We are here at the historic site of Lahar Fort, a symbol of power, resilience, and tenacity. Built around 450 years ago on stones and strategy. Today with me is another builder who is not building on stones, but is definitely building on code and strategy. He did not only found Binance, which is the largest exchange in the world, but he literally changed how people transact. Today ladies and gentlemen marks a defining moment in the trajectory of Pakistan's advancing towards global economy, global finance and blockchain. It gives me immense pride to welcome CZ as a strategic adviser to the Pakistan crypto council. We are not just welcoming a man but a movement. We are not just welcoming a name. We are welcoming a narrative.
If Pakistan does good on regulation, gets in the right infrastructure sector. How do you view that with its impact globally?
I think the first few governments to get the crypto regulation sort of in a very optimum structure will attract massive amounts of investments, activity and also innovation in the country.
How do you want to be remembered? What is bigger than Binance that you think you can do?
I actually don't really care about how I'm remembered. I don't really care about legacy.
So CI from Islamabad to Lahore tell me how has Pakistan been for you?
It's been a fantastic experience. This is my first time in Pakistan. Every country if you have not been there you cannot experience it. I'm just thrilled seeing this historic sites, seeing the capital. It's just a fantastic experience.
So you met the leadership today and you were kind enough to join us at the Pakistan crypto council as a strategic adviser. You are not just advising the council, you are inspiring a country which is one of the leading freelancer markets in the world, a country where the median age is 24, a country which is hungry for innovation. What is your outlook on Pakistan before you landed this morning and after spending a few hours?
Yeah, I think before I came, Pakistan's always been a very active crypto market. As you said, the average age is very young. There's lots of young people. They're technology savvy. So they naturally gravitate towards crypto. So Pakistan has always been a very active market. Before my perception was Pakistan's regulatory framework and overall stance was a bit probably conservative towards crypto but now after this trip I think that completely changed. Given the interactions I've had this morning with the leaders in this country, the ministers, it showed a very great deep understanding and very serious participation. It shows how serious the country wants to be in the crypto world. So I think that's the biggest thing I learned on this trip is the level of commitment, the level of seriousness. I think I've probably met more ministers on this trip than in most other countries to be very frank.
Would you say as there is the greed and fear level in the markets, where would you rate Pakistan's seriousness when it comes to blockchain and crypto adoption?
Very high. Very high. I did not expect that to be honest. I think it far exceeded my expectations.
You've mentioned a few times that you believe that crypto adoption will come in from the emerging markets. So let's talk about Pakistan. Pakistan does good on regulation, gets in the right infrastructure sector. How do you view that with its impact globally?
I think the first few governments to get the crypto regulations sort of in a very optimum structure will attract massive amounts of investments, activity and also innovation in the country. So I think getting that right is critical and especially for a high population country like Pakistan. And then young population, I think getting that right, I think you have feedback from very many young people that they are financially better off because they were able to access blockchain or crypto. So getting the regulatory framework in the optimum state is very important and will give the country a huge lead. But I think based on the discussions I've had on this trip, I think Pakistan has a huge potential.
We've seen Elon Musk talk about integrating blockchain within the Doge infrastructure. When I see that in light of countries like Pakistan and other emerging countries, do you think that the governments are ready to adopt blockchain for efficiency? What is your view? You also mentioned you were helping some governments in implementing blockchain to improve efficiency and transparency.
I think many governments are willing. Whether they're fully ready or not, that's a fairly subjective way to describe. I think it will take some time for crypto adoption, for blockchain solutions to be fully adopted in government institutions. I think it's going to take multiple years or even decades to fully embrace that. But I think we can start with the pilots, we can start with sandbox trials, we can start with many solutions already. I think some of the earliest solutions will be decentralized IDs, wallet solutions to hold those tokens, and then land title rights, visa processes, border crossings, even education diplomas, healthcare records, all of that. There are teams in the blockchain space that have solutions. Some are less mature than others, but there's various degrees of solutions available. How to integrate that with different government departments and to be used by citizens would take some time, but I think it's a good place to start. The fact that the US is adopting this, many other countries like UAE are trying to adopt this, these are very tech-savvy countries that will push forward. And I think a country with young tech talent, you mentioned that Pakistan has like 30,000 IT graduates every year, these are very good projects for them to do. So this will improve government efficiency, improve transparency, data availability, and will just make the whole country more high-tech.
So those 30,000 graduates are looking, are waiting for somebody, a messiah, to come and put in the right regulatory framework, the right policy. If we sign on the right policy that can change the future of this country.
Absolutely, absolutely. And this is where we would need your support. I'm very happy to support it. I'm not going to say by any means, but I'm very happy to support and give whatever I know.
So when we talk about governments, there is a use case of blockchain for efficiency, for transparency, but then we see Larry talking about tokenization. He says everything essentially can be tokenized. How do you view that in terms of helping with crypto adoption when we look at again from a government point of view, from a point of view where the government can tokenize their illiquid assets and fractionalize them? So from your viewpoint, how do you see that playing out?
I think this is a huge untapped sector for crypto and for governments as well. If you look at Pakistan, there's so much natural resource, there's so many assets here and they have no liquidity. So tokenizing them will give them immediate liquidity. And if you tokenize them well with strong trust from the communities, this is an easy way to get foreign direct investments, get liquidity so that the government can deploy on projects that can uncover the utility for these assets. So all of these are huge use cases that have not been tapped at all. This is like a multi-trillion market in itself. So any government that starts to do this first will have a huge advantage. There's some difficulties in tokenization. Many assets the price don't fluctuate enough, so sometimes they don't generate enough volume and then there's liquidity issues. So to do them well requires trial and error and also industry expertise. But I believe Binance is one of the largest liquidity providers. They have looked at this problem in a lot of detail. So I think with their support we can together experiment and solve and unlock this sort of market.
How long do you think before this becomes more trendy and will become like a meta?
That's hard to predict. But you mentioned BlackRock in the US is doing the build, RWA is now like a $2 billion market cap within a few weeks really. So it could grow very quickly with the right support, with the right backing. But at the same time, the market might not be ready for it. We have to try and see.
You've not just built the biggest crypto exchange, you've essentially changed how people transact around the world. What's next in your chapter? How do you want to be remembered? What is bigger than Binance that you think you can do?
I actually don't really care about how I'm remembered. I don't really care about legacy. I don't care about fame. I don't care about power. I don't care about money. I just want to, when I'm old, I can tell myself that I did my best to help make the world a better place. If I have strong abilities, then I should do more. If I have smaller abilities, I will do less. But I just want to know that I try my best. I just need myself to know. So I am not aiming for the next big thing, etc. I think the Giggle Academy education effort that I'm doing is extremely fun, extremely meaningful and potentially super high impact over a long period of time. So that's very meaningful to me. I'm also doing quite a lot on the investment front to try to help more entrepreneurs to be more successful. But I don't have another milestone. I'm not trying to make another big thing. I'm just doing my thing.
You rightly mentioned Giggle Academy. I think again Pakistan can offer you your biggest impact story. We have between 20 to 25 million children who are out of school and we are at your disposal to integrate and to push Giggle Academy into Pakistan for these children. And how do you think blockchain education can help them grow?
Well, there's a couple of things. I'll be very happy to push Giggle Academy to any kids who have no access to education today. But Giggle Academy is actually not a blockchain project right now. It is a complete pure education project. I believe free education should be free. It should be available to everybody and should be delivered digitally. We can also partner with physical schools, etc. But the core, if the kids don't have access to that, we should be able to deliver that digitally to them. This doesn't have too much to do with blockchain. I just want to help kids get access to education. In the future, I do want to be able to educate kids to learn the newest skills including blockchain, including AI, including biotech, everything. So I want to help get kids better jobs through education. So I think this is a huge impact over many years. But this doesn't have to be a pure blockchain, doesn't have to have anything to do with blockchain at least for now. In the future we may look at blockchain integration, blockchain certificates. But those are sort of use cases using blockchain, not so much building new blockchains.
So CI, you came into crypto at the end of 2013. If you don't mind me asking, what was the Bitcoin price then when you started entering into the crypto market? What was the total market cap essentially then?
When I first learned about Bitcoin in July 2013, it was about $70. It went to like $1,000 by December and I still hadn't bought very much. Then at the end of 2013 I sold my house, my apartment in Shanghai, and then early 2014 I started buying because I was receiving the payments in tranches. My average buying price was probably about $600 and then it went down from there. It went down to $200 and then stayed there for about 18 months. So yeah, that was my journey.
You did the whole round trip.
