Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has hinted at the likelihood of his company going for an initial public offering or IPO in the future.
The Binance CEO, occasionally referred to as CZ, spoke at the Global DeFi Virtual Summit. The summit was organised by SCB 10X, which is Siam Commercial Bank’s holding company. The 30-minute event, Binance & Future of CeDeFi VS DeFi, took place on July 23rd.
One of the various questions addressed to CZ by the event’s presenter, Mukaya Panich, Chief Venture and Investment Officer of SCB 10X, was about an IPO.
The official Twitter account of SBC 10X threaded CZ’s talk with Ms. Panich. The tweets featured the Binance founder’s thoughts on the current crypto scene, albeit they were not comprehensive comments.
CZ went specific on China’s dominance in the crypto mining industry and how that has come to change with miners finding new homes. He was reported in a tweet as saying, “China was hot in mining and trading. But now moving to North America.” He went on to say, “See huge potential for growth in Asia and South East Asia. Africa is also a development blank-slate.”
Panich subsequently pressed the Binance CEO on growth prospects of his company. CZ answered, “Active trading is not for everyone,” and “Gaming, DeFi, NFTs. Lots of potential. I’m sure there are areas that we haven’t looked at that are on the verge of growing.”
The presenter proposed centralised decentralised finance or CeDeFi, which the CEO responded to by saying, “CeDeFi equals offering DeFi experience on centralized experience. But we want to move them toward DeFi.”
Lastly, Panich’s query on an IPO path for Binance ended the tweet thread.
“Binance U.S. is looking at IPO route,” the CEO said. “Most regulators are familiar with a certain pattern (having HQ, having corporate structure). But we are setting up those structures to make it easier for an IPO to happen.”
“No direct plan for IPO right now though. Currently focus on growing.” the conversation concluded.
The exchange has received resistance from all around the world in recent months. In July, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan Lithuania, and the United Kingdom were among the countries that took action against Binance.