CEO AMA with Leigh, October 14: The Highlights
All bullet points are quotes from Leigh. His quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: Leigh’s thoughts on the local crypto market, his perspective of the global crypto market.
Australian crypto projects are now at the top tier, whether that's in the DeFi space or some of the talent coming through in the gaming markets through globally leading NFT projects. There are some really interesting products coming through from Australia. I see the market here in Australia has about 1 million unique users at this point. If we look at the equity market here in Australia, that's about 10 million, so that is a 10x growth opportunity for anyone who is involved in this market and indeed for Binance Australia too.
Our number one priority here at Binance Australia is to grow this market sustainably and make sure that there’s a much larger marketplace for all of us, and certainly, we are playing the long game.
To summarise, I think we are still at a very high growth phase. Australia has really jumped up the position ladder globally in terms of being a market where there’s great talent, growing interest and a high-quality environment for operating, and it’s only going to continue. We aren’t quite there yet from an institutional perspective though.
Q: Where does the Australian crypto market stand globally, the current market size, and how does it compare to the global market?
Binance Australia has around 600,000 active users at the moment, and we’re growing at nearly 10% month on month. It is fantastic to see this growth coming from the rapid adoption of digital assets out of Australia.
One of the areas we would like to focus on is building a self-managed super fund marketplace which we have not scratched the surface of yet. The 600,000 self-managed super funds have created an A$800 billion dollar market. This is clearly something we want to look at so that we can help this market receive their digital asset exposure through the most liquid and lowest cost digital asset exchange in Australia.
I think the market size could rise to 10 million in Australia. Right now, globally we’re probably at around 100 million. Based on seeing some of the initiatives coming through from regions like El Salvador and seeing some of the growth there, it’s just going to put an absolute rocket up of those global numbers.
Q: Areas of improvement for the Binance Australia platform. What is your opinion on the progress made so far this year?
Massive improvement needs to happen in our current corporate onboarding process. This is something we’re going to be applying resources to in the short term. We will have a division head for the corporate business and providing a seamless onboarding process is part of the mandate. We won’t just focus on relationship management; it’s also about improving our product and ensuring we are leading the way here in Australia. Another significant factor is enabling users’ access to their transaction history documentation in the most efficient manner possible and in a way that is consistent with reports from traditional platforms.
Another area I would like to continue to improve upon is the educational effort. I know there has been a ton of effort on the masterclasses, but I am looking to double down on those efforts. In my first month, I had my guest lecture at the University of Western Australia. We have had presentations to local VCs and other community-led education engagements around some of the recent listings in Australia. It starts from the grassroots level, all the way to engaging with regulators on the education side and that is really where we want to place some additional focus.
Binance Australia has come a long way this year, working with vendors to make users’ experience on the platform as seamless as possible. The liquidity and spread on the platform are absolutely extraordinary. Binance Australia is leading the way at the forefront and certainly what attracted me to the position.
Q: Can you share some of your thoughts on the recent KYC verification changes, share the background of compliance efforts?
I think compliance is probably the most significant area Binance had to focus on, that’s coming from CZ all the way down to local platforms like Binance Australia. We have this market-leading technology platform and are continually improving our compliance measures.
Verifying your account is going to enable a much better experience, you are going to have a much better response time and you’ll have a much more secure account. We have Binance Australia users trusting us with a significant value, and our priority is to make sure the platform is as secure as possible and one of the ways to stay secure is verifying your account as deep as you can.
Make sure you have set up two-factor authentication, have a look at where you have got whitelisted IP, whitelisted withdrawal address, and you can make it as secure as using other products like an offline wallet. Unequivocally, the platform and the wallet management have the highest levels of security.
Q: What are your views on the role that we play as an exchange in educating the community and our users? What plans do you have in the future around education?
Education is one of the fundamental values we have at Binance Australia. Being on our mission of giving people total financial freedom; enabling users' freedom to access alternative digital products and educating them on how to restore ownership to their own money and regain control of that.
Before providing our customers access to these products, we want to make sure they have an understanding of the products which they are looking to use, how to access the products, how to secure their account and what are the potential opportunities associated with using these digital products.
It is a credit to Binance Australia and the Binance team for hosting the masterclasses and having the Binance Academy. There is tons of education going to universities, and there’s a ton of investments going into startups, making sure that funding goes to the sector at the grassroots level. Binance Angels is another key area where Binance Australia can stand out and contribute back to the community.
Another area we want to be giving back on is growing the entire market size, so we will put some money into some of these channels and platforms that non-crypto users are on. We need to make it explainable in an easy way for new users to understand the biggest platform through Australia’s networks. That's probably going to be something we have got in the back pocket and can hope to execute next year.
Q: What are your ambitions for Binance Australia? What are the key priorities you have as our CEO?
Team values (Hardcore, Freedom, Integrity, Collaboration)
It's just staggering how aligned this team is on growing this digital asset market. The team here works 24/7 effectively. There was a period of time over six weeks, everyone had worked seven days a week. We have a hardcore team. As a team, we are here to create bulletproof products and be a magnet for people who work hard, want to grow and make life’s work to help others escape those clutches of antiquated institutions.
In terms of freedom, we are committed to giving people total financial freedom.
Integrity is another core value we are focused on here. The team strongly understands that there is a real value at play. We know what we’re doing here matters. And we will continue to prioritise credibility and trust within our community as it is the key to our success.
We are collaborating as a flat team that is dedicated to the mission. We are highly aligned on this. That’s the number one thing that has come out so far with working with the team, and working together really comes naturally. Collaboration also means we will be working with regulators, government and institutions so that we can protect users and accelerate the uptake towards the digital economy.
Looking at these values and how they apply to what we want to do at Binance Australia, strengthens those ties with industry, customers and regulators so that the market is here for the long term. We are playing the long game.
ESG report entity
Another commitment is I want to make Binance Australia an ESG reporting entity. One of the critical issues we’ve faced as an industry is extensive negative coverage and commentary. For example, carbon emissions, or that there are nefarious actors coming in etc. It couldn't be farther from the truth in terms of the positive impact that the players in this sector want to have from a social and community perspective. This is really something that frustrates me and I want to address it.
On the social side, we really want to contribute back to the Australian community.
From a governance point of view, our customers trust us to manage significant value. What's important to them is also important to us as a User-Focused platform. Bringing in the governance frameworks that I’ve got a great deal of understanding coming from a public company and a five-year directorship on Australia’s industry body. By improving the level of governance it’s going to give our stakeholders a good deal of understanding of how much we respect the opportunity our users have given us and how we want to manage that going forward - making us an ESG reporting entity.
Q: What are the upcoming plans and any recent updates to share from Binance Australia?
The number one rule is “You’ve got to give people what they want''. Community is built up to give you a great opportunity to hear what your customer wants and bring that to life. The number one product that our users want is a debit card. They want to be able to have more utility for their crypto - paying bills, going to a merchant, using a debit card with crypto value and spending it in their day-to-day life. We are actively engaging with the global team to bring that to Australia as quickly as possible but under the right licensing framework.
I really want to see Binance Australia and crypto up in the lights on the biggest platform and networks in Australia next year.
Q: What does Leigh envision Australia's crypto regulatory landscape to be in a year from now?
Over the upcoming years, there's going to be some relatively significant changes coming in the industry on the back of the Senate enquiry for the Select Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre. There’s been a ton of engagement and government regulators have been quite open to having discussions around what are the challenges with the digital asset industry. This is definitely a focus for regulators, we’re fortunate to have a couple of senators that have made it a significant part of their work this year to engage with the marketplace and industry bodies.
I do have a few ideas on how that could look and certainly, we’re putting some plans in place so that when I assume the regulation will come through for next year, we are in a really, really good position. For Leigh’s opinion on the new digital asset industry regulation recommendations, see here
Q: Will Binance Australia introduce any functionality to Simplify Tax Returns for customers?
Absolutely, that is something we are working on. I was talking to our CTO today and we were looking at products from other platforms in the marketplace globally, making some recommendations and seeing what could work from a customer download transaction history level to a professional service and audited certified tax report, we were also looking at how API data could be pulled and make it as fast and efficient as possible. This is what customers want and that's what we are going to deliver.
Q: Is Binance Australia hiring? If so, what positions are open at Binance Australia?
We’re a growing company so we are definitely in a hiring phase. We are currently hiring in compliance, corporate development, marketing & media and development. We have recently made a number of hires and we want to continue to grow. If you are interested in an opportunity at Binance Australia, I encourage you to reach out with a resume and area of interest you have.
Q: Do you think Stablecoins and Cryptocurrency should be regulated in Australia? Will regulations stifle public blockchain innovation for commercial applications?
I think the number one thing in business is around representation so if Stablecoins are representing that they are 100% backed with capital sitting in the bank account then that should be looked at by regulators to make sure it's there. If it’s not there, there should be significant penalties for misrepresenting because a core component of operating a business in Australia needs to be customer protection against misrepresentation.
Q: Does Binance Australia have much institutional and corporate interest from or within Australia?
We have seen major engagement with our users and we have done a survey where users have expressed a ton of interest saying they would like to have crypto as a utility and there are merchants wanting to receive crypto. This is definitely something I want to focus on and I would say going forward corporate onboarding and corporate relationship management is something we want to bring on.
To rewatch the CEO AMA with Leigh, please visit the Binance Australia YouTube Channel for the full interview.
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