TechCrunch Founder Praises Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao

Michael Arrington, popular crypto personality and founder of TechCrunch and Arrington XRP Capital, has published a new blogpost describing what he sees as the genius of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. The post titled ‘Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao Is The Real Deal’ provides a fascinating look into the man behind the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Who is Binance’s CZ?

Arrington first met Chanpeng “CZ” Zhao on recent trip to Lichtenstein, where Binance is currently celebrating a new partnership with LCX exchange to create a new fiat-to-crypto exchange called Binance LCX. While details for Binance LCX have yet to be released, the new partnership represents Binance’s first step forward in creating a fiat-to-crypto trading platform.

Following a series of meetings with CZ, Arrington has concluded that the Binance CEO is “the real fucking deal.”

Suggested Reading : Learn why Binance is among our favorite cryptocurrency exchanges in our Binance exchange review.

Arrington describes CZ as thoughtful, strategic and deeply human. He writes that CZ possesses the same types of ‘X-factor’ characteristics that separate tech business giants like Steve Jobs from ordinary people.

“In my days at TechCrunch I had the opportunity to meet and interview many of the leading business people of our time. Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many others,” writes Arrington. “I don’t know if CZ will reach the same level of success as these other people, but I do think one thing – he’s right up there in that group of titans in terms of personality, drive, charisma, etc.”

Arrington writes that it’s difficult to put into words what makes CZ so special, and he admits that much of his admiration stems from a gut feeling that comes when he knows he’s around greatness. In writing the blog post, Arrington was given permission to publish a list of notes his friend David Lee (SV Angel, Refractor Capital) sent Arrington upon first meeting with CZ:

“My personal observation: he is impressive as a communicator and his talk was very precise. His statements felt authentic and very U.S. – focus on users, long-term view, embracing failure.

1. He thinks Binance has been successful so far because they want to lead on values and ethics. (see below).

2. Wants every competitor to copy their features – it grows the pie.

3. His goal is 1.2 BB users. They are at 10 MM now. That’s what he thinks about.

4. Decentralized exchanges are 5-10 years away from being superior to centralized. They will catch up though.

5. 2018 was supposed to be year of regulation. He views progress this year as “very positive”  in Asia (see below)

6. His vision – there will be millions of tokens in the future. Security tokens essential to this future. His vision – over 1mm tokens.

7. Won’t enter Korea unless someone else does. He will be a fast follower. He was very candid.

8. He doesn’t think we’re in a bear market and nowhere near the bottom.

9. He doesn’t read white papers. He just focuses on tech and operations.

10. He spends less than 15 minutes a day on Twitter.”

CZ is reported to spend little time looking outwards and prefers to busy himself with developing new features for the technical and operational side of Binance. He’s crisp, precise, thoughtful and “clearly thinks at least a step or two ahead of most of his competitors.”

Arrington discovered that almost 90 percent of Binance employees take their salaries in BNB coin instead of fiat.

“Whether you think that is smart or not, it clearly shows belief in the future of the company (and in fact BNB has been one of the best performing coins this year).”