BNB Chain 5th Anniversary: CZ AMA Recap—Focus on RWA, DeSci, and Long-Term Industry Development

On August 29, 2025, at the BNB Chain 5th Anniversary event in Hong Kong, CZ, a key community member of BNB Chain, made an appearance and kicked off an AMA session. During the event, he shared his insights on the collaboration between traditional financial institutions and the DeFi ecosystem, shared suggestions for Hong Kong’s innovation environment, and his thoughts on emerging sectors such as RWA, AI, and biotech. The atmosphere was lively, and the conversation covered a wide range of topics, from financial markets to his personal sports life. Below is the full transcript of the AMA.

Q1: 

What advice do you have for bridging institutional products with the DeFi ecosystem?

CZ: That’s a big question, and I’m not sure if I can answer it directly. Different projects have different ways of attracting users. Partnering with well-known brands like China Merchants Securities is great, but what’s more important is reaching their user base, which is large. However, where and how much exposure you get is also crucial.

For projects, attracting more Web3 users requires a strong and appealing product—marketing is secondary. Take lending products, for example. Users care about core factors like interest rates and liquidity. These are fundamental.

Overall, this is a huge market, and you’ve already partnered with one of the strongest players in traditional finance. As long as you can demonstrate the value you provide to users and gain some visibility within the ecosystem, you’ll likely be able to establish yourselves.

Q2:

You’ve visited Hong Kong several times recently and offered many suggestions—emphasizing that financial policies should be built on a foundation of real economy and technological innovation. If Hong Kong adjusts its policies based on these suggestions, how will it impact the development of technologies like AI, biotech, and longevity in the city? In the past, many original innovations from Hong Kong were implemented in mainland China. Can they now stay in Hong Kong?

CZ: This is another profound question. At the most basic level, whether a business can thrive in a region depends on the local government’s attitude toward business. If a government is open to entrepreneurship and innovation, you’ll see more innovative startups. Generally, if a government is open, it will be open to all industries, and vice versa.

Cutting-edge technologies like AI and Web3 are often supported together because these industries tend to interact. For example, AI needs digital currencies to make transactions and payments, without digital currencies, AI can’t develop financial applications.

Biotech development also relies on AI. Without AI, it’s difficult to advance biotech. These industries can all use blockchain technology for fundraising. Blockchain can also address issues related to data security and privacy. Impacting one industry often affects others.

I believe that if a smart government has good regulatory frameworks for one industry—protecting users while supporting innovation—it will likely demonstrate the same smart regulatory capabilities for other industries.

Hong Kong is now actively attracting foreign investment, technical talent, and industries like Web3, AI, and biotech. AI might not have a particular advantage in Hong Kong due to its small population, as AI requires large amounts of data for training. Therefore, AI is more likely to thrive in larger countries like China and the US.

In recent decades, the three major technologies have been the internet, blockchain, and AI. 

Many countries want AI because of its significant impact. Initially, many didn’t want blockchain, but now they do because it’s the technology of future money. I feel that the Hong Kong government supports innovation and welcomes new industries. As a testing ground for mainland China, this is a great opportunity for Hong Kong.

Q3:

You were very active on Twitter a few months ago, even engaging with BSC memes. Recently, your activity has decreased. What new and interesting content are you focusing on now? You also changed your profile picture to one of you kite surfing.

CZ:

When I was playing with memes on BSC (BNB Smart Chain), I got MEV attacks multiple times. I later realized that publicly learning in real-time might not be the best approach. I’ve spent a long time using Trust Wallet and PancakeSwap, but when it comes to practical use, the user experience still differs from that of centralized exchanges (CEXs). Meme coins are fun, but I’m not sure how long they’ll last.

I think RWA has great potential now, but there are many challenges when it comes to putting assets on-chain. Financial assets are often classified as securities, which come with a set of compliance requirements. If they’re classified as commodities, there are commodity compliance requirements. Other assets face issues like liquidity and redemption when put on-chain. Solving these problems is quite interesting. Our team has encountered many challenges while collaborating with institutions like BlackRock, and it’s been fun tackling them.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on AI and biotech, exploring investment opportunities in related projects.

Also, I’ve been traveling more than before—like a monkey let out of a cage. I’ve been to many places, and fortunately, many high-level officials from various countries are willing to consult me on how to regulate Web3, how to set up national digital currency funds, and so on. I’m very happy to help with these questions, so I’ve been spending a lot of time traveling. When I travel, I tweet less. I usually tweet more when attending events.

I manage my X account myself; no one else helps me with it. So, I post more when I’m free and less when I’m busy—it’s pretty random. Also, since stepping out, I’ve realized there are many joys in life I haven’t experienced. So, I’ve been having more fun lately, trying out kite surfing, skiing, and anything that involves strapping my feet to a board and rushing downhill.

Q4:

We hope blockchain can become a settlement tool for RWA transactions, but current liquidity is insufficient. In the future, will blockchain as a settlement chain for RWA be more likely to involve giant players handling bulk commodities or futures settlements, or should we attempt more layered approaches to allow broader retail participation?

CZ: Great question. In the long run, RWA will move toward the retail market, but it will take time. Every niche segment needs time to become a mainstream trend. User growth is key—without users, there are no transactions, and without transactions, there’s no liquidity.

In the early days, Bitcoin’s liquidity was also very poor. It was a niche asset with few participants. Even now, digital currency adoption is still in its early stages. If you stop 100 people on the street, maybe only seven or eight of them hold digital currencies, and their asset allocation is less than 1%. Although people are interested and it often makes the news, it’s still a niche asset. But it’s precisely because it’s niche that entrepreneurs have opportunities.

So, we need to build liquidity step by step. You can’t start by aiming for trillions in liquidity. If you look at early exchanges like Poloniex, daily trading volume might have been $200 million with a 2% fee. Now, it’s in the billions. Liquidity accumulates gradually; it’s always small at the beginning. When starting, find your core users (e.g., 10-300 people) and expand slowly, keeping costs low.

In the early stages, prioritize putting easily tradable financial products on-chain (e.g., stablecoins, securities, commodities). Startups need to set reasonable expectations for their growth trajectory, avoiding being too early or too late.

Q5:

Hey, CZ, I noticed you changed your profile picture to kite surfing. Have you counted how much seawater you’ve swallowed to successfully take off? How did it feel when you took off?

CZ:

Sports are fun! I’ve swallowed a lot of seawater—almost drank the ocean dry, haha! I love being in nature with just a board, whether it’s snow or wind. Skiing is a bit riskier for me. I’ve been skiing for over 30 years since I grew up in Canada. But high speeds come with risks, and I’m worried about hurting my back if I fall. Water sports are safer when you fall, so kite surfing is really interesting. I recommend you try it. As for the experience, you’ll have to find out for yourself!

Q6:

We noticed your speech in Japan mentioned the gap in RWA token price tracking data. We’ve been running a crypto data platform for three years and have recently been focusing on RWA data. In your opinion, what opportunities are there for data infrastructure on RWA assets to integrate with entry-level/traffic-driven product tools like ours?

CZ:

Traditional financial products like currencies, forex, and stocks have well-established pricing and historical data. However, assets like real estate and artwork often have unreliable or incomplete historical data. As RWA matures, on-chain trading volume and liquidity will shift pricing power to the chain (e.g., stablecoins achieving high trading volume through AMMs). Right now, most transactions are large-scale and very opaque. Once every asset is on-chain, it will be more transparent and available 24/7—this is the trend.

So, data transparency (e.g., historical prices, trend comparisons) can promote trading, creating a positive cycle of "improved data → increased trading → enhanced liquidity." Currently, RWA data is lacking, so there’s an opportunity for data platforms to attract traffic. I’ve also suggested that platforms like CMC focus on this area. Data and industry development will progress simultaneously.

People often ask, "How much does this cost?" but many things have opaque pricing. Once everything is on-chain, prices will become more transparent. So, I think there are many opportunities for related data platforms.

Q7:

Given the issue of fragmented liquidity, why don’t listed companies issue native stock on-chain themselves instead of relying on third-party distributors like Robinhood? What is the ultimate product form for stock on-chain? For example, X stocks, Robinhood, or Stable stocks—which do you think will be more ideal in the future?

CZ:

The core reason most companies don’t do it directly is compliance. Listed companies are regulated by securities commissions. Directly issuing stock tokens might classify them as securities, requiring compliance with regulations like KYC and accredited investor rules. On-chain wallets don’t require approval, creating a regulatory conflict.

Intermediaries step in to avoid direct association risks, but this means tokens can’t pay dividends, potentially harming user interests.

The ideal scenario is for regulators to allow listed companies or companies meeting listing standards to issue tokens tradable globally (e.g., the US promoting securities brokerage, which means soon, everyone worldwide can buy US stocks—this is good for US stocks. If places like Hong Kong or Japan don’t follow suit, they’ll lose out). Technically, issuing tokens is simple; the challenge lies in adjusting regulatory rules. Currently, token prices are decoupled from actual stocks, and the price gap can’t be arbitraged, indicating the products aren’t fully linked. The core issue now is compliance, not technology.

Q8:

We’re working on DeSci (Decentralized Science), a field largely driven by leaders. Currently, crypto investors pay very little attention to it. But we hope to disseminate knowledge and bring new data types and narratives to blockchain. We really need Web3’s support for this. What are your thoughts?

CZ:

DeSci is valid, but there are many problems to solve. The challenge in combining DeFi and science lies in the conflict of time cycles. Scientific research operates on a yearly basis, while Web3 users often seek short-term gains (e.g., "speculating on meme coins"). However, in theory, excellent researchers and scientists need small funding (e.g., $100,000–200,000). For example, if research succeeds (e.g., developing a cancer drug), the returns can be significant. If future profits can be distributed to token holders, the logic holds.

Personally, I’d like to support thousands of researchers, whether they’re in universities or running small labs. Such a system doesn’t exist yet. YZi Labs has already invested in several related projects. I know some projects are attempting to use AI to process biological data and reduce medical research costs. If there’s a breakthrough, like solving a part of the cancer puzzle, it could spark a boom in this field. I believe it’s only a matter of time. What’s missing now is a "groundbreaking case."

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