Binance CEO says Trump has been “fantastic” for cryptocurrency

The Binance CEO, Richard Teng, says the Trump administration has been a “fantastic” restart for the cryptocurrency industry.

“It is an extremely different environment in which we are operating,” Teng told CNBC on Tuesday.

In the period of 16 months, Binance has gone from being a political out of a possible energy corridor in Washington. Once the poster’s son for the regulatory challenge, Binance slapped with a record agreement of $ 4.3 billion with the regulators and was forced to expel the multimillionaire founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao: the exchange of crypto Donald Trump’s Second administration, said Teg.

“We have benefited from this change,” said Teng, who was named CEO of Binance in November 2023.

Teng’s comments come as the Cryptographic exchange is in conversations for the Trump family to take a financial participation in the company, according to A Wall Street Journal report Earlier this month. That same day, Bloomberg reported That World Liberty Financial, a cryptographic bank linked to Trump that has not yet been launched, is dedicated to conversations with Binance to launch a paste stable in dollars.

If such agreements were reached, it would mark an amazing investment for a company that was once a couple in Washington.

Teng, a old soft voice regulator, was careful with his words when addressing the reports.

“I think that both World Liberty Financial and CZ itself have tweeted and denied the reports,” said Teng, who directs the operations of the exchange outside the United States

As for rumors about Trump’s participation in Binance.us, he had concretized.

“.Us and .com are quite different animals, right?” said. “They have different sets of shareholders, different board of directors and different CEOs that direct the program.”

Binance structured the two exchanges as independent entities in response to regulatory scrutiny, with the objective of the American operations of broader international business.

Even so, Teng is optimistic about what the new political environment for cryptography means.

“We go from four years of operation Choke Point 2.0 to now: he has a very pro-crypto president, Pro-Ai,” he said. While Binance.com does not operate in the United States, he said: “We have benefited from all these pro-crypto policies.”

Choke Point 2.0 is how industry experts refer to alleged repression of Inherited banks in digital asset companies During the Biden administration.

He described a rapid global expansion that brought Binance 170 million to 265 million users in just one year.

“We have received many approaches from different governments around the world,” said Teng, citing regulatory progress in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates.

Binance is now licensed in 21 jurisdictions, and its influence extends far beyond the reach of any country. That includes sovereign funds of wealth, some of which begin to assign Crypto, said Teng.

At the bottom of all this optimism is the reality of the Binance Pictures.

Zhao, the founder of the company and former CEO, was criminally accused, forced to resign and fulfilled a brief prison sentence. Binance paid him Multibilllion-Dólar settlement – Finished at the end of 2023 – to resolve a series of violations with American regulators, including the Department of Justice and the Future Trade Commission of Basic Products.

An important front remains open: the civil case of the stock exchange and values ​​against Binance and Zhao.

The SEC and Binance in February agreed to 60 -day pause In procedures as both parties consider a potential resolution. The stay occurs in the midst of a broader setback of the SEC of several high -profile cryptographic demands, signing a possible regulatory restoration under the new administration.

“We investigated under compliance in those first days,” said Teng. “But the important thing as a responsible institution is to recognize those first errors, make peace for it and invest a lot in compliance, what we are doing now.”

Binance now uses more than 1,300 compliance professionals, approximately a quarter of their total workforce, said Teng. “The direction of the trip is very clear. It is compliance.”

The Nigerian government could disagree.

One of Binance’s main compliance officers, Tigran Gambaryan, was Recently imprisoned In hard conditions. In Nigeria, Binance faced charges of alleged payment of added value taxes and income tax, not submitting tax statements and complicity to help customers evade taxes through their platform.

Together with Gambaryan, who is an American citizen and former employee of the Internal Revenue Service, Nigeria has also imprisoned his executive partner Nadeem Anjarwalla, who is British-Kenyan. Both were accused and arrested by the Nigerian authorities. Anjarwalla escaped custody in March 2024, and Gambaryan was released several months later.

“The treatment that happened in Nigeria is not justified,” said Teng about Anjarwalla. “We have always tried to contact and work cooperatively with governments around the world.”

Since he assumed the position of CEO, Teng has changed the company of a startup directed by the founder to an organization governed by the Board.

“Now report to the board of directors,” said Teng. “We have a board of seven members, including three independent directors and an independent president.”

Despite all the scrutiny binance faces, Teng insists that the platform remains dominant.

“At any time, we have more than 40% of the global market share,” he said.

Dismissed concerns about Coinbase’s The growing political influence and the impulse behind the funds quoted in cryptography exchange, arguing that ETFs are an entrance door to cryptography trade.

“Many users who begin to trade through ETFS later advance to cryptocurrency platforms,” ​​said Teng, and said that, although cryptocurrencies exchange non -stop, ETFs are limited to business hours.

Binance assumed his first institutional investment Earl this month In an agreement of $ 2 billion with the state investment firm Emiratí MGX, which is a technological fund of AI and advanced that has Blackrock and Microsoft as partners. It is the largest investment ever turned into a cryptographic company and the largest to be completely paid in Stablecoins.

Teng said he sees the investment as a way to unite Crypto and AI.

“We are using AI extensively,” said Teng, noting that Binance uses artificial intelligence for customer service, security and compliance monitoring. “This is the blockchain sector. We have to continue using technology to achieve efficiency. “

When asked what keeps him awake at night, he had a list: security, compliance, innovation of products and opportunities for mergers and acquisitions.

“We want to make sure to execute a very robust, operational and better platform in its class,” he said.