On Saturday (May 21), Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”), Co-Founder and CEO of Binance, answered questions from the Reddit community during an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session hosted on the “/r/cryptocurrency” subreddit.
Below, are some key highlights from this AMA session.
$LUNA and $UST
- “Binance always has risk warnings to users in all of our announcements. And to the best of my knowledge, we never said UST was “fiat backed”, etc.“
- “We suspended trading briefly when the validators paused the blockchain, even that caused a lot of complaints, but I believe our action forced the validators to resume the network within a couple of hours. Lastly, no one is forcing anyone to buy just because trading is on. There are high risk tolerance buyers willing to take over from sellers. The market place is neutral.“
BNB Chain Validator Nodes
“Honestly, I am not involved in the BNB chain decisions. I barely found out they went from 21 to 41 before they tweeted about it. I do talk to some of the key devs there. Will bring it up next time. My limited tech understanding is there is a trade off between number of nodes vs performance at this time of our blockchain evolution. We collectively need to work on faster tech for blockchain. Also, the delegated proof of stake works in such a way that even though there aren’t that many nodes, you do have a choice on which nodes you want to stake too. Hope that helps.“
$BNB’s Value
“A few different aspects to this. The market decides the value, just like with any other asset. If something is used by people, it has utility value. The more people that use it, the more value it should have. The market decides value based on the number and the quality of reasons to hold or use the asset.
“BNB has hundreds of use cases, including being the native currency on BNB Chain, which has a popular community of builders and users. BNB is a community coin. Myself and Binance contribute to this community by building extra utility for BNB in our ecosystem wherever it makes sense. But the actual success and market standing can be attributed to the community builders and users that make the BNB ecosystem so strong.“
Regulatory Risks of Binance USD ($BUSD)
“Many regulators are certainly looking at stablecoins more closely. BUSD is issued by Paxos, a NYDFS regulated entity. It also has the highest fiat backing for all the major stable coins.“
Safety of User Funds
“User funds are kept separate from the exchange’s operating funds. And, if this were to happen [i.e. if Binance ever became bankrupt], funds would be refunded to users first, BEFORE any shareholders. Funds are SAFU.“
How CZ’s Life Has Changed Since Becoming a Billionaire
“To be honest my life hasn’t changed that much. I work hard everyday because I enjoy it, and it is enjoyable. My job is the most meaningful thing I could do with my time/life. I feel very lucky to have this opportunity.
“I’m now doing more traveling – meeting users, the community as well as governments and regulators. For example, I was in Germany this week. There are some benefits as I went to the Top Gun movie premiere in Cannes, which was fun. However, our team at Binance keeps me humble. I ended the week serving and delivering pizza.
“Investment wise, I am not a good example. I don’t diversify. I recommend most people to diversify. But for me, I am all in Binance. I don’t have personal investments. Everything I do, I do it through Binance. Removes any potential conflict of interest concerns. I think it is a good way to lead the team. My personal assets are simple too. I am all in crypto, BNB and BTC. I use my Binance Card everywhere I go.“
Dubai
“Dubai is a very safe place to live, and the business environment is also quite progressive. Dubai is also well-located for travel and timezones as I have many calls with the Binance team all over the world. And it’s nice and warm in the summer.“
