Organization: Golden Finance; Source: ARK Invest Podcast "FYI"

In the latest episode of the ARK Invest podcast "FYI", Lorenzo Valente, director of digital asset research at ARK Invest, had a conversation with ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), reviewing in depth CZ's complete journey from his early growth experience in China to founding and building Binance. CZ shared how Binance achieved explosive expansion, the regulatory challenges it encountered along the way, and the overall evolution of the crypto industry over the past decade. The conversation also covered the admission of institutional funds, the development of stablecoins, and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in promoting industry innovation. At the same time, CZ also shared his forward-looking views on Bitcoin, the exchange industry structure, and the future direction of global finance.

In his opening remarks, CZ shared his growth trajectory. After being exposed to Bitcoin in 2013, he devoted himself to the encryption industry. In 2017, he took advantage of the ICO trend to found Binance. With its support for ERC-20 tokens, high-quality services and security, it became the world's largest encryption exchange by trading volume within five months and has been a long-term leader. During this period, Binance went through multiple rounds of encryption cycles. From 2022 to 2023, it was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice. CZ was personally imprisoned for four months, and Binance was fined US$4 billion. Now that the storm has passed, CZ has transformed into an investor and is still active in the encryption industry.

During the conversation, CZ talked about 2026 He said that the popularity of cryptocurrency for daily payment is far slower than expected. The strong supervision of the previous US government led to a lack of high-quality practical projects in the industry and the prevalence of meme currency speculation; but there are also many things that exceeded expectations, >The U.S. regulatory attitude has turned 180 degrees, institutions have entered the market at an accelerated pace, the scale of stablecoins has grown significantly, traditional assets such as gold and crude oil have been tokenized and actively traded on crypto exchanges, The integration of Wall Street and the crypto industry continues to deepen. Cathie Wood and CZ focused on the role of AI in promoting the encryption industry. CZ believes that AI agents will significantly increase the frequency of transactions and are more inclined to use cryptocurrency for cross-border transactions. At the same time, AI can accelerate the development of applications such as blockchain and wallets, and help the industry revitalize innovation. In addition, the two also analyzed the reasons why traditional finance embraces the encryption industry, believing that business interests driven and pressure to reduce costs and increase efficiency are the core factors.

Regarding the reason why Binance has been ranked first in the industry for a long time, CZ said that the core lies in always putting the safety of user assets first, insisting on global and decentralized layout to avoid regulatory risks, maintaining low-cost operations and a streamlined culture of startups, and at the same time establishing competitive barriers with long-term accumulated liquidity and trust. Regarding the future of crypto exchanges, CZ believes that the industry will move towards a "universal exchange", and platforms such as Binance and Coinbase will gradually cover all categories of cryptocurrencies, commodities, prediction markets, etc. Ordinary users will still rely on centralized exchanges, while experienced users may turn to decentralized exchanges after the self-hosted wallet experience is optimized, and the opening up of US regulations will promote the rapid growth of local exchanges.

The two also had an in-depth discussion on the stablecoin track, and CZ clarified that Binance and Tether There is no business relationship, just mutual support in the early stage; He believes that stablecoins should provide users with benefits, and more players will enter the game in the short term. Countries will also launch local currency stablecoins to compete for currency rights. However, non-US dollar stablecoins are difficult to rise quickly due to issuance costs, bank access and other restrictions. In the long term, there may be a top concentration pattern, and crypto stablecoins adhere to the 100% reserve model and will not trigger runs on traditional banks. Regarding the threat of quantum computing to cryptocurrency, CZ said there is no need to worry too much. Existing anti-quantum encryption algorithms can be solved through iterative upgrades of the public chain, and related technology upgrades will be gradually promoted.

Finally, CZ shared his views on the future of Bitcoin. He believed that Bitcoin still follows the four-year bull-bear cycle, and the correction in 2026 is in line with the law of the cycle. However, thanks to the support of the US stock market, geopolitical hedging needs, and the entry of long-term institutional funds, the recovery of this round of bear market may be faster than before, and long-term development deserves optimism. At the end of the conversation, CZ also expressed his willingness to expand investment in the United States and seek cooperation with Ark Invest.

The following is the full text of the podcast content, compiled by Golden Finance (assisted by Deepseek).

Host Lorenzo Valente: Hi, welcome to FYI. My name is Lorenzo and I am the Director of Research on the Digital Assets team at Ark Invest. Today we're having a conversation with Cathie Wood and CZ. CZ is the founder of Binance, the largest centralized exchange in the cryptocurrency space. We’ll look back at his early days in the cryptocurrency space, how he got into cryptocurrencies and ultimately founded Binance. We then explore the current state of the industry in terms of regulation and prospects, Binance’s performance, and talk about quantum computing and its threats. This is the FYI Podcast and today we have a special guest - CZ. Welcome to the podcast, we're so excited to have you here today.

CZ: I’m glad to be here, thank you for the invitation.

Host Lorenzo Valente: Great. Maybe Cathie, we could start with CZ? CZ, I think you could take five to seven minutes and tell the audience the story of your early life, all the way up to life after Binance, which I know is a little difficult, but I think would be very helpful.

Cathie Wood: Yeah, CZ, I read your life story and it was so fascinating and so inspiring.

CZ: Thanks for reading it. Yes. I was born in a small village in China, then moved to a slightly larger city, and later to Canada. When I was 12 years old, I spent my teenage years in Canada playing a lot of volleyball. The last two years allowed me to attend college. I went to McGill University in Montreal. After graduation, I worked in Tokyo for a few years, then moved to New York where I worked as a developer at Bloomberg for four years. At Bloomberg, I grew from developer to team leader, initially managing a team of 60 people that grew to about 80 people in four years. In 2005, I returned to Shanghai and started a financial technology startup company for eight years from 2005 to 2013.

In 2013, I discovered Bitcoin. I thought at the time, this thing is quite interesting, I want to devote myself to Bitcoin. So I left that startup and tried a few different jobs in the Bitcoin industry. Then in 2017, I thought it might be a good time to start a cryptocurrency exchange, so I started Binance. I think we are lucky because 2017 is the year of ICO and everyone is doing ICO. The existing exchanges are mainly Bitcoin exchanges and do not support ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. We are a new exchange and made our own token, BNB, which was originally an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, so we obviously support most other ERC-20 tokens as well. The exchange has developed, we protect users well, provide good services, have a fast matching engine, and are very safe. Within five months, we became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading volume and have held that position ever since, which is about eight years now. Then we went through several cryptocurrency cycles, bear markets, and so on.

In early 2022 into 2023, we had to deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, there was an investigation. Later, Binance and I pleaded guilty to one charge -- I pleaded guilty to a Bank Secrecy Act charge, and Binance similarly pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced me to four months in prison. I served my sentence and paid a $4 billion fine. Now that it’s out, luckily Binance is still the largest cryptocurrency exchange and hasn’t fallen. I'm very lucky with this. Now, I basically spend my time helping other founders, investing through YZi Labs, and also working on Giggle Academy. Plus, I still enjoy interacting with people on X and I'm still in the industry. That’s a brief summary of my journey.

Cathie Wood: Yes, the longer journey is in your most recent book, Freedom of Money. I think you just published it about two weeks ago?

CZ: Seven days ago actually.

Cathie Wood: Congratulations. Congratulations. For our listeners, you can read CZ’s entire story from the beginning. The whole story is very inspiring. And what's interesting, CZ, is that you still spend your time in cryptocurrency, which is still a passion of yours, but you're also involved in other areas, many of which overlap with what we focus on at ARK, like the multi-omics world, robotics, et cetera. So we're excited for you to be allocating capital into these areas because they've been priced inefficiently in the public markets for a long time and now we're seeing an explosion of opportunity and we need investors like you to really work together to bring these companies to reality.

CZ: Of course. Yeah, I think transitioning from developer to investor is still a learning curve for me. I imagine you've been doing this for a long time, so I probably have a lot to learn from you.

Cathie Wood: Yes, CZ, we can always brainstorm together. So, maybe let’s start with what’s going on right now in the cryptocurrency space.

Host Lorenzo Valente: Yes. CZ, I assume you have been in this industry for over ten years. Now that we're in 2026, what do you think are going slower than you expected and what do you think are going faster? I'm sure you had a lot of expectations when you founded Binance. So, would love to know that.

CZ: Of course. I think something is a little different than I predicted years ago. I would have thought payments would be commonplace by now, but in reality most people don’t use cryptocurrencies for payments. There are crypto cards now, but merchants don’t know it’s a crypto card, it looks just like a Visa or Mastercard, and users can pay with cryptocurrencies. Another surprise is the rapid pace of institutional participation in cryptocurrencies over the past year, especially in the United States. A year and a half ago, I thought the United States was relatively anti-cryptocurrency, with Senator Elizabeth Warren declaring war on cryptocurrencies. I was sent to prison during the Biden administration. I was very surprised by America's 180-degree turn. I think that speaks to the power of the Constitution, right? You can change presidents every four years, and even with a repressive regime, you can change very quickly. I think the cryptocurrency industry didn't have a lot of strong innovation in the last cycle because of the repression from the previous administration. Over the past four years, during the previous administration, more than a dozen large crypto projects were sued by the SEC. So people turned to meme coins, and not many applications with real practical value were built. I think right now we're in a stage where there's a bit of a -- I wouldn't say a vacuum, but there's a lot less application building than I expected. So hopefully now that the U.S. has regulations to support cryptocurrencies, we'll see more applications being built. So there are a lot of things that are different than I expected, but over time I think the industry will catch up, fill the gaps, and continue to grow.

Cathie Wood: I think one thing that certainly surprised us—relative to our first white paper on Bitcoin in 2014—is the rise of stablecoins. Now we are seeing a movement towards agent-based AI and stablecoins with the AI ​​craze. Do you think AI will be a huge driver of a renaissance in innovation?

CZ: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think AI will help in many ways. Number one, AI agents are going to do 10,000, a thousand times more transactions than humans, right? And AI will use cryptocurrencies. They won't use Swift or Visa cards, or maybe parts of the traditional financial system, but if you're interacting with someone on the other side of the world from you, in a different country, cryptocurrencies are much easier. So I think that's definitely going to happen. I also think AI will increase the speed of development, and AI writing code can greatly increase the speed of writing code. You can't quite do everything right now, but maybe soon you will. But AI will allow us to build applications faster. So I think this is another area where AI will contribute a lot. This will allow us to build new applications, easier-to-use wallets, more secure wallets, faster blockchains, and more. So I think that's going to accelerate as well.

As you said, stablecoins were also something I didn't expect to become so big. Back in 2014, and even when we backed Tether in 2017, we felt it was a stop-gap solution for people to hold fiat-pegged value for the short term when markets were falling, but somehow it became bigger than I expected. Some other interesting things are that I did not expect gold to be so actively traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. Now, Binance only launched gold about two months ago, and now Binance is already the largest gold trading place outside of the traditional market. Gold accounts for 10% of its futures trading volume, which is crazy, right? And then they just came online with oil. [Snort] So we are now seeing the convergence of traditional assets on cryptocurrency exchanges. When people first started talking about things like tokenized stocks, I didn't expect it to be that big. I wasn't sure if this thing would work, but now they're getting pretty big. So, there's a lot of interesting stuff happening right now.

Cathie Wood: Yes. Why do you think they got so big? Do you think Larry Fink, when he said maybe two or three years ago that everything was going to be tokenized, gave the traditional financial world the idea to actually try it? Even before we had a crypto-friendly regime in Washington.

CZ: Yes. I think Larry definitely has his influence, especially in traditional markets, and he's very influential with world leaders. When the CEO of BlackRock says something, world leaders, other financial institutions, and traditional institutional capital take it very seriously. So I think he definitely has that influence. And he had the foresight to think that everything would be tokenized and that there would be enough transaction volume. To be honest, even though I had worked in traditional finance before, I didn't understand that industry the way Larry understood currency markets. I am a technical person. So I think he understands it and supports it, both of which are helpful. I think we're also now seeing what's called the convergence ofWall Street or traditional finance and the cryptocurrency industry. It should just be an industry. It should just be an industry, using old and new technologies to facilitate transactions and facilitate access. What I didn't anticipate - because Binance now has 320 million users - is that those users do want, and as I mentioned before, there's actually a lack of quality assets in the cryptocurrency space today. There haven’t been a lot of strong programs over the last four years. You can trade memecoins, you can trade memecoins all you want, but that's just one category. Now that tokenized assets are available to cryptocurrency investors across the globe, even gold folks are trading them. And there's a lot of volatility because of geopolitical tensions, and I think the same will be true for oil. So I think the timing was right, and Larry was bringing traditional industries into the cryptocurrency space, and all of that helped.

Cathie Wood: That’s interesting. Our experience with Bitcoin, especially Larry Fink, was that he was firmly against it at the time of our 2015 white paper. So does Jamie Dimon, so does everyone. I think that's one of the reasons why we've gained so much visibility in the social world, because the conversation about cryptocurrencies happens in the social world. So this is serendipitous for us and we're excited for traditional financial players to join this momentum. I want to ask you about this: Do you think the traditional financial world and players are embracing cryptocurrencies today because they think it will lower their costs and remove a lot of friction in the system—frictions that are actually good for them from a profitability perspective—or because they see how much financial activity this technology will stimulate?

CZ: Yes, that’s a good point, a good question. I think they definitely saw the potential. Because if you look at the trading volume on Binance or other cryptocurrency exchanges, and the on-chain trading volume, people see the business potential, so they have to seize the opportunity. On the other hand, this new technology will also reduce fees and costs. So it will reduce their profits in the short term, but it will also increase their trading volume. Ideally, you want to lower your fees, and if you lower your fees by 50%, you need 2x, 5x, or 10x the volume. I think with this technology, the cost will become even lower. Even if one player does not lower their fees, other players will, and players who do not lower their fees will lose market share. You can keep your fees high, but then you'll have no business. So I think they recognize that, and the other factor is that they have to race to adopt this new technology, which lowers their costs and means they can charge customers less and thus acquire more customers.

Cathie Wood: Yes. And all too often, when we enter a period of technology-driven disruption, the traditional world often fights against it. But the financial world seems to be embracing it, maybe because, as you said, they stand to lose a lot of share if they don't. But more often than not, pure business players are more likely to be the winners because they are not encumbered by two ecosystems—traditional and DeFi. How do you think this will develop?

CZ: Yes. This is a very delicate balance. Some CEOs of large traditional financial companies may think they'll only be around for another two years. What happens to that company in two years is no longer their problem. They just want bonuses for this year and next year. People with this mentality will not change. They just want to maintain the status quo and finish their work safely. But the next CEO might say, I'm going to be here for five years or 10 years, and maybe I'll care and I want the company to have a slightly longer-term view. In addition, public companies usually have a shorter window and are required to release quarterly financial reports every four months or every quarter. So there's always a balance between short-term thinking and long-term thinking. But companies that think short-term and don't adopt a long-term strategy will suffer in the long run. This balance is always there. As you said, those native crypto companies don't have that baggage, they are new businesses and will take new approaches. Private companies typically have a longer-term view than public companies. This is actually detrimental to public companies, who are forced to have a three-month perspective. All of this will emerge gradually. But in the long term, the trend will continue. Whoever adopts better technology to save costs and improve efficiency will win. Anyone who fails to do so will be negatively affected. Even if the CEO of a big traditional financial company doesn't change in the next two years, they're going to lose a lot of business in two years and that's when they have to change. At a certain point, if you hold on to the old things, they may no longer work. You have to change and embrace the new. So overall, you'll see this.

Cathie Wood: Even more so because blockchain technology and artificial intelligence are converging very rapidly, and artificial intelligence is advancing faster than any technology we have witnessed before. So the idea that if you don't keep up, you're going to fall behind, is going to happen in a shorter time than historically.

CZ: Absolutely. The pace of change is accelerating and reaction times are shortening. Even if this CEO thinks he has two years, if he doesn’t use AI, if he doesn’t use blockchain, he might be fired within a year. So we'll see.

Cathie Wood: Yes. And especially now, Larry Fink, Jamie Dimon are embracing this. So I think there's a real shift in mentality. There was a time in the Internet age when financial company CIOs would be fired if they didn't think about cloud computing. Today, if your CTO doesn’t think about AI, they’ll be fired. Soon, if you don’t think about blockchain, you too will be fired. I think we'll get to that point soon. So, short-term thinking might actually be helpful here because this is all happening so fast.

Host Lorenzo Valente: I don’t think enough has been said about Binance’s story. I'm wondering, how have you been able to stay at number one for so many years? Cathie, Ark Invest and I invest in a lot of crypto businesses. Is this a cultural and structural problem at Binance? There are so many competitors with tons of resources. So, yes.

CZ: I think there are a few different factors. The first thing is that we always put protecting users above everything else, above our revenue and above our profits. So whenever something happens, we protect users. So I think users know that. Second, we are fortunate in some cases that our global footprint is much broader. Over the past decade, regulatory uncertainty has been considerable. You'll see that other players usually have a home country, so they're stuck in that country. If that country is pro-cryptocurrency, they are doing well; if that country is anti-cryptocurrency, they are not doing so well. And Binance has been saying, okay, some countries will be against cryptocurrencies, and we will leave; some countries will support cryptocurrencies, and we will do more in those areas. Luckily, Binance acquires a small percentage of users from every country that supports cryptocurrencies, which adds up to a big number. With such a large volume, we have the best liquidity possible. When you have the best liquidity, users will come to you because they get better prices and transactions are cheaper, which creates a network effect. And so far, we've kept our costs very low. We have a few offices now, small offices, but no fancy offices, super expensive buildings. We mostly work from home. This allows us to keep costs low. I really hope Binance maintains a startup feel. Even though the team is now big and it's no longer a startup, I really wanted it to be so, so we kept that feeling going for a long time. The cost base is low, so it's a combination of factors.

Also, trust is important in the cryptocurrency industry, especially centralized exchanges. We have been number one for a long time, have high transaction volumes, are very safe, and that builds trust. I think the cost for American players is too high, the fees are too high, it's too expensive compared to some players in the United States. So American users have no choice but to use those platforms, which is sort of a monopoly in their own market. But I think the United States should open up to global competition, prices will fall and consumers will have more choices, which will also increase the penetration of cryptocurrency in the United States, which will benefit existing players in the United States. This may be counter-intuitive, but I remember in the book "The Innovation Stack" the author explains it very well: when IKEA enters a market, other furniture stores' business actually grows because more people will buy the furniture. But anyway, that’s another topic.

Host Lorenzo Valente: No, it's very interesting. What do you think about the future of cryptocurrency exchanges (e.g. Binance, Coinbase)? We have discussed other asset classes on-chain such as stocks, venture capital, and other asset classes. We hear a lot about “universal exchanges” like Coinbase where you’ll trade all asset classes. We also now have new exchanges like Kalshi and Polymarket. How do you see the future developing?

CZ: Okay. I thinkthe industry could evolve in a few different ways. Everyone wants to be the universal exchangeand that’s normal. I also think this will happen to a large extent. Everyone wants to be the universal exchange. Binance now trades futures, trading oil and gold, which I didn’t see coming a year ago. I think Coinbase will probably do the same thing, and so will other exchanges. I think Binance has also recently integrated prediction markets. I believe other exchanges will do similar things, and some may even launch their own prediction markets if they have the appropriate licenses. So I think all of this, with new technology, one platform can cut out the middleman, you don't need so many different platforms. So the natural level of integration - we don't like this word, but it's called centralization - is the network effect. At the same time, I think there are also regional differences and user differences. When the average person with a non-technical background enters the cryptocurrency space, they may prefer to use a centralized exchange rather than a decentralized exchange. But once they become more proficient, and once it becomes easier and more secure for ordinary people with non-technical backgrounds to have the tools to use self-hosted wallets, they may move to decentralized exchanges. So it depends on which wave comes faster. If 10% to 20% of the world's population suddenly entered the cryptocurrency space, centralized exchanges would quickly become larger, while decentralized exchanges would remain the status quo for a while. But if people slowly come in, and more and more people come into decentralized exchanges, then we may see decentralized exchanges grow faster than centralized exchanges. Today, with decentralized exchanges, you still have to deal with wallets, addresses, etc., and there are still a lot of numbers on the screen to process. So most people from non-technical background don't want to deal with this. So it's hard to say which way it will go. I think the United States now, based on the SEC's statement a few days ago and all the positive encouragement from the regulatory stance, I think the United States is really opening up. I think the CFTC also seems to be very supportive of prediction markets. So I think this area will grow very quickly. Therefore, how exchanges integrate or directly launch prediction markets becomes very important. So I think all of these things are happening. The United States currently has a regulatory policy advantage, which is completely different from a year and a half ago. So we may see exchanges in one region growing faster than the rest of the world due to favorable regulation. So it's hard to say. For Binance, I encourage them to keep an open mind and go wherever is open.

Cathie Wood: Yes. I think Coinbase has a great opportunity right now. I mean, you guys invested in Coinbase. I think Coinbase has done an incredible job over the last fourteen or five years, and they've weathered all the regulatory issues in the United States. So I think multiple exchanges will coexist for a long time.

Moderator Lorenzo Valente: Yes, on the regulatory and U.S. side, we are still waiting for more clarification, especially regarding incentives and revenue sharing. I know you are very close to Tether, but Tether is unlikely to share revenue at least in the short term. I think Circle is starting to gain share. How do you think this will play out?

CZ: Of course. There is a small correction. In fact, there is no business relationship between Binance and Tether. Binance’s early listing of Tether helped Tether’s growth, but Tether is also important in helping the industry grow. There is no business relationship, no equity, no revenue share, not even a commercial contract. Maybe it’s just that you were both there early on, supporting each other, so it felt close.

Host Lorenzo Valente: Yes.

CZ: I personally believe that stablecoins should generate interest for users. I also agree with you, I don't think Tether will do this anytime soon. As first movers, they have dominated without doing so. But they also now leave room for competition, as other newer stablecoins are offering yields. You can do it in different ways. I think currently, saying "you can't benefit users" doesn't make sense. You can say you can't offer rates, but people will find other ways. There was a discussion about "Can't offer interest rates, but what about activity-based rewards?" If people do something, you reward them. But there are things people do easily. You can put it in different types of accounts, different activities, and different pledges. There are many different ways to give people money. If you are a business that wants to reward users, there are many different ways. I don't know how you can completely limit this. You could argue that if a business wants to offer zero-fee transactions, they should be allowed to.

But at the same time, I do recognize that we want to integrate with traditional financial systems, we don't want to completely destroy or disrupt them. So we have to give them time to react. I understand that part. But I do think that soon, in the U.S. or outside the U.S., there will be a winner that is a stablecoin that provides good returns to users and is easy to trade. Tether currently dominates, but USDC is not small. USD1 is growing rapidly. We see other stablecoins outside the US growing rapidly as well. So I thinkthe stablecoin space is an important part of cryptocurrency, but it’s only a part. I think any business that takes care of its users more than others will win, either by low fees or by giving rewards. Any business that gives users better returns has a big advantage. So I do think there will be strong competition. If the U.S. doesn’t allow it, international stablecoins may win in the short term.

Host Lorenzo Valente: This is interesting. We discussed this fear of a “bank run” of deposits flowing from traditional institutions to stablecoins if rewards were allowed to be distributed to users. Do you think this is a reasonable assessment, or is it more of a scaremongering from a bank CEO?

CZ: I think some of it is reasonable. One thing is, you're putting assets in a place that's relatively safe, but generating interest from U.S. Treasuries or government bonds, that's one way to do that. But once you go down the interest rate route, people are offering higher and higher rates. The way to offer a higher interest rate is to put your assets into riskier investments, right? In contrast, banks operate on a fractional reserve basis. Banks lend out 99% of the money to invest elsewhere, and they may not be able to get that money back in time. This is why bank runs are so scary for banks. So far, cryptocurrency exchanges and even stablecoin issuers have mostly held 1:1 reserves in the cryptocurrency space and have been audited, at least at the top. So I personally think that we should not break this feature of cryptocurrency. This is a good thing in cryptocurrency that the traditional financial industry does not have. Cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin issuers should maintain 1:1 anchoring and should maintain 100% reserves. But even so, there are ways to generate revenue. For those benefits that are generated, I actually encourage companies to pass that on to users. But if the law says you can't do it, then don't do it in that country. Then stablecoins issued in other countries will do this, and unless global users cannot access that stablecoin, they are likely to use those stablecoins, and those stablecoins will grow. So I do think that, fundamentally, users value rewards, financial benefits, ease of use and security, right? Just a few things.

Cathie Wood: Yes. Do you think - there is an argument about the massive network effects of stablecoins and the crypto ecosystem, which suggests there will only be a few big stablecoin winners. But a lot of people, and I think you just said it, at least in the early days, we're going to see a lot of stablecoin issuance. We see one almost every day. How do you think it will end up? Winner takes most, or not?

CZ: In the end, it’s probably going to be a winner-take-all majority. But at the same time, I thinkin the short term we’ll see more competition than consolidation. Because there have been integrations in history, but historically, it has been quite difficult to make stablecoins. In the year leading up to the Trump administration, governments around the world were quite hostile to cryptocurrencies. For years, Tether did not disclose their bank account, and every time they did, that bank account was closed.但 Tether 不知怎么能够在美国政府试图关闭他们的情况下，维持一个持有大量资产的银行账户。那是一项真正的硬技能，非常难做到。直到今天，我都不知道他们是怎么做到的。不知怎么他们做到了，而大多数其他人做不到。这就是为什么他们很大。但我相信那个障碍现在已经消失了。那个问题现在不存在了。现在任何人都可以发行稳定币。你可以获得银行账户，可以让银行支持你，可以接受审计，可以 1:1 背书。现在发行稳定币的障碍低得多了。但现在采用的诀窍在于，如何让你的稳定币被每个人使用？这是一个营销、采用、增长的问题，许多企业将能够克服，特别是如果他们能提供比 Tether 更好的激励。所以我认为短期内我们会看到许多不同的稳定币。而且我们还只谈了基于美元稳定币。许多其他国家会想发行自己货币背书的稳定币，因为现在美元稳定币正在增加美元的全球主导地位，许多其他国家想稍微提升一下自己的货币。中国是一个，其他国家也是，每个国家都希望自己的货币能被世界尽可能多地使用。另外，美元稳定币通常使用美国国债，这是一种间接向全球加密货币人群出售美国债券的方式。所以大多数其他国家也想做同样的事情。每个国家都想卖自己的政府债券。我知道很多国家跟我说，他们想筹集更多资金，希望有更多投资进入本国。通过稳定币出售债券是间接方式之一，但非常有效。所以我认为短期内我们会看到更多稳定币。长期是否只有一个赢家通吃取决于网络效应。可能会，但稳定币的壁垒不高，所以我认为很多人会不断尝试。

主持人Lorenzo Valente：你认为为什么我们还没有看到本地的、非美元计价的稳定币？我们有欧元稳定币，但很小。我们有墨西哥比索稳定币。是因为结构上，进出通道不像 USDT 或 USDC 那样高效，还是用户不想要本地货币，而是想要获得美元？

CZ：根据我有限的理解，我认为主要原因是成本太高。我对欧元稳定币的理解是——我不是这方面的专家，这只是我从小道消息听到的——做欧元稳定币相当昂贵。他们需要非常大的保险单，需要非常大的资本配置。做起来非常贵，初创公司很难做到。你基本上需要预先投入数亿美元才能做一个欧元稳定币，而市场还没有起来。因为不存在，大多数人非常习惯以美元稳定币进行交易。这是一个先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题。在墨西哥可能是一个银行接入的问题。在不同的国家，问题略有不同。很多人试图做人民币稳定币，但那里的银行支持很棘手。香港刚刚向汇丰银行和渣打银行发放了两个稳定币牌照。我们会看看情况如何，但银行通常行动非常谨慎和缓慢。他们可能不如一些原生加密稳定币那么“加密原生”。到目前为止，其他的都没有起飞。这实际上给了美元巨大的优势，但其他人正在努力追赶。所以，我们拭目以待。

Cathie Wood：CZ，你对量子计算有一些非常有趣的观点。我知道你已经看到了关于量子威胁和比特币的论文。显然，我们都在加密货币行业工作，但币安是许多加密货币的巨大持有者。你认为时间线是怎样的？我们是太担心了，还是不够担心？

CZ：第一，我不是这个领域的专家。所以我知道的并不比任何读新闻的人多。但我最近确实和一些更了解情况的年轻技术人员聊过。我的直觉是这样的：我认为加密货币，尤其是比特币，会进行适当的升级。至于中本聪的币怎么处理，我们会有办法的。我认为我们会给他们一两年时间搬走。如果不行——但希望在有人破解地址之前——我们会冻结它，或者销毁它，或者用其他方式处理。我认为这可能更像是一个哲学层面的社区投票问题。人们，尤其是比特币至上主义者，不想要中心化，但如果是社区投票，我们大概能解决。我也认为谷歌的声明中有广告成分。俗话说，人们通常对一年内能取得的成就过于乐观，而低估十年内能取得的成就。如果你的公司、你的团队现在在研究量子计算，他们预测的是2029年。这些预测通常有点乐观。我们做这一行很久了，通常当你听到一个完成日期时，你会给它打个折扣。这是很好的营销，也是很好的行业意识，让行业做出反应和解决。所以我并不太担心。我认为更多的计算能力总是好的。而且我们已经有了抗量子加密算法，我们只需要迁移到那些算法。这不是一个没有解决方案的问题。但你需要协调。我不知道谁来协调。一些比特币核心开发者会协调。很可能，其他一些区块链会更先升级。其他一些中心化程度更高的区块链——Vitalik 可以为以太坊提出建议，一些人会采纳。孙宇晨昨天刚为波场提出了建议，他在昨天发布了。还有 BNB，看看如何改进。也许其他一些协议会先行一步，然后我们再处理比特币。

Cathie Wood：是的。正如我们常说的，解决问题的一半是理解问题。看来我们理解了问题（如果确实存在问题），而且我们在时间线上同意你的观点。在我们结束之前，想听听你对比特币现状的看法。你知道，这是四年周期吗？我们正在周期中循环，为下一次上涨做准备？另外，我想澄清一下我在一个新闻节目上关于币安的说法。 在10月10日闪崩发生时，我们知道是一个软件故障，但不是币安触发了闪崩。我想确保每个人都明白我们知道币安没有触发。当时有很多关税动荡，市场非常紧张。可能加剧了情况，但我们认为我们已经度过了那件事的余波。你认为比特币会再创新高吗？你还看好比特币吗？

CZ：当然。第一，感谢你这么说。我不知道你是否知道，你说那句话被中文媒体大量引用。

主持人Lorenzo Valente：天哪。

CZ：你的照片出现在中文媒体上，人们抱怨币安导致了10月10日的崩盘。他们用了那个小视频片段。所以我真的很高兴你现在说了这句话并澄清了。

主持人Lorenzo Valente：我甚至不知道。我甚至不知道有这事。

CZ：我想也是。你看，你现在做播客，人们会引用你的话，然后被断章取义。你做播客时没法解释所有的免责声明。但人们非常大量地使用你的剪辑，尤其是在中文社区。但没关系，我想我们已经度过去了。

我认为目前还有两股力量在起作用，我不知道哪个会先赢。我们看到比特币在2026年有所下跌，这遵循了四年周期。 2022年是熊市，2021年是牛市，2025年是牛市，2026年我们看到了下跌。但还有另外两件事对加密货币非常有利。 一是特朗普总统将股市视为他的基准，他会尽其所能推动股市上涨。当股市表现良好时，加密货币也会表现良好。当股市表现良好时，人们有更多的自由现金，会分散投资到加密货币。所以当市场好的时候，它们会一起好。另外，由于地缘政治紧张局势，人们后来才意识到这一点。黄金表现不错，现在有点上上下下，波动很大，但黄金非常活跃。比特币也应该非常活跃。我们看到比特币下跌，但在过去几天，比特币回升到了7.4万、7.5万左右。所以我认为股市表现良好对比特币和整个加密货币都是非常积极的。我认为这股力量会在中期选举前非常强劲地到来。因为逻辑上，特朗普在中期选举前会尽其所能。我不了解他，我从未和他谈过话。但美国市场对其他市场以及加密货币全球市场有很大影响。所以我仍然非常希望今年可能会不同，这次复苏可能会比历史上的熊市复苏略快。而且比特币已经触及了6万多，那是上一个历史高点的支撑位。所以我希望最糟糕的时期已经过去，但不要引用这句话，这不是财务建议。

Cathie Wood：是的，是的。我们也必须总是这么说。但我确实认为，支撑它的是传统世界的机构支持，因为机构一直在听说这个四年周期，试图学习和理解它。所以他们等了这样一次回调。根据我们的资金流向，他们似乎现在开始进入了，比过去几年更多。

CZ：是的。你说的关于机构的观点非常正确。大多数机构一旦进入，他们做决定要慢得多，他们有委员会一起做决定。而且当他们进入时，他们不会像一个月内就退出。他们买入十亿美元可能需要一个月，但他们不会在一个月内退出。他们会持有多年。所以大多数机构是长期持有者。随着他们进入 ETF，这将真正稳定价格，并有望推动价格上涨。我非常乐观。

Cathie Wood：一如既往。 Yes.

主持人Lorenzo Valente：我们分享你的乐观，非常感谢你同意来做我们的节目。我认为这会是我们的最佳节目之一。

CZ：我非常非常高兴来到这里。也感谢你的邀请。我们也希望在美国进行更多投资，并寻求你的支持。

主持人Lorenzo Valente：哦，超级棒，当然。很高兴有你这个嘉宾。 CZ，人们可以在哪里找到你的新书？

CZ：亚马逊。亚马逊，亚马逊很好用。

主持人Lorenzo Valente：完美。直接在亚马逊上出版。好的，完美。 Thank you so much.

Cathie Wood：好的，非常感谢 CZ。

CZ：好的，谢谢你们。

主持人Lorenzo Valente：再见。