Binance CEO Reveals Crypto Markets BIGGEST Risk in 2026

[00:00:00]Looking ahead, what do you think is the biggest single risk to crypto? Today, I sit down with Binance CEO Richard Tang.

[00:00:07]Binance is one of the most uh licensed crypto exchanges globally. So, there's no better person, Richard, to answer this next question than you about what's next for Bitcoin? What brings the buyers back in? What's next for Binance? What impact will do you think the Clarity Act will have on crypto? And then what impact what will it change for Binance?

[00:00:27]Such a great conversation. I think we are ready for uptake towards the second half of this year.

[00:00:32]>> Watch today's whole video so you understand everything.

[00:00:35]>> At this point in [music] time, we are still making every effort to work with the European regulators >> and let's start. If we were looking at the crypto market from a bird's eyee view, what do you think the headline for crypto would be in 2026?

[00:00:50]Well, I I I personally I think that 2026 is a year of consolidation, but we continue to see continued building within the crypto industry and it has gone quite mainstream right now. So, if you look at the financial infrastructure, there are so many applications going forward, there'll be big users of crypto blockchain technology, right? So, if you look at stable coin, if you look at the volume since the clarity act has come through, it has skyrocketed. If you look at real assets tokenization, another big use case. Again, we have seen very strong and robust growth. And you know, when New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ says they're going to put all the equities on chain, I think that's a big statement.

[00:01:33]And many financial institutions, whether it's banks that's going to experimenting at issuing their own stable coins are coming out with tokenized deposits or investment firms, they're going to tokenize all the different asset classes on their platform. I do think that those are very big testament, big statements they're making about the future of financial services. So I do think that 2026 is a very strong pivot year and we're going to see very strong growth going forward on that front.

[00:02:01]>> So stable coins since the genius act got passed. I think you said clarity.

[00:02:05]>> Sorry since the genius act.

[00:02:08]Yes. But for the clarity act, what impact will do you think the clarity act will have on crypto? And then what impact what will it change for Binance?

[00:02:17]>> Well, anytime where you cast clarity into any industry. I do think that it allows for builders to have much more certainty about the future and how can can they build. Uh just like when Genius Act got passed, right? So prior to that you see a lot of financial institutions sitting on the fence but once the genius act is being passed the banks are much more willing to embrace it. The corporate treasury say that look you have current the current infrastructure is a very arcade infrastructure that is decade old right so essentially most of the banks if you want to do a crossber transfer you're using a corresponding banking network you're using swift which is essentially a very arcade te telegram telegram network right so it's not the telegram that we are used to but usually messaging network from the past but once they then gravitate and move towards stable coins. They realized that you can transfer funds internationally and get it to whoever that you want to get to, whether it's your affiliates, your subsidiaries, your vendors, uh almost at an instant at a fraction of the price of what traditional financial banks and institutions charge, right? So, which is why if you look at the volume of stable coin, it has then moved up very very strongly, surpassing many of the big payment providers globally now. So that itself is a very very strong statement that once you provide clarity [clears throat] into asset class a lot of people are willing to make longerterm investments and deploy on a much more aggressive basis given those clarity and I I do believe the clarity act will do the same right so and US is such a you know economic powerhouse that the rest of the other countries will be forced to sit up take notice just When Genius Act was passed, a lot of countries around the world then started to embrace introduce their own stable coin provisions and licensing provisions and you see all those filter through to the rest of the world. So with clarity act I do believe that also will have a lot of spillover effect throughout the rest of the world because the rest are forced to take stock to say hey how do I maintain my competitive edge and advantage visa v the US that is such a big marketplace right the largest GDP in the world you know have so much competitive advantage in so many different areas how do I make sure I don't fall behind so all those impetus will come true >> so Binance is the biggest crypto exchange globally. But if slash when the clarity act does get passed, will this do you have plans to take a more significant uh step into America or how's that change?

[00:05:06]>> Well, all those things who are we are always keeping it under review and consideration. Well, today actually we have moved beyond crypto, right? So, a lot of people know us and when we first started off nine years ago, we just celebrated our 9 year anniversary two days ago. We started off as a crypto exchange and we've done extremely well as a crypto exchange but since the beginning of this year we have introduced uh traditional financial products. We have introduced things like commodities trading of gold, silver, copper, the different precious metals then petrochemicals and we started to then introduce ex allow people to make to invest into US stocks and then preipo SpaceX. Um so and and that has taken off in an extremely extremely big way right so we are very grateful for our users we started off in 2017 July at at that point in time there's only about 6 million people around the world with exposure to crypto today it stands about 740 million about half of them are Binance users so we have 320 plus million users and that's growing quickly but you know our story line goes way beyond that. So we are you know pushing our agenda towards a financial support app. Today we have 300 million users that's grown very quickly but our expiration is really to reach three billion users globally on that front right. So just to give you some some figures and some data since we introduced traditional finance products right today fivey product trade life perpetual trading each month exit 80 billion right uh if you look at direct stocks that we introduced like within 30 days of the launch we traded three billion in cumulative trading volume has reached 1 billion in aum on that front um and you know many of these continue to increase very robustly In June alone, actually our traditional finance equity market share in perpetuals has reached closer to 80%.

[00:07:14]Right? So that just showed the dominance and the popularity and a lot of users that come to us to trade all these products didn't have access to these products because there's a lot of structural challenges in many parts of the world and they traditionally have no access to many of these US counters or preipo counters for that matter.

[00:07:34]So they come to us and 80% of the trading volume actually emerge from emerging markets very interestingly right and 40% of the volume are around $100 or less US dollars and people can get access to to US products for as little as $5 on our platform. So we are really formulating and pushing forward very aggressively a financial super app that allow the best of what you see in Trefy the best of what you see in CFI as well as D5 to come together on that front.

[00:08:07]>> Yeah, Binance turns 9 years old. Big happy birthday. Um it is you know one of the largest is the largest exchange and I know you guys have been dominating uh getting the licenses across a lot of Asia uh global reach. Altcoin Daily speaks to a global audience. Um so as crypto gets more institutionalized maybe in a 10-year time horizon. How do you uh how do you speak to and and do good with the institutional clients as well as regular retail clients? How do you think about it in a 10-year time horizon?

[00:08:42]>> So, you know, I started in 27 at 2017, right? At that point in time, and you know this much better than me, it was predominantly for the longest time, crypto was a retail play, right? Because the institutions, the corporate holders were sitting on the fence. The regulators were not spending time to formulate regulatory framework to regulate this particular sector. And I was an ex-regulator.

[00:09:06]And after I got to know crypto, I always believe that it's going to be the future of finance. But for it to go mainstream, there are two elements that need to come into play. Firstly, regulatory clarity and then secondly, institutional adoption, right? It's only with these two elements that you know your early adopters will come through quite quickly. You the first three five% will come through. But for the percentage after that right for the mass adoption to take place you need these two elements. Firstly regulatory clarity so that people feel much more willing and have the trust and confidence to deploy into this sector. Secondly with institution adoption then you have different classes different types of investors with different investment horizon appetite duration holding power etc. And that makes for a much more vibrant and mature marketplace. Right?

[00:10:03]And we are seeing these two elements coming into play. Right? So I mentioned you know today we have more than 223 million customers. This year alone in terms of onboarding we see more institutions being onboarded than you know the norm. So in terms of institutional onboarding that increased by 9% in terms of new users we increase by a total of 7% for a year to date.

[00:10:26]Right? So you can see the institutions the smart money continue to invest quite heavily into this space. ET ETF holdings today for BTC is around 12%. And that will continue to increase in my view. So if you look at the 10-year horizon with all the different use cases and utility that I mentioned. So if you look at stable coin, I believe the demand will continue to surge. Um the the use cases are very strong. The corporate treasure, the big corporate treasuries around the world today once they got to know stable coin and they start to make use of stable coin is so much more effective and efficient that from a capital efficiency velocity standpoint most of the big corporates around the world don't have to hold so much capital if they use stable coin for transfer on a global basis right and that is substantial savings for many corporate treasuries so those will come continue continue come true when the likes of NASDAQ New York Stock Exchange and many of the financial institutions put assets on chain, the type of products that can be traded on chain will continue to grow exponentially and it only makes sense, right? So once you put an asset on chain, it started to trade on a 247 basis, right? So NASDAQ and NIS, I think in the first instance, they're moving to 5day trading about 21 to 23 hours depending. But you know on our platform we already allow for 24/7 trading for US stocks by V stocks etc where you can at the touch of a pressing a button you can convert the US stocks into onchain products right for for different purposes. So all those are available and sophisticated investors, institutional investors, corporate investors and even retail they understand that it's very important to have 247 control because market move on a 24/7 basis. Right? One of the biggest liquidity risks for any investors is not being able to hedge their risk, take new positions when new continue venues continue to evolve.

[00:12:32]Whether is you know uh unrest, tensions or new developments, innovation coming out in new area, they need to take positions and hedge that position. And going forward, you're going to see agentic trading being a very big part of trading in total. So 24 trading which has already been facilitated by crypto and blockchain will be a big part of that global landscape. So 10 years out I do believe that crypto blockchain is going to be important part of the global financial infrastructure and probably by that time people won't distinguish uh crypto or blockchain because almost everything might be built on blockchain and AI by then true tradfi and cryptofi are are converging faster this year than we've ever seen. when you say when I and I hear this from many notable people onchain rwas tokenization uh stable coins we're seeing tradi converge on those narratives get real world use case on those narratives today I see that primarily happening on let's say the three big ones Ethereum Solana B&B um what is the benefit why why will we continue to see the growth in BNB what's the differentiator >> well you see so many builders and exciting products continue to be built and launched on BMBB. Um you know recently BMBB has also introduced supporting AI trading uh using very fast speed uh layer one. So BB continue to innovate on that front. So I mean I am not involved in that but looking at the PMB development I continue to be very bullish and optimistic about the the development on that front. So but I think what's important is continue to build products that user want to use and corporates want to be building them on right so I think those are some of the key strength of any infrastructure any chain so based on that based on the things that I'm looking at the new developments the new utility that's being built I'm optimistic >> Richard going back to regulation and getting uh the the regulation around the world a clip that went viral with you that I recently saw was after you guys pulled out a Micah um you said that your European users the majority of them went to self-custody can you explain the significance of that >> well so it is very interesting data point for us as well so maybe just to explain you know uh Mike uh you know we have submitted a compliant application we told that the application was compliant and we are going to be approved but you know until the 11 and a half our you know something changed and you know the approval keeps being delayed and so we feel it's our responsibility to withdraw uh the application from Greece well we're still very committed to Europe right so we are not withdrawing from Europe we're still looking at our pathway uh in terms of getting regulated under Mica so I think that's something that I wanted to stress right we are very supportive of the licensing regime we do want to serve the European customers uh Europe itself as a continent for us you know is not mission critical but you know we want to be supportive of of regul regulators and regulations so coming to the command and that well so it's a very interesting data point that we saw 70% of the European users that withdraw funds from us following our EU service suspension uh went to self-custodized self-hosted wallets right and 30% got transferred to my car regulated platform. So my I mean I'm an ex-regulator of Austin as you know and I explain to the regulators right. So when my car was introduced there are certain regulatory objective right it appears that those regulatory objectives are not being met right uh by not approving Binance because if you think about it we are so big in terms of global liquidity.

[00:16:41]So if you talk about the institutions, the corporates, they can always set up a platform elsewhere to tap the global liquidity which is very important for them because it results in substantial cost savings when the beta spread is the narrowest and the liquidity is the you know the best right any traders will know that any traders they're trading in any product classes whether it's commodities or equities will know that and big corporates big institutions big family offices have the wherewithal to set those up. But it's the retail that's going to be jeopardized over time in terms of their interest because they're going to consistently pay higher fees.

[00:17:19]The beta spread is going to be wider. So they're going to pay more compared to customers anywhere else in the world on that front. So it is an interesting trend that we saw. Um we are at this point in time we are still making every effort to work with the European regulators on our pathway to being licensed in Mica and hopefully everybody's interest can be served and is a win-win proposition uh with us being able to serve uh EU and allowing users the best execution that they deserve and the at the lowest price point that they deserve. Right? So we're looking forward to that. But you know we remain committed to our users. We want to make sure that their assets are fully protected. Their interests are always safeguarded with us. So those are things that we continue to look at. Right? So that's on the micro front. But we continue to push forth on the regulatory front in many different parts of the world. In fact, by now we are the most regulated entity globally. So if you think about it, we are the only global exchange for people that understand this concept. We are the only global exchange with a home regulator. People in the traditional finance space will knows this because normally you have a home regulator and you have many host regulators around the world where you have smaller operations. So we are the only one with a home regulator that regulate us on an end to end basis from our listing process to our wallet custody to how we manage our customers um in in terms of even things like AML how we do onboarding of customers transaction monitoring market surveillance so the entire process right so u so we are very that took a long time for us to to get it took us about one and a half years of a lot of walked through a lot of explanation providing insights to our home regulator which is the financial services regulatory authority at ADGM on that front and by now we are regulated in many parts of the world different parts of Asia, Middle East, Latin America, Africa and so on. So we'll continue with our global footprint and we continue to push forth with new licensing. Recently uh we introduced products in Philippines with our partnership with block shows which is an extremely big market and very exciting market for us. So we continue to announce new license as and when we secure that.

[00:19:49]>> Yeah, Binance is one of the most uh licensed crypto exchanges globally. So there's no better person Richard to answer this next question than you. If you had a magic wand and you could instantly get global crypto regulation on on a global level, what would be three of the most important components for that regulation?

[00:20:11]Well, um I do think that you need firstly proper harmonization because for a global firm like ourselves, every time we we want to localize and be licensed in a local jurisdiction, it is challenging in a sense there are no global standards. In the banking world, you have harmonization of standards through Basel standards, right? In the security space and equity space you have ISO standards right that govern and it's pretty similar right so whether it's asset management uh securities on that front derivatives on that front but crypto is challenging because there's no harmonization harmonized standards so one standard in one country is very different from the others that makes global deployment very challenging so we have to tweak our operations uh tweak our wallet management etc every time we are deployed in a new jurisdiction including you know the standards that we have to comply on the compliance side of things. So that is definitely one.

[00:21:13]Secondly, the other thing that I wish to tweak is the mindset of regulators right because most of the regulators are most of them are trained in traditional financial products. So they do not understand blockchain and crypto so well. There's a misperception that this is an instrument that's used uh based on perception that's used for money laundering. That couldn't be furthest from the truth because crypto blockchain is a traceable technology. I can assure you if you have 100 million in in fiat and cash now you can distribute them and you can't quite trace where they go to. But if 100 million onchain and you try you try to distribute them I can tell you we can always trace where they go to right. So but many of the regulators around the world they are not equipped uh they are not trained in that they do not understand it enough. Uh I think that's there's a knowledge gap that we need to close on that front. So I think that's the other thing that we need to bring global regulators up to speed about the technology and how you can make use of it to make sure that regulatory objectives are being complied with. I think that that's the second dimension.

[00:22:26]And thirdly is responsible entities like oursel and regulators. Our interests are aligned. We are always there to protect users right we don't stand shy of protecting users. In fact, on the Binance front, we introduce many global protection that regulators don't prescribe, right? So, if you think about it, we are the first one to introduce our Safu fund, safe asset for user fund that stand at $1 billion today, right?

[00:22:53]So, you know, none of the regulators prescribe that, but we say that look, this is something that we want to give our users in the unto us event that there's a security episode on our platform. It stands ready to to compensate users, right? So that's our commitment to our user. Another thing that regulators don't prescribe is proof of reserve. We want to demonstrate to the to the regulators that all the assets of users are held on a one-toone basis can be traced is there.

[00:23:25]Traditional financial institutions can't show you that and many of the crypto exchange don't show users that we do.

[00:23:32]But this is something that regulators don't prescribe. Right? So a lot of times we go beyond the call of duty uh because we have much greater and much more sophisticated knowledge than regulators and we do all these things but regulators are still not there in terms of understanding the industry.

[00:23:48]Right? So so these are the three things that I I'll try to do.

[00:23:53]>> So it was mindset protection and what was the third one?

[00:23:58]>> Knowledge >> and and knowledge and knowledge. Yeah.

[00:24:02]>> Yeah. And that's true. Binance does do a lot of things that, you know, no regulator specifically prescribed. But in terms of safety of the users, you know, obviously that's one of the most important things. I want to transition.

[00:24:14]Uh Richard, looking ahead, looking ahead, what do you think is the biggest single risk to crypto? Because it seems like it's inevitable. Adoption is happening. What do you think the biggest risk is?

[00:24:28]>> Wow, that's a tough one. Uh, a lot of people say quin could be one of the big risks. I actually think that crypto will continue to evolve and I I mean coin will be a risk but I don't think it's going to be a big risk. I actually think that one of the biggest risks is regulators refusing to change the mindset and putting in place many unfair treatment that is not being imposed on traditional financial institutions but imposed on the crypto industry. Right?

[00:25:03]Uh because then you're not competing on a level playing field uh with traditional financial institutions. If we're allowed to compete on a level playing field, I'm sure with the technology, with the speed of execution that blockchain and crypto firm has, uh, they will continue to grow very fast and actually they can surpass a lot of what the traditional financial institutions are able to provide and provide some of those services at a better rate and a faster means with better access, right?

[00:25:35]uh but you know some regulators may feel protectionist about the existing sector.

[00:25:42]So you can see some some of those dynamics coming through and that's one of the biggest risks in my view that could inut that can impede the continued growth of this sector which is just unfair treatment >> and that makes me think of like the game theory of yes we can see countries doing that which inevitably just hurts their financial system or hurts their people but even the game theory aspect of it they are going to be forced to adopt and and and get on innovation or else they're going to fall behind.

[00:26:10]>> Absolutely. Yeah, >> Richard, I know none of us can see the future. You know, I don't know what Bitcoin's going to do tomorrow, let alone next week price-wise, and I know you would never answer this, but if a little a little brother, if your little brother asked you this question, how would you respond? Be real with me. How low uh how how much lower do you think Bitcoin goes or how do you think about it?

[00:26:35]>> Well, so I am actually a believer of the four-year cycle, right? So I mean I I've been telling people people privately have asked me this many times. I said you know I believe in the four year cycle. I've been in the industry uh for some time now and you know the dynamics the supply dynamics doesn't change and the demand dynamics will depend on things like utility coming through and I'm seeing strong utility this year or based on the few things that I mentioned. I think the demand will continue to pick up uh next year and with the supply dynamics coming into play. I actually think that you know we are pretty close to that bottom. You know it probably has you know if you look at traditionally from all-time high it takes about 360 380 days uh for the bottom to come through and then you'll go on its way up. We are close to 300 days now. So we are about there I would say right so it's time to look at the market very closely I think the first half of this year you see a lot of interest flowing into AI and semiconductor stocks and that took a bit of thunder away uh from uh asset class such as crypto. Now with some of those trades cooling I do believe that you know you are seeing some healthy flow back into crypto and so I think we are ready for uptick towards the second half of this year.

[00:28:03]>> So if your little brother was like still tugging on your your sleeve and saying so what's your advice does that mean I should buy now or wait? I know you would never give him specifics but how what advice would you give him?

[00:28:15]>> I always say that you can do dollar cost averaging. you can start buying now and then accumulate, right? Yeah. For me, I I mean, I would I can I can't advise people. I can just tell you what I'll do. Uh I'm a long-term boo. I always believe the strength of this industry based on what I see around. So, I continue to do uh DCA uh on the on the few tokens that I really like um and hold it for the long term, right? I'm not quite a trader. I normally just buy whole whole long term and I see the price is about there.

[00:28:48]>> How do you see crypto and AI converging if they do?

[00:28:54]>> Well, I do think that they're complimentary in many sense. So, if you just I I would just take financial services, right? So today uh a big part of financial services for financial institutions middle and back office right what they do are things like reconciliation accounting custody settlement um etc etc all those can be replaced if you rethink the future of finance using a combination of blockchain where you don't have to do reconciliation the records are immutable right and with the usage of AI you can cut off and improve efficiency and effectiveness in many many sense right so there are complimentary technology one improve efficiency once make sure that the records become immutable right so if you rethink that for every part of the value chain of not only financial services but the different economic sector these two technology will come together to transform every sector right so just like you know trading as we know it today blockchain is transforming that once you put the different asset classes on chain a lot of front end activities even trading will go a right so blockchain again with AI coming into play on that front can bring it on a gentic trading on a 247 basis on that a lot of the interface with users will look very very different right it has to facilitate the agentic front going forward uh so whether it's front office middle office back office within financial services they'll be transformed totally with this to technology and supply chains media entertainment etc all those can be transformed using this so it's quite exciting to see uh how the world will continue to evolve in the next five years >> Richard thank you so much for sharing your time links for you and Binance down below final thoughts for the altcoin daily audience >> well thanks to everyone for listening in thanks for all the support uh for our users uh through the last nine years of our journey. We want to make sure that the next nine years will be very very exciting for all our users and we continue to build to make sure that we have the best products, the best access into assets of different types, right?

[00:31:12]So it's not restricted to crypto anymore. It's commodities, it's petrochemicals. We want to make sure that it's a platform where you can do all your investments or your savings or your payments going forward. You don't have to open five 10 different apps.

[00:31:25]It's just one super app which is Binance.