Binance CFO Interview: 2 Main Things Will Drive Mainstream Crypto Adoption

Wei Zhou, the chief financial officer of Binance, believes two main factors will drive the mainstream adoption of crypto in the long-term.

Solid cryptocurrency exchange infrastructure that increases the ease of purchasing cryptocurrency and an increase in the number of high-quality projects in the ecosystem will fuel the growth of the cryptocurrency sector, Zhou said in an exclusive interview with CryptoSlate.

“I think two things will drive crypto adoption. One is the ease of purchasing cryptocurrency, essentially the entry coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum and for that, I think we need more on-ramps (fiat-to-crypto) and off-ramps to be honest. That’s sort of common. The other one is basically we need more high-quality projects in the ecosystem and we need to attract more intellectual capital for more high-quality founders coming into the ecosystem to build projects, to attract investments, to have sort of secondary markets for those projects. We want to be able to help drive that.”

Binance is Healthy, Vision of BNB

Throughout the past eleven months, the valuation of the cryptocurrency market has declined by more than 70 percent from $800 billion to $212 billion.

Consequently, as Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) disclosed on CNBC Crypto Trader, the volume of Binance and every other cryptocurrency exchange has fallen by around 80 to 90 percent.

According to the Blockchain Transparency Institute, Binance is still recording more than $1 billion in daily trading volume, as the largest digital asset trading platform in the world.

However, since early 2017 and years to prior to that, the volume of the cryptocurrency market is up substantially, by unprecedented levels. With the over-the-counter (OTC) market estimated to be at least as large as the cryptocurrency exchange market, the volume of the global crypto market is around $22 billion.

Throughout this year, despite the decline in volume and overall trading activity in the market, Binance has made significant progress building and improving the cryptocurrency exchange market.

On September 27, CryptoSlate reported that Binance finalized its plans to operate a fiat-to-crypto exchange in Singapore with the approval from local financial authorities. At the time, Yi He, the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Binance, told CryptoSlate in an interview that the company remains confident in the trend of the market.

“I am full of confidence in this industry – and typical for those who feel this way, I am devoting my all to this industry. Nearly all Binance employees are receiving part of their salaries in BNB, and many have heard how CZ sold his house to buy bitcoin years ago. In fact, just two years after he purchased the bitcoin, that house had doubled in value, yet the price of bitcoin had crashed immensely. CZ never doubted and was hardly shaken, and my personal assets are basically all held in cryptocurrency to this day. This is faith.”

In the months to come, Binance CFO Wei Zhou emphasized that the company will continue to work to drive mainstream crypto adoption and increase the usage of cryptocurrencies. He explained that the company has been around for less than a year and a half and that more than 10 million users in 180 countries already use the exchange. Zhou explained that the company realized it needs to be at the forefront of driving crypto adoption to increase the usage of digital assets:

“If you look at the history of the company, it’s very short. We did our ICO, we completed it in July and August last year, the exchange only launched August to September last year. We have only been around for five quarters,” said Zhou, explaining that the company realized it needs to be at the forefront of driving crypto adoption to increase the usage of digital assets.”

He continued:

“Two reasons: one, we have a pretty big global user base; over 10 million active users in about 180 countries. Secondly, a lot of users use the Binance exchange as one of their secondary or tertiary wallets. So from that, we’re able to figure out that outside of trading, our users have been asking us what can we do.”

1 Billion is End Goal

Previously, CZ stated that Binance is aiming to secure more than a billion users by 2030 to 2040, in the long-term.

Zhou noted that with Africa as a target market and considering the rapid adoption of mobile phone technology throughout the continent, a billion users is a target that could be achieved in the future.

“Yes. I think if you look at two major trends: one the increase in mobile phones. Take Africa as an example. Only about 15 percent of the two billion growing rapidly young population have access to banking services. With the infrastructure being built there, you’re going to get a cellphone first before you get a bank account. I think that is just a very natural place for cryptocurrency to displace traditional finance.”

By the end of 2019, the number of mobile phone users in Africa is expected to reach 789 million, as shown by the research of Statistica.

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