The CEO of the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume foresees a series of “successes” in the crypto industry in the next bull market.
In a new Bankless interview, Binance chief Changpeng Zhao outlines what he thinks the “next big thing” for crypto and blockchain technology could be.
“If we talk about the internet, we wouldn’t say, ‘What’s the next big thing that would drive internet adoption?’ There are so many different things. There’s video conferencing, social media, Google as an information hive mind, and a lot of other different things going on. In the early days, you may ask, ‘What’s the next thing?’ But I think for crypto and blockchain, it’s beyond one single thing now.
In 2017, there were ICOs, which were ERC20 tokens basically. And in 2020 and even 2021, there are multiple things going on. The next one may be multiple things. It’s no longer a single thing that drives adoption because the industry is bigger and there are more players. So we should be looking at what’s the next big NFT (non-fungible token) thing and what’s the next big DeFi (decentralized finance) thing.
Maybe social media for crypto has not been invented yet. And there are some old use cases that have not taken off or are slow in starting, like payments. Payments were one of the most obvious use cases, but there weren’t stablecoins, lightning network, or real-time fast payments.”
Zhao says that with crypto technology making new leaps, many different narratives or use cases could arise in the next bull market. The CEO also says that old narratives from previous bull markets like payments could make a comeback in the future.
“Now, with faster blockchains, there have been many new developments. And we also have technologies that allow users to pay in crypto while merchants accept fiat. The transaction happens in real-time, like Balance Pay, Bonus Card, and a few other credit card solutions in the market. We’re seeing the global economy in turmoil, so there’s a lot of uncertainty in traditional financial industries.
In Africa, for example, smartphone penetration is increasing, and they don’t have banks. Less than 11% of people in Africa have banks, but they’re directly latching onto blockchain. All of these things can be potentials. I don’t know which one, but I think we’ll see multiple unicorns or successful new startups and concepts, along with old ones, shaping the industry. So I believe we’ll see a lot more successes.”
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