First Mover: Binance CEO Sees Future in DeFi While Bitcoin Volatility Turns Minuscule
In a video interview with CoinDesk’s Muyao Shen, Zhao acknowledged that the emerging blockchain sector of decentralized finance, known as DeFi, could eventually upend the business that Binance has grown to dominate: running a centralized cryptocurrency exchange. The company’s new foray into DeFi, Binance Smart Chain, attempts to replicate some of the features of the Ethereum blockchain that have proven fertile for developers building decentralized, blockchain-based trading and lending applications that theoretically could one day challenge traditional lenders and Wall Street trading firms.
Like rival cryptocurrency exchanges OKEx, Huobi and Coinbase, Binance is trying to hold on to its central role in digital-asset markets as upstart DeFi projects like Uniswap, Curve, Balancer and SushiSwap attract a bigger share of industry trading volumes. Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao told CoinDesk's Muyao Shen in a video interview that "nobody complains to Vitalik" when a newfangled DeFi project fails on the Ethereum blockchain.
