Faisal Ghaffar 
Even as investors flee, the founding member of Binance, the nation’s biggest virtual currency marketplace, is on a quest to meet with regulators around the world.
Sat, June 25, 2022, 16.00 BST Changpeng Zhao dislikes vague language. This is fortunate, because the crypto sector, in which he is a key figure, is in chaos and desperate need of clarity.
During one of the most turbulent weeks in the brief history of electronic currency, the 45-year-old CEO and founder of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, needs to meet the Spectator in an upscale London hotel.
Binance was compelled to temporarily halt its bitcoin operations on June 13th. The same day, a cryptocurrency lender, Celsius, halted withdrawals. Then, a major cryptocurrency investment firm conceded it was in distress. Finally, crypto fell below $20,000 in a representational present time last Saturday. This year, the crypto basic tenet has lost over half its value, having left both pro and amateur investors with significant losses.
Zhao, also known as CZ (see-zee), is attired in the quintessential tech-tycoon combination of a formal dark suit, a company T-shirt, and sneakers. He asserts he is currently traveling from nation to nation, going to meet with “various government authorities, regulators.”
Despite his gentle demeanor, he is now on a quest to persuade. At times, the dialogue becomes fixated on semantic information, potentially as a reaction to a degree of scrutiny he as well as his corporation are confined to. When asked if the latest crypto market changes are still “normal,” as he explained them earlier this month, Zhao responds, “Normal varies depending on how users look at it… Everyone will have their description of normal… Price swings are normal.”
When Zhao is questioned about laundering money, he says, “the term is very different from country to country,” but Binance can “for sure” do a “particularly good job that now the regulators are pleased.”
Binance was ordered by the Financial Services Authority in June to completely stop all statutory duties in the UK since it was “not competent of being successfully supervised.” Zhao, on the other hand, really hasn’t given up saying he is looking for a business license.
Bloomberg published an interview with him last week, predicting a long regulation cold weather for his company. He responded to his 6.5 million subscribers by tweeting, “I will end doing interview sessions with news sources that use clickbait titles.”
