Bridging Traditional Institutions and Crypto: A New Era of Trust? - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2025

Guys, thank you for being with us today. My name is Henri Slayen again and today we're going to have a very exciting panel about the bridge of what's happening between Tratify and crypto. And of course, we're going to talk about all the latest with Binance. I promise you, I know we only have a couple minutes together, but we'll make it fun, exciting, insightful, and of course, interesting because I'm joined by the one and only Richard Tang. Richard, a co Binance, great to have you with us today.

Thank you for having me. Fun fact, by the way, Richard, many people know him as a co Binance. You know, after he finished his military service in Singapore, and I'm kid you not, he was selling durian in a store in Singapore before he went to university. The forbidden fruit, by the way, I love in Singapore, you're not allowed to have it in. I hope you love it.

There you go. From selling durian to now running by the Richard, great to have you with us today. By the Richard, I want to start. We're in the UAE now. We're in Dubai.

you were literally one of the pioneers of the crypto scene here in uh setting up literally the rules in Abu Dhabi back in the day. Did you expect one day that the biggest crypto conference in the world would be actually here? No. At that point in time, you know, I I know about crypto in 2017 when I visited with the US at a financial industry association and I go there almost every year. But that addition was different.

you see a lot of crypto boys coming through and the more I talk to them the more I dive into this area I really believe that's this going to be the future of finance we have come a long way since but I thought the movement will be much faster and I always think that for crypto to go mainstream you need two elements one regulatory clarity which then I provided and then secondly um institutional adoption that we saw in 2024 and the momentum is is very strong now so do you find the institutional adoption movement right now is stronger than it was cuz we've had institutional adoption waves over the years. Do you believe now it's different from the previous waves we've had? Absolutely. So if you look at I think the game changer started last year with the approval of ETFs, right? So I think that started and then you have a lot of financial institutions that used to be skeptic and then suddenly you have Larry Finn from Black Rockck coming out to say you know I used to be a skeptic now I'm a believer.

um Fidelity, Charles Swap, and everybody else starting to jump on the bandwagon. I think that's a big shift. I mean, last year we started the year with 170 million users, ended the year with 240 million users. So, we added added 70 million new users throughout the course of last year. Now, we are like north of 270 million.

So, in the course of 15 months, we added 100 million users, but a lot of them are coming through as institutions, right? So yeah, the sovereigns, the semi- sovereigns, the family officers, the high net worth individuals, the allocators, the funds, people that just trade commodities, um, FX stocks and bonds in the past are now adding a crypto trading desk, right? So we see a lot. So last year in terms of institutional investors, uh, we added, you know, um, new onboarding of 97%. This year in the first quarter, the momentum is very very strong.

Basically doubled from that side. Are you finding as a CEO to cater to institutional clients, is it really much different you find from a Binance perspective than dealing with retail? Of course, retail clients are very different, but also from the products that institutional clients are asking for. Do you find there's meaningful differences? A lot of differences.

By the way, this is not my normal voice. If you hear I I normally sound either better or worse off depending on what you like, but I'm nursing a very bad throat. So, you need some durian, a simple durian to get you back up on that. I think that will get it even worse. There we go.

Uh but if you if you think about it, we serve clientele across a big spectrum, right? So from people that are buy and hold to people that are active traders to high frequency traders, etc. to people in different regions and all the different segments have different needs, right? So the the institutions have different needs and we tailor products, we tailor solutions for them. uh throughout the course of last year for example we introduced things like triparty arrangement working with banks because a lot of the institutions a lot of say family offices they much more familiar with the banking setup okay so they want their their money to sit there better cross margining when they trip crypto so we work with banks to give them that solutions we introduce Binance wealth that allows for asset managers that have discretionary management of their clients to tap into crypto, right?

So, we continue to understand the needs of different sector in different regions and then tailor them accordingly. So, the sort of offerings for us in Latin America might look slightly different from what we offer in Middle Eastern Africa region and will look slightly different from Asia Pacific because the needs are slightly different. So, on that particular point for example, what have you found very surprising or the needs of certain region versus others? Is there something on like that you didn't expect that you saw a certain region wanted that you you didn't see other places? No.

Um I mean if you look at the developed countries for instance right so if you look at US Singapore Hong Kong here uh here is exceptional right because there's a very high crypto adoption in in this town but if you look at most developed jurisdiction there's le less pain points in terms of payments there's less pain points in terms of store of value because most people have one two three bank accounts but if you look at large part of the world I got involved in financial services sector for the last 30 years and since day one I was in the sector central banks financial institutions bang their chest to say we are all for financial financial inclusion we need to bring more people into the financial system but even today after more than 30 years in the financial system 1.7 billion people in the world are unbanked underbanked have no access to payment services and crypto then becomes that solution for them right so if you look at many parts of the world the only way to do domestic cross domestic payment or crossber payment. The the store of wealth for them is either stable coins uh bitcoin some other majors or cryptocurrency in general. And generally if you look at it a lot of countries went through hyperinflationary situation in the last few years. So you're much better of holding to crypto or stable coins right because a lot of currency has depreciated against the US dollars in the last few years.

So you see crypto in action and the adoption there is much faster. The needs there are slightly different from those in developed countries, right? So developing countries, frontier markets versus developed markets, the preferences are different. And don't you think on that if let's say we're back here in 2035 years from now, right? Because you just mentioned, you know, obviously you're catering the institutional market.

You're doing Binance wealth. You'd have the wealth management arm. People are using it for commercial transactions. Like so pretty much everything now Binance does in theory, you're competing against a bank. But this 1.

7 billion that are on bank, this is a whole new market that the banks often cannot cater. How do you see Binance then in in 5 years? Do you believe we often talk uh that you know Binance could be the bank of the future, right? Do you believe that this is actually a reality that could happen or that's like that's not the direction of travel that you guys have? I think it's really happening.

So if you look at it, we believe that we'll be a super app with our clientele base 270 million and growing very very quickly. We are now licensed in 21 different jurisdiction making us the most regulated exchange globally and many more to come. So we are working with a number of governments that have approached us uh to give them consultation on the right framework to set up to start regulating crypto. Twothirds of global jurisdictions still have not started to regulate crypto by the way. So you're going to see a lot more clarity coming through.

what is happening in the US in terms of rules and regulations I think will give a lot of certainty and having a pro- crypto president and recently I think you have seen US is working with UK to try to push forth with crypto adoption I think all those are positive news so and if you talk to pe any people in their 20s and 30s which I sus suspect a lot of you are here once they know crypto once they understand the beauty of it they will not move back right so if you are into let's crypto investments and if you look at data points around the world in terms of youth young adult the first investment anybody make is into crypto. Absolutely. And by the time they their 30s 70% of their assets are in crypto investments not like stocks and bonds unlike my time. So the landscape has changed drastically and if you ask them they will not shift back to traditional finance because there are so much friction point so much pain point uh it's so costly to use that I think the previous panel I've highlighted today if you use the very arcade banking infrastructure if you do a crossber transfer it takes two to three days for the recipient to receive the money and they charge you very high fees for it crypto is instantaneous right if you look at stock trading clearing and settlement takes t plus 2 t plus 3 crypto again clearing and settlement risk is eliminated so it's a totally different business model is very smooth it's instantaneous things can be tracked right it's traceable so there's so much beauty to this and the more people understand that the more they'll come onto the bandwagon so the likes of Fidelity standard charted now are doing their own stable coin because they understand this is going to change the world and if they don't embrace it sooner rather later you'll lose out in the It's ironic, Zo, but they don't want to ban crypto firms, but they're happy to. I'm very stable coin.

I think we changing that for sure. You're absolutely right on even how people are using it. I just came back from I'm Armenian by background. I just came back from Armenia. A lot of young people, their biggest assets are holding are all crypto.

So, it's quite incredible from that perspective. From your perspective though, you know, when you look, you mentioned regulators and the regulatory framework. You were previously a regulator, right, for many years in the MAS. How do you think this is going to change moving forward? Like obviously here in uh ADGM has done a great job adapting.

Dubai we have the world's first crypto regulator. Uh there's obviously there's a reason a lot of this is happening here in town. How do you see the next 5 years when it comes to the contrast between regulators and the businesses that want to be regulated like you guys? You think it's be harmonious? You think we'll have conflicts?

We'll have incidents. How do you think will happen? I don't think regulation will be harmonious. I I do think that we are moving from a period of regulatory uncertainty, right? In the past four years, I think everyone that's involved in crypto, there's oppression in the US, right, under the Biden administration.

Now, it's totally different. It's 180 degrees change uh in the US and US being the deepest capital market in the world that sea change in terms of attitude will have significant repercussions throughout the world. Right? So now US and UK wants to push toward forward in terms of crypto adoption. I think our European regulators start to take note and the politicians say hey what if we are being left out.

So you change Bance's approach I to the US and the UK countries that obviously at one point Bance was not as active recently. Well, we are we are always I mean we have historical issues and we have resolved most of them but we are always trying to solve problems right historically with countries and we have moved past all the past episode now we are deploying globally so we are always willing to lend our way because for any government around the world they are serious in terms of building their own crypto ecosystem there's no better player to partner than the largest ecosystem in town right uh we offer the deepest liquidity. Most of the institutions come to us because of the narrowest beta spread. You save substantially by trading to us over time. So we are working with quite a number of governments now globally that come to us.

You know you mentioned obviously being the largest player in in in not only accounting globally. Do you can do you believe that one day could also be a challenge because you guys are dominant player like we've seen other industries right with the biggest industry being the the spotlight being always on them. Absolutely. So I think it's quite important not to be complacent. Uh for us it's very important that we continue to innovate.

Yeah. We continue to understand the user needs and continue to have those trusts and confidence. We we invest huge amount of money to make sure that assets are properly safeguarded. Right. So if you look at last year and this year there are quite a number of big episodes on hacking.

Yeah. That impact in investor confidence. Right. In terms of security, in terms of compliance, our compliance count now is about,300 people globally. Um, so we have make huge investment on that space.

Product features, we keep pushing out new products that our user wants, right? So I think that's extremely important staying ahead of the curve, making sure that you understand the development, the changes and making sure that you continue to be the best-in-class platform to serve users in terms of their need. What was your reaction even on a human basis when you heard about the hack, the Bybit hack for example, cuz we can argue could have happened to any business in in the room, right? uh the way it was done. Do you think this is something we'll see more more like what was your reaction on it?

Uh I think that if you think about it the hackers are getting much more sophisticated. Yeah. And with the usage of AI that is developing by the day I think the hacks will become much more sophisticated. So you have to continue to invest greatly uh into areas of security not only platform level security. So we have multi-level platform security but user level security is actually important right.

So you receive text, telegram message, WhatsApp, etc., etc., depending on which platform you're on. And if you're not careful, the user level plat security can be compromised. So we spend a lot of time educating our users as well.

How do you safeguard your device? How do they make sure that you are safe etc. So we need everyone to play a part. But the hackers will become much much more sophisticated. And we have to spend a lot of time, money, energy to stay ahead of that curve.

And what's your know when you look at the let's say the the next year there's a lot of things going on in the world from tariffs coming up there's some wars going on there's recession risk and so on and so forth when you look at the adoption of digital assets Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more generally are you optimistic for the years the the months ahead like what and also some of the data I'm sure you guys are seeing with adoption and new clients coming in how do you see the next 12 months I'm I'm very bullish um so just take out the the noise uh from time to time. So no asset class is imu from macroeconomic conditions right? So from tariff concern from currency war concern from wars no asset class is imu from that but if you take out that and those are those could cause quite a fair bit of short-term volatility. Yeah. You take that equation out of the way and you look at the long-term momentum right where is this asset class going towards.

So today we have about 7% crypto adoption globally and the path forward is very very strong. Firstly, you have more and more regulators, more and more government coming on board now. I think that's very important because they're going to give clarity to this space that will make sure that you know the early adopters like most of you, the first 5% of any population, those are early adopters. But the next 5% they probably want some form of assurance. Hey, my government or my regulators are looking at that.

And if you want to go from let's say 5% to 40% adoption globally you need all these pillars to be in place right so you need that you need the institutions to come through which we are seeing that the sovereign wealth funds are now starting to allocate into this space right so you saying that we're going to have a bitcoin asset stockpile or bitcoin reserve I think if you are other government and you look at this and you invest across different asset class you say hey us being one of the largest capital markets of the world investing into this place I should be there or get ahead of the curve right to make sure that uh I stay with what's coming true so we see a lot of those positive trend and the fact that every financial institution today is doing some form of crypto have a crypto initiative have a crypto agenda they're pushing forward with different things right so RWA stable coins country are pushing forward with CBDC's um UAE just announced uh AED stable coin as well. Right. Exactly. So you're seeing all these things coming true. So the future is one that is very going to be very heavily invested into blockchain and crypto.

It's very is this a lot of these things we discussed now would have would have been unthinkable even a couple years from now. So Richard, with the minute we have left, my best friend the bell is here with me. I'm going to ask you quick questions and I need one or two word answers. Hope you're ready. All right, let's go.

We're ready or no? We're still going, so might as well. Um, Richard, uh, what's your favorite thing? You're based in the UAE, what's your favorite thing about the UAE the audience should know about? Food.

Food. Here we go. Coming from a true Singaporean. What's your, when you're not working at Binance on the weekend, what's your favorite thing to do to relax? Netflix.

Netflix. Favorite series on Netflix you should people should watch? Oh gosh, I I have so many I I don't have one particular one. I watch all genres. Perfect.

If you were not in the crypto industry and you can go back, you can go and work in one certain industry, what industry would you pick? Not crypto. My aspiration was to be a tax advisor. Tax advisor. Here we go.

Making taxes great again on that side. Maybe we could do pay that with crypto. That's another good way. Uh what's the one thing you would like to see the cryp crypto community do more that you wish that we don't do now that you wish it would do more? These are funny crowd people.

But I what I wish people do spend a lot more attention is to build good use cases with utility. Yeah. Because that will push crypto adoption even further. Richard, you can go back to school tomorrow. And what's the oneto what's the one course you would take you wish you had taken?

Uh risk management. Risk management. Oh, here we go. This is a tricky one. You launch a new startup tomorrow.

You can choose one crypto founder that you're gonna launch a business with outside of CZ. Who do you who would you launch a business with? I will work with anybody that have a great idea. And the last question, Richard, my traditional question, whoever comes on stage with me, you could to finish it off this panel at token 249, you can have lunch or dinner with one person dead or alive. Lunch or dinner with one person dead alive.

Who would you have lunch or dinner? I'm a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. Here we go. So I will have the Americans in the room.

You know he wants to have lunch with. That was Richard Tanks, CEO of Binance. Thank you very much everybody. See you guys soon.