strategic disagreements with the exchange caused him to depart.
Watch the full interview:
[coinbase]
