Binance CEO dismisses concerns that institutional crypto ETFs threaten decentralization

In a Twitter Spaces conversation on July 5, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said dismissed worries that large companies posed a threat to the crypto sector.

Over the past several weeks, leading asset managers, including BlackRock and Fidelity, have applied for spot Bitcoin ETFs. Crypto community member DeFi King asked Zhao whether those large institutions pose a threat to decentralization.

Zhao responded:

“The short answer is no, I don’t think they are a threat. I think in a decentralised world, no one should have the power to block or ban anyone else, including other large centralised entities.”

Zhao added that large companies can actually benefit the crypto industry as they bring new users to the sector. He suggested that many institutional investors are likely interested in crypto but cannot use international trading platforms like Binance.com and are not comfortable using U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance.US.

Instead, he said, institutional investors are likely comfortable investing through BlackRock, Fidelity, Citadel, or other firms with which they have an existing relationship.

Zhao says competition is minimal

Zhao acknowledged that large financial institutions could compete with Binance for users “a little bit” but otherwise downplayed this. He said:

“To be honest, look at our user base … three speakers so far out [five or six] are from Africa. You guys are not going to use BlackRock, right? So the overlap is minimal.”

Zhao also said that Binance “welcome[s] more and more players, the larger the better” and added that competition can help the company to improve.

Finally, Zhao commented on conspiracy theories that suggest BlackRock and other institutions deliberately became involved in crypto alongside separate regulatory pressures in order to drive existing cryptocurrency companies out of the industry. Binance, notably, is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 5.

Zhao argued that, for these theories to be accurate, institutions should have instead become involved in crypto prior to regulatory actions. He said that Binance would expect to see pressure after financial institutions established themselves in the crypto industry and after those firms found that crypto firms had overlapping services.

Zhao concluded that he believes Binance has little overlap with major financial firms and said that the U.S. institutional market is one that his firm has “blocked very heavily.”

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