Binance Turns Six: CZ Recounts the Exchange’s Journey So Far

• Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is celebrating its sixth anniversary today.
• In commemoration of the feat, the exchange’s founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), has reminisced on several events since the platform’s launch.
• Binance has weathered through two crypto winters that caused the collapse of many entities and emerged unscathed from them.

Binance Turns Six

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is celebrating its sixth anniversary today. To commemorate this milestone, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder and CEO of Binance, has reflected upon major events that have taken place since its launch in 2017.

The Early Days

When it launched six years ago, Binance had a modest beginning with only $15 million worth of digital assets as a crypto-to-crypto exchange with five tokens and two languages. There was no customer support team yet so CZ had to borrow one from a friend’s company.

China Crypto Ban Impact

Soon after its launch, China imposed a ban on crypto exchanges and initial coin offerings (ICOs). Consequently, affected projects were required to return investments received by their investors. This also impacted Binance who spent 40% of their treasury ($6 million) which is still their biggest single spending to date percentage-wise.

Becoming Number One

Despite these challenges, Binance eventually became the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and has maintained this position for some time now despite going through two bear markets which caused many other entities like FTX , Celsius Network Voyage Three Arrows Capital and Terra ecosystem to close down or experience severe losses.

Regulatory Scrutiny

CZ revealed that they are currently facing regulatory scrutiny but this was „not unexpected“ considering what happened in 2022 as well as its size. He also stated that while regulatory clarity will take some time to achieve worldwide due to different interpretations in different countries or regions; this should not stop us from building better solutions within existing regulations for customers around the world.