Dear Binance users:

On the occasion of Binance’s sixth anniversary, let’s take this opportunity to look back at the past, share our stories, and look forward to the future. Today, Binance is already a platform that provides financial services to more than 140 million users around the world, and may welcome billions of new users in the future. And all of this was just a dream at first.

Here, I would like to share with you some of the important moments that have had the most profound impact on me during this journey:

The road is cluttered and it is difficult to start a business

Six years ago, with your support, Binance raised crypto assets equivalent to US$15 million and began to build a cryptocurrency trading platform. Two weeks later (that is, six years ago today), the Binance exchange platform was born, with a total of 5 tokens listed and 2 service languages ​​available. At that time, our customer service team was borrowed from my friend's company, and we did not have our own marketing team.

Today, Binance has listed more than 600 tokens, provides more than 40 service languages, and has a customer service team of thousands of people. Now, BNB Chain provides support from decentralized trading platforms to various storage applications.

Two months after Binance was founded, we encountered a severe test. On September 4, 2017, the mainland Chinese government issued a ban on crypto-asset trading platforms and ICOs. Chinese ICO projects have had to return funds to investors.

As soon as the ban came out, the prices of many ICO tokens plummeted. Several projects listed on Binance even fell below the issue price, and the project team did not have enough funds to repay investors.

After our team did the math, they gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to use Binance’s own funds to compensate these investors. The total amount was $6 million, which was definitely not a small amount at the time, but we all agreed to do it. The call lasted only five minutes, and I was on a moving train. Within minutes, we made the announcement (link1, link2).

At that time, US$6 million accounted for more than 40% of our total funds. In terms of proportion, it was the largest expenditure in the history of Binance. At that time, we were only a start-up that had been established for two months and had not yet achieved profitability. We were still burning money on recruitment, purchasing servers, etc.

But at that time my only thought was: protect users.​

Sure enough, as long as you do the right thing, the world will give you positive feedback. Our decision received strong positive feedback from the global crypto asset community, with many new users coming to us. A month later, we had 120,000 users and started to make a profit.

And we've remained profitable ever since.

At the same time, we continued to build and the number of users continued to grow. On December 18, 2017, I received congratulatory text messages from many friends. It took me a few minutes to realize: on that day, Binance became the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, a position we still hold today.

However, Binance’s growth has not been smooth sailing. Just days later, a potential venture capital firm filed a lawsuit against us. The lawsuit lasted several years and we ultimately won a comprehensive victory. Many Internet start-ups with relatively large capital flows may not be able to survive a lengthy lawsuit like this, but fortunately, thanks to cryptoassets, we have established a sustainable business model. A few years after the lawsuit ended, at our invitation, this potential investment institution also became a limited partner of Binance Labs’ second fund. I am happy to say that we still maintain a good relationship with them and most of the problems can be solved.

But this lawsuit also brought side effects to Binance, making it unable to accept investment from VCs. As a start-up, our risk is increased, but it may help us in the long run. We were able to maintain a flexible, independent operation.​

Changing regulatory environment

In 2019, I had a meeting with Asian-level regulatory agencies, and they made it clear that they would not regulate crypto assets.

Even today, the definition of asset classes for crypto assets is still unclear in most countries; but since 2019, there have been many news reports that regulatory agencies are increasingly paying attention to crypto assets.

In April 2019, BitFinex came under scrutiny. I myself also established Binance.US in full compliance with regulatory procedures to serve the US market. Today, Binance.US has obtained U.S. MTL licenses (Money Transmitter Licenses) in 43 states.​

Our operations around the world have proven that compliance and innovation can go hand in hand. We are proud to have obtained relevant licenses and registrations in 17 countries around the world, which also demonstrates our support for supervision and our extensive efforts in the field of compliance supervision. We believe that rules and regulations, especially those dedicated to protecting users and encouraging innovation, are extremely important to the long-term development of the industry.

With these rules and regulations in place, a robust, safe and reliable crypto-asset industry can be built. Not only are we open to this, we are eager to work with policymakers to shape the future of cryptoassets.

first cold winter

In January 2018, we hit a new high in registered users (240,000 users signed up in one hour). A few months later, the market began to decline, reaching the lowest point in the market in January 2019, with the price of Bitcoin at approximately US$3,000 (it had previously reached a historical high of US$20,000).

Undeterred, Binance continues to build. In January 2019, Binance Launchpad was launched and has been operating ever since.

It is this cold winter that makes us realize how important prudent financial management is. This experience helped us save enough cash (crypto assets) in the 2021 bull market, allowing us to survive the 2022 bear market again.

The second cold winter

A few years later, we experienced a second crypto asset winter in 2022, this time more volatile than 2018. But what’s interesting is that Binance has barely been affected by several “catastrophic” events in 2022.​

In 2018, Binance invested in Terra but has not actively managed the investment. When Terra started to have problems in 2022, the team asked me if I wanted to sell its tokens. I said, "Don't sell, we will continue to hold."​

In this way, we witnessed that the initial investment of US$3 million in 2018 turned into US$1.6 billion when Terra’s price peaked in 2021, and then fell to almost US$0 in 2022. And to this day, the LUNA (now LUNC) tokens we received are still stored at our original receiving address and have never been transferred or sold.

Binance has no exposure to 3AC (Three Arrows), and there is no lending or business relationship between us. They have an account on Binance, but their main trading is on FTX.

Binance invested in FTX at an early stage and exited completely early on. That was a year and a half before FTX collapsed and before they made high-profile political donations. After FTX collapsed, we also tried to lend a helping hand.

We signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to do due diligence but quickly found out we couldn't proceed with the deal, and that's the extent of our involvement (non-involvement) in the matter. I believe that FTX must have undergone a detailed investigation after its bankruptcy. It is obvious that Binance has nothing to do with FTX, otherwise Binance will make a lot of headlines.

But even so, some regulatory agencies or media always want to combine Binance and FTX. To this, all I can say is: we are different. Just like not every investment firm on Wall Street is Madoff.

Binance also has no investment or involvement in Genesis and Celsius. Binance.US (which is independent from Binance.com) put up a $10 million deposit to try to help Voyager, but was eventually forced to withdraw from the bidding and did not get the $10 million back.

2023 to present

In 2023, we see that the market is recovering, but at the same time industry regulations are becoming increasingly strict. Based on everything that happens in 2022, this is not a surprise. When regulators target the crypto-asset industry, Binance is the first to bear the brunt because we are the largest. So it is also our responsibility to lead by example and work with regulators around the world to move the industry forward.

I want to emphasize again that the future will not be smooth sailing, but we will always put the interests of our users first. We will continue to cooperate with regulators. In order to continue to protect users and fight for the rights and interests of the industry, we will also defend what we think is right, even in court.​

Looking to the future

I think there are several major trends in the future.​

Traditional finance (TradFi) such as BlackRock, Citadel, and Fidelity have entered the crypto market in a big way, which also confirms the development prospects of this technology and industry. They will gradually promote the popularization of crypto assets in the institutional market. Since institutional investors occupy the majority of the stock market, even if only a few percent of the tens of billions of dollars are converted into crypto-assets, it will expand the current size of the crypto-asset market several times.

The development of DeFi will continue to accelerate. Newer wallet technology will make it easier for users to hold crypto assets on their own. More and more people will use DeFi products to interact directly on different blockchains. This also provides access to financial markets for people who do not have access to traditional financial (or banking) services. I firmly believe that in the next six years or so, the market size of DeFi will definitely exceed CeFi.​

Regulation will become clearer and clearer, and more and more trading platforms will be regulated. Although there is still a lot of uncertainty, many countries will provide clearer guidance for the crypto market at a faster pace. There is no doubt that those countries that can do this first will enjoy huge advantages that will last for centuries. We are at a critical moment in history.

Users first

Before we decided to start Binance, we already knew that we were going to take a path that no one had gone before. But what we didn’t expect was that the community would have such a powerful force, accompanying us as we grew, and shaping and supporting every one of our attempts and efforts. You – Binance users – have been Binance’s most steadfast force from beginning to end, helping us continue to grow.

Every success and every milestone we achieve today would not be possible without your commitment and dedication. Binance is more than just our company, it’s a vibrant, resilient community committed to its mission of making money flow freely.

Our journey begins with and continues to be inspired by our users. Every product and service we release and every innovation we launch are user-centered. Your trust in us fills us with a sense of responsibility, which guides us to break stereotypes and shape new industry standards.

We are symbiotic with our users. Real feedback from users guides us, pushes us in the right direction, and makes Binance what it is today. More than anything else, it is your passion and unremitting pursuit of a better encryption ecosystem that drives us to strive for excellence.

I am forever grateful to have walked this journey with you. You are the heart and soul of Binance now and in the future.

CZ