Compiled by Joy, PANews
At 4 pm on October 31st, local time in Dubai, CZ, who had not been seen for a long time, took the stage at Binance Blockchain Week 2024. He had previously announced on Twitter that he would attend the event as an individual, but he did not expect that he would eventually have a public live dialogue.
He talked about his life in prison for 4 months. He did not suffer any physical harm, most of his cellmates were friendly, and the prison guards even asked him to recommend cryptocurrencies. Although the host repeatedly raised the topic of US regulation, CZ did not want to take this "ball", but he believed that the regulation was generally moving in a good direction. He also denied the rumors reported by the media that he was permanently banned from managing crypto exchanges, although he would not return to the leadership position of Binance even if he had the chance, and he is currently the largest shareholder of Binance. Talking about the future, he will have a lot of time to spend on the educational project Giggle Academy and investment, and this project has no plans to issue coins in the short term.
The following is the full text of the conversation compiled by PANews:
Host: Nice to meet you . First question. How was your summer vacation?
CZ: A lot less work to do. (Audience laughs)
Host: Welcome back, what was your experience like in prison?
CZ: (Everyone laughs) It wasn't great, it wasn't as fun as it is now. But I think the whole experience was just extremely limiting in a lot of ways. Your freedom is taken away, and you don't have anything to do. But it gives you a lot of time to reflect. And actually learned a lot of very important lessons, like. What do you miss the most when everything is gone from you? What I found out is actually that I miss relationships the most, I miss my children, my family, my friends, my colleagues and community. I miss a lot of other things, but they're not at the highest level compared to how I miss people. You miss food, a comfortable bed. But they don't bother me. So I think it helped me realign my priorities in life.
Host: Do you think this is a fair verdict?
CZ: That's a very subjective question. Everybody has their own opinion. I agreed to the plea deal, I was part of the plea deal at Binance, and I can't say there's anything bad about the plea deal. It looks like a deal, so that's it, live with it, I was sentenced to four months in jail. Judges have a really hard job when it comes to sentencing. I don't think it's fair or not, but I can give you some data for people to refer to. For my violation, we did not have an adequate anti-money laundering program in place. For this particular violation, in the history of the United States, I am the first person to go to jail for a violation like this. So I'm the only one who has gone to jail for this.
Just two weeks ago, there was a bank that was fined, like $1.8 billion. When I read that, nobody was prosecuted, it was just the company that was fined. But it doesn't matter if it's fair or not. The judge said a lot of good things about me in court. He said he'd never seen so many letters of support. When I went to jail, I found that four months was really short compared to everyone there. Everyone there was like five, ten, fifteen years, and no one got a sentence of a few months, so from that perspective, I was lucky, so I think in the judge's mind, again, it's a very subjective point of view.
I try not to think about it, and I think everyone here is going to have an opinion. But I just want to move on. I guess that's how it is. Now I can move on.
Host : I have a personal question, did you make any friends while you were in there?
CZ: Yeah, so if you're alone, it's pretty lonely. A couple of the guards recognized me and asked me, like, what coin should I buy? I told them I was in there, I didn't have any information, there was no internet. I think some of these guys are really nice people to be honest, some of them got really long sentences for really small things. I didn't have any trouble in there, most of the inmates were nice, even though some of the guards were a little harsh on us, but there were no problems, I was lucky not to get physically hurt, I was never blackmailed.
Before I went to prison, prison counseling (it's an industry), there were 2 million people in prison in the United States alone, 2 million people in prison, one of the largest populations in the country, so it's a growing industry. (Everyone laughs)
The prison counselor said, just before I went there, there was a news report that I would become the richest man. My prison counselor scared me and said, you should not put too much money in your account, 50 dollars is enough. When I went there, I found that everyone's account
So overall, no problems, I met a few friends that I still keep in touch with and I tried to help some of them to get their sentences reduced through legal means.
I have a friend named Michael who went to jail for 27 years for possession of marijuana 40 years ago, but now marijuana is legal. He also got a college degree in jail and wrote six books. It was hard to do that in that difficult environment. I could only access the computer for 15 minutes at a time, and every 15 minutes, I would be kicked off. There was no cut and paste, no paste function on the computer. So anyway, there were a lot of people buying books there, reading, studying, getting degrees, and there were a lot of good people there.
Host: The biggest question on everyone’s mind right now is, what is your relationship with Binance right now?
CZ: I have resigned as CEO and I am not supposed to be involved in any day-to-day operations of the company. The shareholder rights of Binance are not affected, so I am still a major shareholder of Binance. I believe I can still request information, etc. I just can't make decisions or give orders. The relationship is actually quite good. Considering that now there is a group of other people working very hard, I was forced to retire. So when this first happened, the first month was a bit difficult, emotionally it was hard to let go, after all, I poured my heart and soul into it for seven years.
But I always think that a CEO should not stay in this position for more than ten years. The world is changing. I didn't have much time to look at AI before, and I didn't even understand a lot of the details of DeFi. Now I have more time to look at all these things. So I think it's good. Looking back now, being forced to step down actually has a lot of benefits. If I resigned voluntarily, others might still be angry and think that I don't have the energy, but now I'm forced to resign, so no one complains.
I feel like I'm lucky for a lot of reasons. I still have a little bit of capital to deploy and do some things with. I feel like my reputation has changed, and I think that although it was a serious crime, it also proved that there was no fraud and no users lost money with us. So in some ways, my reputation is still good.
The most important thing is that now I am really lucky, I have more time now, I am not very young, nor very old. So I still have the energy to do more things. Few people can be as lucky as me to do these.
Moderator: I read a headline , " Lifetime ban on managing any cryptocurrency exchange ", is this true? Will you still invest in crypto projects?
CZ: The first question is based on what I know, it doesn't say lifetime or ban. Those two words don't exist in my explicit agreement. What it says with the government is that I step down as CEO. I don't think there is any timeline. But you know, everything changes, the agreement can be updated with a new agreement, even the government can change, but I don't plan to go back. I finally left that position, and I think the team is doing well, so I don't have any need to go back.
So even today, if I were allowed to go back, I probably wouldn't. So I think the lifetime ban was just a creative piece of journalism to make it more sensational, but the agreement is public.
What is your second question? Will you still invest in crypto projects? Of course, now I only do two things, Giggle Academy and investment. There are three main areas of investment, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. I don't want to lead any projects myself anymore. I think I don't have the energy to do it. Now I hope to help other entrepreneurs build their own companies. I can help them with funding, advice, and guidance. I have a few mentors who I value very much. I want to be one of them.
Moderator: I believe many people here will like you as a mentor. Regarding the prospects of cryptocurrency in 2025, are you still optimistic about cryptocurrency next year?
CZ: I try not to give financial advice. We can't predict the future, but I can analyze history. Historically, Bitcoin has gone through very clear four-year cycles, 2012 was a recovery year, 2013 was a bull run, 2016 was a recovery year, 2017 was a bull run, 2020 was a recovery year, 2021 was a bull run, and this year is back near the previous highs.
I don't know what's going to happen next year, but I think the long-term development of the industry as a whole, I think there's still a lot of things that have to be built, and I think the industry will get bigger and bigger, and more and more people will use it. So as more and more people use cryptocurrency, the utility value will increase. So in the long run, I'm still very bullish, but in the short term it's hard to predict.
Host: What aspects of cryptocurrency do you think are most promising?
CZ: I wouldn't be so specific because it's hard, it's hard to predict exactly. For example, in early 2017, I probably wouldn't have known that ICOs were the next big thing. But by June, it was already clear that this trend was happening. By July, we launched a platform, and by December, we were the largest platform. I think it depends on which projects break out in certain niches. I met with a lot of entrepreneurs this morning who have very interesting integrations of AI with blockchain. If one of these projects breaks out, these projects will make the industry take off. So it's hard to predict, but I just want to support all the builders in the industry and see what happens.
Moderator: Let's talk about legislation. I'd like to hear your opinion on where regulation is headed .
CZ: Legislation is improving, and in some countries, like here (Dubai), they are improving rapidly. In other countries, especially in larger countries, they tend to move a little slower, and the larger the country, the slower it moves because there are more departments and more people to discuss. But overall, I think it is actually moving in a very positive direction.
I'll give you another example, in mid-April of this year, Elizabeth Warren announced a crackdown on cryptocurrencies, which was a week before my sentencing. Then the judge sentenced me, and then I went to jail, and then by June, both parties supported cryptocurrencies, and I'm still sitting in jail. (Audience laughs) So this shows that when people want cryptocurrencies, the government has to respond. I think it's moving in the right direction.
Moderator: I live in the United States, and from my own perspective, cryptocurrency has become an important issue in the election . In your opinion, who do you think is more suitable, Harris or Trump?
CZ: I don't know, so I'm not going to comment on any election topics because I've dealt with enough in the US legal field right now. I know they have election interference laws, so anything I say publicly could be taken out of context, so I don't want to touch it. Now, I don't even want to get close to that line, I don't even want to see that line, so I just want to stay as far away as possible, so no comment. I think both sides support encryption, which is great.
Host: When we look at laws and regulations , which one do you think is the most important, policy or legislation?
CZ: I think the most basic one is really just the classification of crypto. There's so much debate right now, and in most other countries, they just treat these as money. Japan recognizes the currency attributes of Bitcoin. Many other countries consider Bitcoin to be a cryptocurrency. But of course, there are different types of different cryptocurrencies. But I think in the United States, this is really a big debate. I won't comment too much.
Host: One year from now, you and I will be attending Binance Blockchain Week 2025. Where do you think Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies will be?
CZ: It's really hard to predict, but I think there's a good chance. History determines the future. We'll be in a good position.
Host: What's your next step?
CZ: I spend at least half of my time on Giggle Academy right now, which I think is a super fun, super impactful project. It's not going to be a very profitable project, though.
Host: Can you describe Giggle Academy to someone who has never heard of it ?
CZ: It's a digital education platform that serves people who don't have access to education. Today, there are about 700 million to 800 million adults who are not fully literate, and two-thirds of them are women. On top of that, according to reports, there are about 300 million to 500 million children who are not in school. So combined, we have about 1.3 billion people who don't have access to education, and these are in very poor areas of the world.
Many educational applications and projects are carried out in areas with rich educational resources, and are more of a supplement to the existing education system. I think we now have enough technical capabilities to combine game developers, graphic designers, teachers and AI to make applications or tools that provide services to people who need education without relying on teachers.
In those places, the cost of teachers is very high and there is a shortage of teachers. It takes a long time to send teachers there. But now we can provide education digitally through a very interactive application, mainly on the Android platform, because Android devices are cheaper in these areas.
If we can help 100 million people get an education, I think that would be very meaningful to me, and I don't care whether there is a financial return or not, and I don't think it would require a lot of money.
Today, of the world's 8 billion people, about 1 billion are in school every day, with an average class of 30 or 50 people, and about 20 million teachers worldwide. But think about it, how many different ways are there to teach first-grade English? We repeat similar teaching processes millions of times a day, and if we can make this content into an application, add AI support, and enable it to answer questions interactively. Although the initial investment may be high, requiring a few million dollars, once the AI engine is completed, the cost per course in the future may be around a million dollars. 12 grades, 12 courses, 30 subjects, a total of about $300 million. Even with a lot of buffer, it's only $1 billion. I think we can create content that meets all educational needs today and covers 500 languages.
The US government spends $100 billion on education every year, and we only need less than 2% of that to provide education to children who don't have access to education, and we can even do better than traditional face-to-face teaching. In a class of 30 people, the pace of teaching is limited by the slowest students; through a platform, we can dynamically adjust the course content so that students can quickly advance in their strengths. After accumulating a large amount of data, we can also help students find jobs quickly. For example, 8-year-old children can do annotation work, which is also a good source of income.
My nephew has been managing a flight sim community of 14,000 gamers since he was 12, and 16-year-olds can do customer support, answering FAQs, and 15- and 16-year-olds can be game testers or coders. So I want to get kids into the workforce earlier than just getting a college or high school diploma.
We can help employers find the right talent. For example, this child is at the top of the class in math, in the top 10%, and has completed many projects; other children have high emotional intelligence and volunteer to tutor younger children through the platform, etc. In this way, we can help children find jobs early, thereby helping their families, siblings, and other family members get more educational opportunities.
Of course, electronic digital education lacks interpersonal interaction, but it also has its advantages. My idea is to let older children coach and interact with younger children to make up for the lack of interpersonal interaction. For example, physical education classes are difficult to teach online, but the platform can organize 15-year-old children to lead 7-year-old children in activities, and the 15-year-old children can get points or credits for this. When employers come to recruit, such children will naturally be chosen first.
We can design many different ways of interaction in the platform, but the most pressing issue we need to solve is to enable AI to stably generate consistent video content. This task may seem simple, but it is a difficult problem for AI. Currently, teachers can quickly create content, such as PPT, but these contents are usually designed for teachers to teach themselves.
However, in an environment without a teacher, we need a platform or an app to deliver this content on its own. In this case, in order to attract children's attention, we need very interactive videos, animations, and cute elements, which teachers usually cannot provide, and this is where AI can come into play. Right now, no AI model can generate ideal content. I have discussed this with many top AI experts, and we are working hard to solve this problem. However, this problem should be solved in the next few months to years. Once we break through this problem, we can deliver content in a digital way, hoping to benefit hundreds of millions or even billions of children and people around the world and provide them with free education.
Host: Will Giggle Academy be integrated into blockchain and Web3 - ized in the future ? For example, will there be airdrops for everyone present ?
CZ: Not in the short term, I don't want to get involved in another token, new tokens, etc. We may support all other tokens, and now we have Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB. So I think we should do this first. They come to establish incentive mechanisms and let the tokens play a role in this system.
We will build in rewards so that the system works well, but we may not need to issue our own tokens. For example, if I want to hire customer support or community forum moderators, I can sponsor some BNB and use those funds to pay the kids, etc.
Also, another interesting thing I found out today is that AI companies actually pay a lot of money to get the data generated by people on the platform. If we get children and parents to agree to provide their data to AI companies for training, then the data generated by these children in the process of learning pronunciation, learning mathematics, etc. can be used to train AI, and parents may get paid between $10 and $100. For our target users, this is a considerable amount of money. In this way, we can achieve a direct payment method of "learning is getting" without using tokens. AI companies will become sponsors of the platform, so we don't necessarily need to issue tokens to implement this model.
Of course, in the long run, I hope to gradually integrate the economic model of Web3 into the platform. This is a platform that accompanies children from the time they learn to speak until they get a job. Even when they are 70 or 80 years old, they can still continue to learn. By then, when they find a job, we can propose (but not force) them to consider donating a certain percentage of their income back to the platform in the next one to three years. Even if only a small number of people are willing to do this, I think we can build a sustainable platform in the long run. But this is a very long-term plan, which may take about ten years. But it doesn't matter, I have plenty of time.
