How has Binance recovered after CZ?

For some time over the course of the past two years, there was a dark cloud hanging over us because of the US issue. So we are very glad that we have resolved that. We have paid a heavy price. Both Binance and CZ paid a heavy penalty, heavy price for this. What's important is that we acknowledge, you know, during the early years where rules and regulations are unclear, we make mistakes. It's important that we acknowledge them. Like other financial institutions, does it invest in the right direction and get much better. So over the course of last two years, 2022, we spent US$158 million in our compliance program. Last year that went up to 213 million. This year we got even more. Right. So in terms of compliance, eight count. We continue to recruit, continue to deploy globally and we are very pleased with the results so far. We work, as I mentioned, very closely with global regulators and policymakers on that front to really educate them the innovative aspects of it. But how do you manage the risk aspect of it? And we continue to deploy. We are very grateful to our users for their continued support of us and their trust in us. I look forward to having him back home safely. All of us do. Crypto industry is looking forward to have him back safely. Right. So I think we are all looking forward to that. Cz, all of us know, is a giant in this industry and he has huge influence. I mean, he's a major shareholder of Binance on that front. So he continued to have very broad shareholding rights on that. As for his future plans, I'm afraid you have to ask him and you get a chance. You know, it's not too far away. Yeah, it's not too far. What has changed? Right. So if I can bring you through, I mean, CZ was the founder, CEO. He was a charismatic, inspirational leader for the company. But when I took over, the landscape for crypto has changed. When he started the firm in 2017, the landscape is one where regulators are not regulating this space. There's no particular interest. Institutions are not partaking in this space. But I took over end of last year. As I mentioned, 2024 has been a landmark year. You see clearer rules and regulations around the world. Close to one third of regulators now are regulating this space. If you look at the top 100 financial institutions around the world, everyone has a crypto agenda now compared to two years ago. Larry Finn, the largest asset manager, money manager, went from a crypto skeptic to a crypto believer and supporter. So it's a landmark shift on the up front. Right. The Binance today operate in a very different environment. So we have to change with that. So today instead of a founder CEO led company, we are a bot led company. So we have seven directors on board. I work very closely with the board of directors to chart the strategy going forward, but our pace of growth is very fast. If you look at globally, I mentioned that we are now the most licensed exchange globally. We have secured India, which is one of the largest marketplace that you can have. That must be very. And before that, Indonesia again, the largest Muslim country in the world. So we want to make sure that we build the best platform with the best product feature. So if you look at it, throughout the course of this year we continue to rock, you know, new things, right? To really support our users in their journey, right from things like Web3 wallet to Mega Drop to Copy Trading to Super Earn to Binance Square and that list goes on. And we take our users feedback very seriously. There's a channel where users can go through, give us those feedback and we evaluate those very carefully to see which other thing can we introduce to really support them in their users. So we always be a user first organization, but we are also investing very heavily into compliance. So it's a user first compliance first organization because that's the change in landscape that we are seeing. Direction of travel is very clear. Going forward there's going to be more needs for compliance. So we have invested heavily in compliance. As I mentioned, our headcount in compliance will continue to grow up or investments will continue to grow up. But if you look at the different dimension of that, we have the financial ability to invest very heavily in compliance, some other players don't. So we intend to make it as a competitive advantage as the landscape shift on that front. Right? So that's a key competitive advantage for us, other than us being the largest Web3 ecosystem in the world. First of all, our top priority is to get Tigrant home safely to his loved one and family. He's in poor health, he has gone through malaria, two bouts of pneumonia there, he has herniated disc, so he's in great pain, he can't walk properly and he's not getting the proper medical treatment. We have appealed to the Nigerian government repeatedly to release Tiguan on humanitarian grounds so that he can go home and get the proper medical treatment that he needs. Whatever disagreement we have with governments around the world, we resolve that we are compliant, we are cooperative. So we have resolved issues in the States, in places like Brazil, India, and we continue to operate in many of those jurisdictions. After resolution of those issues. So we appeal to the Nigerian government to say there's no need to hold our stuff. He's helped unjustly, unfairly. He was there on invitation as a financial crime expert. So hopefully the American government can designate him as unlawfully detained on that front and we can get him home as soon as possible. On our side, I mean, the world is looking at this, not only the crypto sector, every economic industry looking at investments. We this set a very bad precedent. Right. If you have disagreement with a corporate and you detain their staff, innocent staff, on that regard, that's not the way to really try to attract foreign direct investments into the country. So we want to work very closely with the Nigerian government to resolve whatever issues there are. Binance does global deployment so in Europe alone today, we have six different registration in six European units. Six European Union country as of now, we continue to deploy in Europe. We continue to work very closely with the regulatory agencies over there and we continue to await. I mean MICA has been introduced, but a lot of detailed provisions are not clear yet. Yes. So other than on the stablecoin front, which I think clarity has been provided, we are still waiting for all the other provisions and we intend to make sure that we continue to be a very important player in the European continent, continue to serve our users over there.