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Original title: Binance Moved Fast, Broke Things-and Paid the Price: Richard Teng Is Cleaning Up
Written by Joel Khalili, Wired
Compiled by: Ismay, BlockBeats
Richard Teng does not want to be compared to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. He said that he wanted to follow his own path rather than fill someone else’s vacancy.
In November 2023, Teng took over as CEO of Binance after Zhao Changpeng (known in the industry as CZ) pleaded guilty. CZ pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering regulations and U.S. sanctions. The plea was part of a comprehensive settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, ending years of speculation about Binance’s potential criminal offense. CZ was subsequently sentenced to four months in federal prison and has served his sentence.
CZ founded Binance in 2017 and is a legendary figure in the crypto industry, known for its confident speech and active style on social media. Teng, on the other hand, is gentle, easy-going, and has a relaxing smile. According to people familiar with the matter, he was deeply recognized by Binance employees when he took office.
Teng, who has served as a regulatory official in Singapore and United Arab Emirates, is now working to transform Binance from a rules-circumvented “challenger” with an opaque corporate structure and no global headquarters into a more transparent, compliant company. He said Binance currently has more regulatory licenses in multiple countries around the world than any competitor. In March this year, Binance established its first board of directors, composed mainly of company executives.
Under Teng’s leadership, strong growth in the crypto market has also boosted Binance’s development, with its user base growing from approximately 170 million to approximately 240 million. Teng said that nearly 30% of these users registered in 2024. Despite a legal dispute with the U.S. Department of Justice, Binance remains firmly on the throne of the world’s largest crypto trading platform.
However, while Teng is planning a new route for Binance, CZ’s influence still lingers. Under a settlement agreement with the Justice Department, CZ was unable to directly manage Binance, but at the end of January this year, he joined venture capital firm Binance Labs as an adviser, which was recently renamed YZi Labs.
Ella Zhang, head of YZi Labs, insisted that since its establishment in 2018, the agency has been operationally independent of Binance, contrary to what some reports have claimed. But she also said the agency’s funding “comes mainly from the personal assets of Binance’s founders.” At the same time, as Binance’s largest shareholder, CZ still has influence over the company’s major decisions, which may limit Teng’s room for reform.
In January this year, Teng was interviewed by WIRED during the CfC St. Moritz conference in Switzerland. The following is a compilation of the interview content to ensure brevity and clarity.
WIRED: CZ has served his sentence and he remains Binance’s largest shareholder. Do you keep in regular contact with him? What will his role at Binance look like in the future?
Richard Teng：My senior management team and I both report to the board, and CZ is not on the board and I do not maintain regular communication with him.
However, he is Binance’s largest shareholder and still enjoys shareholder rights. Even in large publicly traded companies around the world, shareholders have the right to vote on the direction of the company’s development.
WIRED: But when the company’s founder-a person almost equated with Binance-is still the largest shareholder, do you think it will become difficult to push Binance into a new era?
Richard Teng：Our goal is very clear, that is, to build a world-leading and top-level platform for sustainable development. In this regard, I work closely with the senior management team and the board of directors.
WIRED: How do you want the outside world to view the difference between the CZ era and the Richard Teng era?
Richard Teng：CZ founded Binance in 2017 in a completely different industry environment-institutions had not yet set foot in the field and there were few regulations and regulatory requirements in the market. The environment at that time was vastly different from the present.
And after I took over, we had to adapt the company to a new industry environment-an environment that required greater compliance and the regulatory system was gradually clarifying, despite still issues of inconsistency and lack of coordination between jurisdictions.
We have invested a lot of resources in the compliance system. Currently, Binance has become one of the most well-regulated trading platforms in the world, with regulatory licenses from 21 different countries or regions. This is our future development direction.
WIRED: What specific measures have you taken to ensure Binance does not repeat the same mistakes and avoid a recurrence of the problems that led to CZ serving his sentence in the past?
Richard Teng: Last year, we held nearly 100 training courses and seminars covering investigative techniques for law enforcement agencies around the world. Encryption technology is inherently traceable, and we want to emphasize how to use this feature to deter, detect and prevent the behavior of criminals.
We hope to work closely with competitors and law enforcement agencies around the world to ensure the sustainable development of the industry and jointly curb illegal financial crimes.
WIRED: Under the settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Binance needs to be supervised by an external agency. From a practical perspective, what does this mean?
Richard Teng：We currently have two external regulatory teams: one appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the other appointed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). We work closely with both teams.
Our goal is consistent-to ensure continued investment and strengthen our compliance system. If we have any unseen blind spots, the compliance team will help. They review our compliance process, request data, and make recommendations on areas that need improvement.
To me, this is very valuable. This is not just our self-recognition, but verification through an independent external perspective that we are indeed moving in the right direction.
WIRED: In the past, Binance has positioned itself as a global company with no headquarters. How has this situation changed under your leadership?
Richard Teng：This is an issue of great concern to us. As Binance is regulated globally, the two most basic requirements for regulators are the establishment of a board of directors-we have appointed members-and the establishment of a global headquarters.
We are having in-depth discussions on the location of the global headquarters, which itself is a complex decision-making process that needs to consider multiple factors, such as whether we can establish a talent base in the country, whether the country’s regulatory framework is appropriate, etc. Currently, we are in in-depth communication with multiple jurisdictions.
WIRED: What is Binance’s strategy in the United States after the new Trump administration comes to power?
Richard Teng：The U.S. market is not our focus right now. Whether it will be reconsidered in the future depends on how the local regulatory environment develops. Our current strategy is to focus our efforts on markets with huge growth potential around the world.
However, 2024 is indeed a milestone year. The United States approved the Bitcoin ETF, and subsequently many other jurisdictions followed suit. This change has turned institutional investors from suspicion to trust, and many previously wait-and-see institutions-including family offices, foundations, endowments, etc. -have begun to allocate crypto assets.
We believe that this trend will continue to heat up in 2025, especially after the United States welcomes a pro-cryptocurrency president.
WIRED: What does having a government that supports cryptocurrencies in the United States mean for the entire crypto industry?
Richard Teng：The crypto industry has long struggled for legitimacy in the hope of obtaining clear rules and regulatory frameworks. The influence of the United States on a global scale is extremely important.
Under the new administration, President Trump will appoint regulators who are very supportive of cryptocurrencies. His proposed discussion of establishing a strategic reserve for Bitcoin has changed the mindset of global sovereign wealth funds. Once the United States starts considering this move, many countries around the world will follow suit.
Policymakers will closely watch President Trump’s move to appoint a head of AI and cryptocurrency affairs. There must be deep-seated considerations behind this, and other countries will also consider whether to take similar measures.
What is good for the entire industry is also good for us.
WIRED: Are you in contact with David Sacks, head of AI and cryptocurrency affairs in the United States? How do you view his appointment?
Richard Teng：The content of our private meetings is always confidential.
To change the topic, I would like to talk about the challenges to the trading platform business model. Over the past year, ETFs have provided investors with an alternative way to enter the crypto market. At the same time, peer-to-peer trading platforms accounted for one-fifth of the market for the first time. How do you view these competitive pressures?
Richard Teng：We believe that the liquidity costs of obtaining exposure to crypto assets through ETFs are very high. ETFs can only be traded Monday to Friday, and market news is non-stop 24/7. From a hedging and risk management perspective, ETFs are not the most ideal tool. ETFs are only the first step for investors to enter the crypto market, not the final destination.
As the encryption market becomes more mainstream and institutionalized, we believe that both centralized trading platforms and decentralized trading platforms will continue to grow.
If we want to achieve the goal of one billion users, we must constantly introduce new product features. Last year, we launched Wallet and Binance Square, a social platform focused on the crypto space. Payments is also an important growth area-since we launched Binance Pay two years ago, our transaction volume has reached nearly US$26 billion.
In addition to transaction fees-the core source of revenue for trading platforms-we will continue to explore other opportunities that can help users deepen their crypto journey.
