In a new Periscope video, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says the success of cryptocurrency is evident in the price of Bitcoin.
But he believes blockchains without cryptocurrencies will have a hard time gaining users, like a boat without a rudder.
This line of thinking puts a wrinkle in China’s plans to promote blockchain while leaving cryptocurrencies off the table.
Last week, President Xi Jinping issued a statement supporting the development of blockchain tech across a number of sectors. Specifically, Xi wants China to “seize the opportunity” to become a global leader when it comes to adopting the very technology that powers Bitcoin.
The technology which creates an immutable ledger of transactions, tracking data, provenance, certificates, transfer of ownership and a myriad of metrics related to identity can be applied to supply chain logistics, government processes, identity management, health care, real estate, manufacturing, retail and more.
But Zhao says the applications are not feasible without the integration of cryptocurrencies.
“If anyone has any doubts [about crypto], you just look at the Bitcoin price. I think the market always votes. The market votes with their money. So I think that’s a very clear, easy judgment.
China’s doing a number of things. I think China is very pro-blockchain. Checking – none of the releases China says they’re pro-Bitcoin. There’s still the thinking of using blockchain without a cryptocurrency or at least minimize the promotion of a cryptocurrency. I think the idea is to have one cryptocurrency but I doubt that will work too well, to be honest.
I actually don’t understand how you can have a blockchain without cryptocurrency – without the incentives, without the network fees, the blockchains don’t get a lot of adoption. And without the widespread adoption, you don’t get the effect of a trustless network. So, we’ll see what happens.
But overall, I think we can expect more things to happen from China. There are many projects which are much more active in China now. They were active in a silent development mode before but now they all came out of the closet, kind-of-thing. So we’ll see what happens.”
Since President Xi’s announcement, Zhao says peer-to-peer trading in China has soared. Binance launched P2P trading in China on October 9th with initial support for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tether (USDT) against the Chinese yuan. It added Binance Coin (BNB) on Tuesday.
“Luckily, thanks to that, our China P2P volume has jumped tremendously. We’re seeing a few million dollars a day in trading volume on average. Higher days it can be quite a lot. So considering that most of the trades are done manually, it is actually a very high number. And considering the P2P platform is very new – we have actually only released the iOS app for P2P trading in China about a day ago…so that’s very exciting.
I think we can expect the trading volume from the Chinese markets to be high.”
Zhao notes that his analysis of the blockchain and crypto movement in China is all based on public sources.
“I don’t have any private information on China…but I do think China will move ahead very strongly in the cryptocurrency, in the blockchain space. And for any country that’s not considering this, I think they’re now in real danger of being left behind…
As many people say, there’s a real race going on. So I think given that one of the largest populations on the planet is adopting blockchain, I think we will see favorable regulations – competing regulations –from other countries very soon.”
Zhao affirms that he’s pushing for more fiat on-ramps to expand the reach of cryptocurrencies. Binance.com will go live with the Russian ruble shortly, in addition to adding more bridges around the world for people to buy crypto.