CZ's Year-End Q&A: Cryptocurrency is the only option for AI and robotics; the market size still has several orders of magnitude of growth potential, a...

According to Mars Finance, on December 18th, Binance founder CZ discussed his work priorities, his views on BNB Chain and the future development of the crypto market, how he judges the direction and key milestones of major sectors, and his personal advice on entrepreneurship and investment focus during the year-end Q&A session. CZ stated that he currently spends the most time on four things: Giggle Academy, YZi Labs, the BNB ecosystem, and promoting national cryptocurrency adoption. BNB Chain has seen significant growth this year, with annual transaction volume increasing by approximately 600% and daily active users exceeding 2 million. CZ believes that BNB Chain only needs to continue building value for true builders. The scale of the BNB ecosystem should surpass any single business within it in the future—this includes centralized trading platforms and various protocols. Like other leading industry players, CZ also highly praised the stablecoin sector, believing that "better" stablecoins have not yet emerged on a large scale. "The market potential is huge. I think what we're seeing now is just stablecoin 1.0. More advanced stablecoins haven't been launched on a large scale yet; they're only just getting started. What we're seeing now are 1.5 generation stablecoins, such as FDUSD and USD1." Regarding the few emerging sectors in this bull market, "prediction markets," CZ believes he can't currently predict which project will win, but the outcome of the next hot event could give projects a temporary advantage. "The next high-profile event should be the US presidential election (midterm election) next year, right? I think that by then, teams that can stay on call 24/7 and never let up are likely to win, at least in the short term. That will be a very interesting phase, requiring teams to be fully committed. But true victory is achieved through long-term competition." AI and robotics are the focus of attention in the US stock market and even the global technology sector, and CZ believes that the two will be closely linked to cryptocurrencies. "I expect that in the future, artificial intelligence and robotics will use cryptocurrencies on a large scale. Not yet, but eventually they will—there is no other choice." However, CZ did not express optimism when discussing AI agent trading products. The reason is that CZ believes that if AI agents are truly feasible, project teams will not easily sell them to users; they will use them themselves. The capital market is a zero-sum game. If everyone uses the same AI strategy, the strategy will ultimately have little effect, or even fail. "If everyone in the market is using it, then it's not that effective. But overall, I think AI will indeed be widely used by traders in their own unique ways." Regarding investments in startups, CZ stated that he personally prefers to support mission-driven builders in the long term. "Adjusting products according to market demand is good, but if you completely change direction every three months, it means you're not truly passionate about it." In the context of constantly changing market demands, the team's execution ability is what CZ values most when investing. For entrepreneurs, there's no fixed formula for success; the paths to success are diverse. "There are still many opportunities in the future." Despite the industry potentially entering another bear market recently, CZ stated that everything is still in its early stages and there's significant room for growth when discussing the development of the crypto space. "I think the current penetration rate of cryptocurrencies is only in the single digits—depending on whether we're calculating by number of people or by total wealth. If calculated by current total wealth, the penetration rate is probably less than 1%. I think the scale of cryptocurrencies still has several orders of magnitude of growth potential."