binanceonline

Main TakeawaysBinance Online, Binance's first-ever online conference, brought together leading voices across crypto and finance for a four-hour livestream featuring 10 panels – generating more than 680,000 views on Binance Square.A star-studded speaker lineup included Binance Co-CEOs Yi He and Richard Teng, Binance Founder CZ, BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Solana Foundation President Lily Liu, Adam Back, Chamath Palihapitiya, Anthony Pompliano, and many more.If you missed the event, make sure to catch up on the replays on Binance Square!Binance Online, our first-ever global virtual event, took the industry's biggest conversations to communities around the world. Streamed live across Binance Square, YouTube, and X, it brought together some of the most recognized names in crypto and traditional finance for over four hours of programming – generating more than 680,000 views and nearly 65,000 chat replies from a global audience on Binance Square alone.Across 10 panels, speakers explored the biggest themes shaping the industry today. With AI emerging as a central narrative across sessions – from agentic finance and AI-powered research tools to the intersection of blockchain and frontier tech – the event also covered stablecoins, tokenization, Bitcoin, crypto payments, institutional adoption, and the convergence of crypto with traditional finance. Speakers included Binance Co-CEOs Yi He and Richard Teng, Binance Founder CZ, BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Solana Foundation President Lily Liu, Blockstream CEO Adam Back, YZi Labs Head Ella Zhang, Coin Bureau's Guy Turner and Nic Puckrin, and many more.Missed it? Here are the biggest moments from each session.Yi He & Richard Teng – 300 Million to 3 Billion: The Next Phase of BinanceBinance's two co-CEOs opened the event with the message that 300+ million users is just the starting line. Yi He traced the acceleration: the first 100 million users in five years, the next hundred million in two, the hundred after that in eighteen months – and framed the three-billion-user target as the natural next step for a platform evolving far beyond trading.The super app vision, as Yi He described it, is about building a single platform where anyone, including people who have never had a bank account, can pay, save, send, and invest.Richard Teng emphasized the broader importance of crypto in expanding access to financial services globally: "I travel the world, including to many frontier and emerging markets. And I see that even today, 1.4 billion people are excluded from financial services globally. Crypto is here to solve that problem. That's why we are very passionate about freedom of money globally."Teng also pointed to how much has changed behind the scenes: a rebuilt organizational structure, a compliance team now exceeding 1,600 employees and more than 20% of total headcount, and a deliberate push to become the world's most regulated exchange across more than 20 jurisdictions, with ADGM's FSRA serving as its home regulator.Both co-CEOs named AI as central to the path ahead – not only as a tool for professionals, but as a way to bring financial services to billions of people traditional finance has never reached.Lily Liu, Brad Garlinghouse & Richard Teng – The Evolution EraIn the next session, Richard Teng was joined by Lily Liu, President of the Solana Foundation, and Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, to continue the discussion they first began together at Binance Blockchain Week 2025 in Dubai – this time focusing on how quickly the industry has evolved in just a few months around stablecoins, tokenization, regulation, and AI.The conversation opened on a striking number: $10.5 trillion in stablecoin transfers in January alone. For Teng, it illustrated the point that traditional financial infrastructure is "very archaic" by modern standards, and stablecoins are already proving what a globally accessible, near-instant alternative can look like.On traditional finance’s growing presence in crypto, Teng noted: "Competition from the likes of Morgan Stanley is a validation of how far crypto has come." Binance, he added, remains focused on the next billion users – the ones Wall Street isn't serving.The Clarity Act emerged as the session's most important near-term regulatory priority. Garlinghouse argued that a friendly administration isn't enough – large banks have leaned out because they can't be certain the next SEC chair won't reverse course. "With the Clarity Act, you'll see them leaning in in a way we've never seen before."Liu pushed the RWA conversation beyond tokenization. To her, getting existing assets on-chain is only the start, while the bigger opportunity is the entirely new markets blockchain makes possible: compute, energy, and capital formation for the countries that have no meaningful access to financial markets today.CZ, Chamath Palihapitiya & Anthony Pompliano – Where Smart Money Is Moving NowBinance Co-Founder CZ, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, and Anthony Pompliano, Founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management, came together for a discussion on where capital, AI, and crypto infrastructure are converging – and where some of the industry's biggest investors are focusing next.Palihapitiya argued that the most important AI opportunities over the next five years may be far more "physical" than most people expect, pointing to land, power, chips, data centers, and distributed compute as the infrastructure underpinning the entire AI economy. He also highlighted crypto-native distributed AI networks as one of the most interesting intersections between blockchain and artificial intelligence: "If you just look at the equity value that underpins just Anthropic and OpenAI, you're talking a few trillion dollars that cannot grow without tactical training and inference flops. If you are a purveyor of that, you're going to be a part of that economy."CZ echoed many of those themes, arguing that crypto infrastructure must become "agentic ready" for a future shaped by AI-driven commerce and machine-to-machine payments.He also brought the conversation back to financial access – stablecoins and tokenized equities are increasingly giving users in underserved markets access to dollars, capital markets, and investment opportunities that were previously out of reach.Pompliano closed by arguing that the distinction between crypto and traditional finance is already disappearing: "In the future, there's no Web3 versus traditional finance. It's just finance companies. Blockchain is just a technology that we use. Every financial company must use it. There shouldn't be a distinction."Nina Rong – Architecting Discovery: Stablecoins, RWAs & Agentic Finance"Web2-level simplicity, Web3-level transparency – that's what we are building towards." — Nina Rong, Executive Director of Growth, BNB ChainNina Rong, Executive Director of Growth at BNB Chain, shared how the ecosystem is positioning itself around three major themes for 2026: stablecoins, RWAs, and agentic finance. She pointed to BNB Chain's growing role as stablecoin infrastructure, noting that 40% of all global stablecoin transactions by count now happen on BNB Chain, with roughly 20 million monthly stablecoin users across the network.On RWAs and AI infrastructure, BNB Chain is now the second-largest blockchain for RWAs after Ethereum, with nearly $4 billion in assets on-chain and close to 500 tokenized asset types. The network is also positioning itself as financial infrastructure for AI agents, with more than 179,000 on-chain agents already transacting through BNB Chain. "The future is going to be an ecosystem of co-existing agents and humans at the same time," Rong said.Coin Bureau – Crypto Trends from the Leading Creators"Bitcoin has become very macro-driven. It is now a proxy for a macro asset – and that transmission mechanism didn't exist meaningfully in 2019 or 2020." — Nic Puckrin, Co-founder, Coin BureauCoin Bureau's Guy Turner and Nic Puckrin joined Binance Online to unpack the biggest trends shaping the 2026 market cycle. According to Nic, 2026 is indeed different, and the reason is structural rather than narrative. Spot ETFs, real legislation, institutional custody, regulated on-ramps, and pension-eligible products have embedded crypto more deeply into traditional finance, making Bitcoin more sensitive to global liquidity, rates, and broader macro shocks.The session also looked at how investors are approaching crypto more strategically in 2026. Nic said smarter portfolios now start with a core Bitcoin position of at least 30-50%, followed by Ethereum, selective L1/L2 exposure, and smaller allocations to conviction narratives. Guy pointed to AI agents using crypto rails, privacy, and the X402 protocol as areas to watch, while Nic highlighted Perp DEXs and prediction markets as two of the strongest product-market-fit stories in crypto today.BYOR – Build Your Own Research Framework“Researchers should never outsource original thinking or thesis formation to AI.” — Average Joe Crypto, MessariAlice Liu from CoinMarketCap was joined by Ryan Celaj of DeFiLlama and Average Joe Crypto from Messari for a discussion on how crypto research is evolving in a market increasingly shaped by AI, RWAs, and macro forces. The panel argued that strong research frameworks matter more than ever as crypto becomes harder to analyze through on-chain signals alone.Ryan pointed to RWAs and tokenization as one of the strongest trends in DeFi, while the conversation also focused heavily on how researchers should actually use AI. Rather than replacing independent thinking, the panel described AI as a tool for summarizing technical material, testing assumptions, surfacing datasets, and improving workflow efficiency. “Good outputs depend on good inputs,” Alice noted, emphasizing the importance of combining on-chain analytics with macro, trading, and alternative datasets.The session closed with a broader discussion about crypto’s direction as an industry. Average Joe Crypto argued that the sector is increasingly splitting into two paths: integration with traditional finance on one side, and a renewed focus on decentralization and privacy on the other. Ryan observed that due to this dynamic, less room remains for middle-ground approaches as the industry matures.Adam Back – Why We're All Satoshi & What's Next for Bitcoin“Bitcoin feels more like a discovery than an invention.” — Adam Back, Founder and CEO of BlockstreamThe next session featured Adam Back – founder and CEO of Blockstream, inventor of Hashcash, and one of the few people cited directly in the Bitcoin whitepaper – in a discussion on Bitcoin’s origins, cypherpunk history, and what comes next for the industry. Speaking with The Block’s Gareth Jenkinson, Back reflected on his early email exchanges with Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, including conversations around how to properly reference Hashcash and other early proof-of-work systems like B-money and Bit Gold.Back argued that Bitcoin succeeded because Satoshi discovered an extremely narrow design space that previous electronic cash experiments had failed to fully solve. “One of Satoshi’s key innovations was allowing the market to price Bitcoin freely,” he explained, contrasting Bitcoin with earlier attempts to engineer price stability directly into the protocol. He also defended Satoshi’s continued anonymity, arguing that Bitcoin became stronger precisely because it evolved beyond any identifiable founder.The conversation later shifted toward Bitcoin’s long-term resilience, including the often-discussed “quantum threat.” While Back described large-scale quantum computing as a real area of research, he argued the technology remains far from practical deployment and noted that Bitcoin developers are already working on quantum-resistant upgrades.Thomas Gregory – Binance Beyond Trading: Building Everyday Crypto Utility“No one goes out shopping and goes, ‘I’m really looking forward to going to payment today.’” — Thomas Gregory, VP of Payments at BinanceContinuing the broader conversation around Binance’s long-term direction, Thomas Gregory, VP of Payments at Binance, discussed the company’s push to evolve beyond a trading platform into what he described as a broader “everyday payments platform.”Gregory argued that the biggest challenge for crypto adoption is removing friction between traditional finance and blockchain systems. “Payments are a hygiene factor,” he explained, pointing to stablecoins, Binance Card, Binance Pay, and new QR integrations in countries like Brazil and Vietnam as examples of how Binance is working to make blockchain infrastructure effectively invisible to users while still delivering the speed and efficiency advantages of crypto.The discussion also returned to Binance’s broader goal of scaling from hundreds of millions of users toward billions globally. Gregory described a future financial super app where users can trade, hold multiple currencies, send remittances, earn yield, pay bills, and spend stablecoins inside a single ecosystem. At the same time, he stressed that crypto payments will only scale if they adapt to local financial behavior and infrastructure.Ella Zhang – Bridging Blockchain, AI & the Future Wave of Frontier Tech“The biggest innovation and industrial change won’t happen in a single domain. It happens at the convergence.” — Ella Zhang, Head of YZi LabsElla Zhang, Head of YZi Labs and co-founder of Binance Labs, joined Binance Online to discuss the growing convergence between blockchain, AI, and traditional finance. Reflecting on the industry’s evolution since 2018, Zhang argued that one of crypto’s biggest early mistakes was viewing blockchain in isolation rather than as part of a much broader technological transformation happening across multiple industries simultaneously. She pointed to AI agents, stablecoins, tokenized assets, and intent-based interfaces as examples of how blockchain is increasingly becoming an invisible infrastructure layer powering ownership, payments, identity, and automation.The discussion also explored the rapid rise of tokenized real-world assets, which Zhang described as one of the biggest catalysts for crypto’s mainstream adoption. She argued that tokenized RWAs are already moving on-chain at meaningful scale, while also predicting that some of the most valuable blockchain companies of the next cycle may not issue tokens at all. Instead, she suggested the industry would increasingly converge with traditional capital markets through public listings, tokenized equity structures, and deeper institutional adoption.Rob Goldstein & Kaiser Ng – Tokenizing the Capital MarketsBinance Online concluded with a session featuring Rob Goldstein, COO of BlackRock, in a discussion with Binance’s CFO Kaiser Ng focused on tokenization, capital markets, and the growing convergence between traditional finance and digital assets. Goldstein argued that BlackRock increasingly sees digital assets not as a separate ecosystem, but as part of a broader shift toward portfolios that combine traditional capital markets exposures with blockchain-native infrastructure. Referencing products like IBIT and BUIDL, he described BlackRock’s strategy as building a “bridge” between traditional finance and digital wallets by offering both digital-asset exposure inside traditional portfolios and tokenized capital markets products on blockchain rails.The conversation also explored the long-term growth potential of tokenization and institutional crypto adoption. Describing tokenized capital markets as still being at a very early stage, Goldstein argued that the opportunity over the coming years should be measured “in multiples rather than percentages.” He also emphasized that many institutions are still in the early stages of understanding digital assets and their role inside broader portfolios. “It’s a very natural cycle that as time goes on, as people get more educated, it’ll enter more and more model portfolios,” he explained, adding that BlackRock continues to see digital assets become an increasingly important topic across client conversations.Looking ahead, Goldstein also pointed to AI as a major future catalyst for blockchain adoption, arguing that AI agents operating on digital rails could eventually create entirely new forms of economic activity and accelerate the growth of tokenized financial infrastructure.Final ThoughtsBinance Online closed on a distinctly forward-looking note, reflecting an industry increasingly shaped by the convergence of AI, tokenization, stablecoins, digital payments, and institutional adoption. Across more than four hours of discussions, speakers repeatedly returned to the same underlying theme: crypto is no longer developing in isolation. From AI agents transacting on blockchain rails to tokenized capital markets and globally accessible payment infrastructure, the industry is rapidly becoming part of a much broader technological and financial transformation.Binance Online was supported by partners including Epic, Fusionist, Pixels, Chromia, and ZEROBASE. All sponsorship proceeds will be donated toward education-focused initiatives, including $35,000 to the UZH Blockchain Center at the University of Zurich to support student enrollment in its Deep Dive into Blockchain summer program, and $15,000 to Geeks Academy in Kyrgyzstan to expand access to online cryptocurrency and blockchain courses.A huge thank you to every speaker, viewer, partner, and community member who joined us for the first-ever Binance Online. The conversations don’t stop here.Catch all session replays on Binance Square.Further ReadingCapital Markets Meet Digital Wallets – BlackRock And Binance On Tokenization as a Two-way BridgeSmart Money in 2026: Insights From CZ, Chamath Palihapitiya, and Anthony PomplianoBinance Online Agenda Revealed – Explore Speakers and Sessions for May 13 Risk Warning: Digital assets are subject to high market risk and price volatility. The value of your investment may go down or up, and you may not get back the amount invested. You are solely responsible for your investment decisions and Binance is not liable for any losses you may incur. Past performance is not a reliable predictor of future performance. You should only invest in products you are familiar with and where you understand the risks. You should carefully consider your investment experience, financial situation, investment objectives and risk tolerance and consult an independent financial adviser prior to making any investment. This material should not be construed as financial advice. This product may not be available in certain countries and to certain users. This content is not intended for users/countries to which prohibitions/restrictions apply. For more information, see our Terms of Use and Risk Warning.