By Solomon Odunayo
The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, popularly known as CZ has pointed out that Charity and stablecoins have been the catalyst behind the notable crypto adoption globally.
CZ made this known in the Virtual Blockchain Week. During the event, CZ discussed Binance Academy’s work with Chinese government institutions on blockchain projects, averring his hope in influencing the shape of the country’s regulatory strategy.
He said:
“If I’m going to give you some donation in crypto, you are more likely to go and get a wallet or register an account on an exchange to accept it,” he stated. “That type of adoption is a positive first-contact for a lot of people. So it does increase adoption.”
“We also see that it also helps the Binance reputation […] We have been much better received in a lot of […] countries due to the charity initiative. So there [is] some selfishness to it.”
Afterward, CZ said he believes that stablecoins will also serve as the driving force of cryptocurrency adoption among merchants and retailers.
CZ said:
“Before [stablecoins] it was like two extremes — you either stay in USD or Fiat, [or] you’re either BTC or Ethereum or BMB, and the price fluctuates against fiat,” he said, adding that crypto can be “really troublesome for a shop owner because their expenses are in fiat”.
He further described stablecoins as an intermediate step to crypto adoption, asserting that fiat-dominated tokens solve the problem for individuals and merchants who are interested in delving into crypto but need their expenses covered using fiat.
He was then asked about the plans of Binance for its Blockchain Research Institute it recently launched in Shanghai, CZ stated that the institute will set its focus on exploring applications for distributed ledger technologies (DLT) along with China’s central government.
He said:
“There’s a very big push by Chinese government agencies to all learn about blockchain. They are very smart in the sense that they said ‘Well if we’re going to understand this thing let’s understand it, let’s not be outsiders trying to regulate an expert area.”
CZ added that,
“We are working closely with the governments there and they are very receptive. We want to be influential in that process.”