Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has said countries better regulate crypto rather than fight it, claiming that crypto adoption will happen no matter what.
During a Binance event in Athens, Greece on Friday, CZ noted that crypto regulation has once again become a hot topic amid the recent fallout of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He advised countries to propose regulations rather than opposition to the crypto sector.
“I think most governments now understand that adoption will happen regardless. It’s better to regulate the industry instead of trying to fight against it,” Zhao said.
As reported, FTX announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware a couple of weeks earlier. The exchange had lent as much as $10 billion worth of customer assets to fund risky bets by its affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research, a move that has attracted the ire of FTX users.
An estimated 1 million creditors are facing losses totaling billions of dollars. Furthermore, the FTX contagion has kept spreading over the past couple of weeks, most recently affecting crypto exchange Liquid, BlockFi, Genesis, and Gemini.
Meanwhile, CZ compared the collapse of FTX to the 2008 financial crisis but claimed the industry will be able to recover.
“(This year) was a very nasty year, the last two months too much has happened. I think now we see the industry is healthier… just because FTX happened it does not mean that every other business is bad,” he said.
The CEO also remained bullish on Bitcoin adoption. When asked whether he thinks countries might start adding cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to their reserves in the future, Zhao said he expected countries to start, particularly those which did not have their own currency.
Binance’s CZ is not alone in his optimistic view of the crypto industry. As reported, top Wall Street strategist Thomas Lee, who is also co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, believes crypto will reemerge despite a lackluster performance in 2022.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Lee said the current crypto bear market is nothing new. He noted that the crypto industry experienced a similar meltdown back in 2018 when Bitcoin lost more than 70% of its value from all-time highs.
“It has been a horrific year for crypto. Nobody has made money in crypto in 2022,” he said. “But it is not that different from 2018. If we look back at that crypto winter when Bitcoin went from $17,000 to something around $1,200, that was the time when some of the best projects were created.”
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