Podcast Notes | CZ: This Is the Best Era for Entrepreneurship; Being a Stable Cog Is the Most Dangerous Illusion
Compiled & Translated: TechFlow
TechFlow Guide: In an exclusive global interview with the renowned Japanese business and financial media PIVOT, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) sat down for an in-depth, lengthy conversation with PIVOT’s Chief Global Editor Ryuichiro Takeshita. As the iconic figure steering the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, CZ provided the first systematic review of Binance’s early, intertwined history with Japan. He openly shared his true psychological journey through the compliance storms of 2023–2024, stepping down as CEO, serving four months in prison, and fully unveiled his lifelong endeavor dedicated entirely to bridging the global education gap: the zero-fee platform, Giggle Academy.
When discussing future technological trends, CZ stated unequivocally that the large-scale explosion of AI will inevitably create an absolute demand for blockchain and crypto-native digital currencies. Billions of autonomously collaborating AI agents in the future cannot rely on traditional banking systems for micro-settlements; cryptocurrency is the only native blood in the machine economy era. Facing the turning point of the global economy and technology, he issued a highly penetrating call to the new generation of young people: break free from the mediocre framework of traditional lifetime employment, confront uncertainty head-on, decisively launch startups, and embrace the limitless opportunities of this era.
Guest: Changpeng Zhao / CZ (Founder of Binance, Initiator of Giggle Academy)
Host: Ryuichiro Takeshita (Chief Global Editor, PIVOT)
Broadcast Source: PIVOT Official Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hmlgUN-42E)
Original Title: [Exclusive Interview in Japan: Binance Founder CZ] What is the “AI × Blockchain” Revolution? / What a Billionaire After Prison Bets on Next / Changes Coming Within 5 Years / What Japanese Companies Must Prepare For Right Now [PIVOT GLOBAL]
Broadcast Date: October 24, 2026
Key Takeaways
The Japanese DNA of Binance’s Core Matching Engine: CZ’s first software engineering job after graduation was in Tokyo, developing order routing and matching systems for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). That ultimate geek experience of manually managing underlying memory allocation and pointers in C++ laid the absolute foundation for the high-performance architecture supporting millions of transactions per second that Binance would build years later.
Crisis Management and Full Compensation from 40% of Treasury Reserves: In 2017, the Binance team relocated to Tokyo due to adjustments in domestic regulatory policies and reached the number one spot globally within just five months. Facing user panic caused by drastic industry shifts, Binance voluntarily covered 6 million USD out of pocket (representing 40% of the platform’s total reserves at the time) to fully compensate affected users, thereby establishing an unbreakable moat of user trust.
Tax Deregulation and the Wave of Tokenizing Everything (RWA): Japan plans to reduce the tax rate on cryptocurrency gains from a maximum of 55% to 20%, treating them similarly to traditional stocks, which will strongly activate domestic market liquidity. CZ pointed out that the future financial competition among sovereign states lies not only in stablecoins but also in full asset tokenization (covering government bonds, stocks, real estate, and even natural assets like cross-border water resources), which will reconstruct the high-speed flow paths of global capital.
Accepting the Cost of Compliance, Stepping Down Became a Gift from Life: Serving four months in prison in the U.S. for a single violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, CZ explicitly emphasized that there was absolutely no fraud in the case and no victims. Despite experiencing painful life upheavals, he viewed stepping down as CEO as a liberation granted by fate: freeing him at age 49, when he is vigorous and holds massive resources, from the daily trivialities of exchange operations, allowing him to freely choose a new track that can create the greatest social welfare.
Lifelong Endeavor Giggle Academy Builds Perpetual Free Education: Faced with 700 million illiterate adults and 500 million out-of-school children worldwide, as well as the flaw of traditional schooling in molding students into homogenized mediocrities, CZ invests 5 million USD annually to maintain a 50-person R&D team to build a zero-fee educational App based on AI and gamification mechanisms. The platform grew from zero to 2 million children within two years, with the goal of benefiting hundreds of millions of kids in the future, and explores forming a century-long sustainable positive cycle ecosystem through voluntary contributions from former beneficiaries once they gain stable income.
The AI Agent Economy Must Run on Cryptocurrency: In the future, every human user will have hundreds or thousands of autonomous AI Agents representing them to execute tasks. AI agents cannot open accounts in traditional banks or swipe credit cards; only permissionless, second-level confirmed Crypto can support massive, high-frequency micro-payments on demand. The deep integration of AI and blockchain will increase the speed of asset and transaction circulation across society by thousands to millions of times within five years.
Breaking Advice for Young People: End the Salaryman Fantasy, Decisively Engage in Entrepreneurship: The current era represents the golden window with the lowest barriers, strongest empowerment, and highest success rates for founding startups in human commercial history. CZ strongly advises young people to master new AI and blockchain tools as early as possible, break free from the constraints of Japan’s traditional lifetime employment system, and bravely embrace the entrepreneurial path, which is filled with challenges but also offers extremely high returns.
2. Key Highlights
"The initial underlying system of Binance actually originated from the days and nights I spent writing C++ code for stock exchanges in Tokyo twenty years ago. Technical tools continuously evolve, but our pursuit of extreme performance and stability at the foundational level has never changed."
"In 2017, we provided $6 million in compensation to users, which accounted for 40% of Binance’s entire treasury reserves at that time. We could have chosen not to do so, but protecting users has always been the core secret behind Binance’s growth to number one in the industry."
"In the future fintech games between sovereign states, there are only two core watershed moments: one is the regulation of exchanges and stablecoins, and the other is the tokenization of all assets. Whoever can tokenize their own stocks, government bonds, or even infrastructure and sell them to the world will win global capital liquidity."
"Throughout the entire history of the U.S. judicial system, no one had ever gone to prison solely for a compliance oversight violating the Bank Secrecy Act. But I never complain about injustice; the world has never been equal. Instead of dwelling on the past, it is better to devote all energy and resources to doing things that are truly beneficial to humanity."
"Being forced to step down as CEO turned out to be a blessing. Had I resigned voluntarily, others would say CZ lost his fighting spirit; but now I am 49, vigorous, financially free, and possess massive resources. I can finally wholeheartedly dedicate myself to the educational cause that can create the greatest positive impact."
"AI agents will absolutely not queue up at banks to open accounts, nor will they swipe traditional credit cards. When tens of thousands of AI Agents represent humans in automated buying and selling, editing, marketing, and micro-payments, cryptocurrency is their only native blood."
"Japan’s traditional lifetime employment and salaryman culture is being phased out by the times. I strongly recommend that all young people choose entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is indeed filled with immense uncertainty and hardship, but it grants you unprecedented freedom, profound positive influence, and rich rewards that transcend class boundaries."
3. Main Text
1. From the Tokyo Stock Exchange to Binance: The Japanese Roots of the Underlying System
Host: CZ, it is a great honor to have you on PIVOT GLOBAL. We know you frequently travel around the world. Where are you joining us from today?
CZ: I am currently in Abu Dhabi. Actually, I often travel globally, and Japan is a place I visit frequently. I really like Tokyo and Hokkaido. As soon as winter arrives, I go skiing at Niseko almost every year. Japan occupies a very important position in both my personal life and career journey.
Host: While reading your new book, what surprised Japanese readers the most was how crucial a role Japan played in your entire life trajectory. For our audience, how would you describe Japan's place in your life?
CZ: Japan is indeed a profoundly significant part of my life. My first full-time job after college was in Japan, where I worked at a tech company in Tokyo specializing in developing matching software for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It was during those years in Tokyo that I first systematically encountered and learned about trading matching systems, order execution systems, and the design of underlying architectures for large exchanges. Counting it all up, I lived and worked in Japan for approximately six to seven years. For peers familiar with underlying technologies, we used C++ at the time, requiring programmers to manually manage pointer allocation and memory cleanup. That rigorous training in extreme performance, millisecond-level latency, and system robustness, after years of iterative evolution, ultimately crystallized into the initial prototype of today's Binance trading system.
Host: So, the seed of this towering tree known as Binance was actually sown in Tokyo much earlier. And by 2017, Japan once again became a critical turning point in Binance's destiny. What specifically happened then?
CZ: In July 2017, we had just founded Binance in Shanghai. Just six weeks later, in September 2017, China completely halted ICOs, crypto exchanges, and virtual currency mining. However, in that same time window, the Japanese government demonstrated remarkable foresight: as early as April 2017, Japan officially recognized Bitcoin's legal status for payment, and between September and October, began issuing formal licenses to crypto exchanges, approving approximately 16 institutions in the first batch.
At that time, we were a lean team of just 30 people. Although the product had only been live for six weeks, we had already very clearly validated Product-Market Fit (PMF): users spontaneously flooded in to register, and trading volume and activity showed explosive growth. Since domestic policies tightened while Japan offered a highly legal and standardized compliance pathway, and considering overseas markets account for 70% to 80% of global potential trading volume, we without hesitation moved the entire team to Meguro, Tokyo, rented offices, and rapidly started renovations. Those days of fighting side-by-side in Tokyo remain the most crucial chapter in Binance's globalization expansion.
2. The Path to Becoming Number One Globally: Responsibility in Crisis and Institutional Reflection
Host: Looking back at 2017, the market was already populated by many mature, established exchanges. Yet, starting from an office in Meguro, Tokyo, Binance leaped to become the number one trading platform globally in just five months. Looking back on that legendary journey, what exactly allowed Binance to defeat all competitors at such incredible speed?
CZ: On December 17, 2017, in less than five months since inception, Binance's single-day trading volume officially topped the global rankings. Superficially, it looks like we only took five months, but in reality, before that, I had solidly cultivated the financial trading system field for a full 17 years. Although our team had only 30 people, everyone was a top-tier expert in the industry.
Objectively speaking, we did indeed catch a wave of historical progress. 2017 was the year of the ICO boom, with countless brand-new innovative tokens emerging, and Binance was an international platform focused on supporting diverse innovative assets. In contrast, domestic exchanges in Japan were limited by early whitelist mechanisms and basically only allowed 10 to 20 mainstream core tokens to list. In early 2017, roughly five of the top ten ranked exchanges globally were Japanese institutions, but precisely because asset diversity was strictly constrained, they quickly lost competitiveness when facing the diverse needs of global users. Binance seized this momentum, but maintaining the number one throne for nine consecutive years after reaching the summit relied on the team's extreme daily striving and steadfastness.
Host: Beyond system architecture and timing, your responsibility shown to users at critical moments is also extremely rare in the industry. When facing sudden regulatory changes and market turbulence, how did you balance interests and reputation?
CZ: In the pioneering era of 2017, mainstream crypto platforms generally had fragile system architectures. If your withdrawal got stuck and you submitted a ticket to customer service, waiting two months without a single reply was commonplace. Binance, from day one, reshaped industry standards with its extremely high service response. More importantly, when our team decided to leave Shanghai and move to Tokyo, facing asset volatility triggered by adjustments in domestic regulatory policies, Binance proactively launched a full voluntary compensation plan.
From a legal standpoint, the volatility caused by regulation was completely not the platform's responsibility; we had no obligation to pay out of pocket. Nevertheless, we resolutely provided $6 million in actual cash to fully compensate all users who suffered losses. Many people do not know that this $6 million equated to 40% of Binance's entire treasury funds at that time. This was a crucial sum, but it was precisely this decisive action that placed user interests first at a critical moment that thoroughly won the utmost trust of global crypto users.
Later, in early 2018, due to the incompatibility of Japanese regulatory rules with the compliance frameworks for hundreds of innovative assets, we were unfortunately forced to withdraw from the Japanese market. But in July 2018, just a few months later, western Japan suffered a major flood, claiming 81 lives. Although we had just experienced the commercial setback of withdrawing from Japan, I immediately donated $1 million in disaster relief funds in Binance's name. Business remains separate from personal sentiments. I have countless old friends and former colleagues here, and I deeply cherish this land. That $1 million donation marked the first time the global crypto industry contributed such a substantial sum to a real-world humanitarian crisis, serving as the genesis of Binance Charity.
3. New Era of Tax Deregulation and Asset Tokenization (RWA) in Japan
Host: Speaking of Japan, we must address the major financial reform currently underway. Japan plans to modify the law to significantly lower the capital gains tax on cryptocurrency assets from a previous maximum of 55% under miscellaneous income tax to a separated tax rate of around 20%, placing it on par with the traditional stock market. From the perspective of global investors and industry leaders, how do you evaluate this policy shift?
CZ: Directly lowering the tax rate to 20% and equating cryptocurrency assets with traditional stocks in terms of tax law status is undoubtedly an extremely wise and profoundly significant major measure. The previously punitive high tax rate of 55% severely hindered the accumulation of capital and talent in Japan, whereas a 20% capital gains tax aligned with mainstream financial assets possesses very strong appeal globally. This change will undoubtedly attract massive funds and trading volumes back to the domestic Japanese market.
Of course, in the long run, the practical application scenarios of cryptocurrency assets are far broader than stocks, involving diverse functions such as daily payments and cross-border settlements. I hope that in the future, with the proliferation of payment scenarios, Japan can provide more flexible preferential policies on micro-tax systems such as transaction consumption taxes. But at this stage, this tax reduction reform has already taken a remarkably beautiful step for Japan to reclaim its voice in Web3.
Host: In the past, Japan's extremely strict compliance regulations led to the outflow of many outstanding entrepreneurs and startups. Now, with the significant warming of tax regimes and policies, how do you view the future opportunities for Japan's startup ecosystem?
CZ: Japan has actually followed a unique trajectory in its regulatory history: between 2017 and 2021, regulations were indeed extremely tight, forcing many excellent local Japanese and overseas founders to leave; but over the past two to three years, the Japanese government has demonstrated astonishing capacity for self-correction and openness. Binance itself successfully returned to the Japanese market in 2022 through a compliant acquisition, obtained a fully compliant license, and engaged in deep joint ventures and ecological cooperation with Masayoshi Son of SoftBank and leading domestic financial giants.
For entrepreneurs, utilizing cryptocurrency and token mechanisms for global financing is one of the most efficient and lowest-barrier financing methods in human history. In the past, due to regulatory gaps, overseas indeed saw quite a few speculative scams taking advantage of the confusion; but in Japan, societal culture values high integrity, and entrepreneurs are extremely rigorous and focused. I have invested in many outstanding startup teams in Japan and have almost never witnessed malicious rug pulls. As long as policies provide sufficient space and normative guidance, Japanese entrepreneurs can completely leverage Web3 financing networks to rise rapidly in the global market.
Host: You frequently provide policy consultations to heads of state and high-level regulators in many sovereign nations worldwide. During communications with various governments, what is the most common core concern you discover? Where do they most easily overlook critical blind spots?
CZ: The core issues concerned by high-level officials of various countries, summarized, mainly focus on two major areas:
The first area is the regulatory framework for centralized exchanges and compliant stablecoins. Most countries have gradually clarified the logic behind exchange licenses, and the current focus of competition is rapidly shifting toward stablecoins. Currently, over 99% of global stablecoins are issued backed by U.S. dollar assets, further reinforcing dollar hegemony in the digital world through stablecoins. As one of the world's core international currencies, if the yen acts slowly in this regard, it will fall into a passive position in future digital settlement networks. Currently, Japanese banking institutions and JPYC have begun deploying yen-backed stablecoins, which is an absolutely correct strategic priority.
The second, even larger and more disruptive area, is the tokenization of all assets (Real World Assets, RWA). Every country globally desires to tokenize its real-world assets on-chain. This includes not only government bonds, high-quality listed company stocks, real estate funds, and rare earth minerals, but also strategic natural resources. For example, I am recently in deep discussions with a certain national government about tokenizing its abundant water resources: neighboring countries heavily lack freshwater supply. By issuing water resource tokens, neighboring countries can directly subscribe to token shares in advance, while the water-producing nation uses this presale funding to directly invest in the construction of modern freshwater conveyance infrastructure. In the past, this type of cross-border infrastructure financing required years of exceedingly cumbersome multilateral bank approvals, but through asset tokenization, capital raising and rights confirmation can be completed globally within minutes.
Tokenization allows traditional stocks and government bonds to be seamlessly purchased by investors worldwide instantly, greatly enhancing secondary market liquidity and premium potential. Japanese companies tend to be extremely cautious and slow in making strategic decisions, but possess unparalleled explosiveness in specific engineering execution. I believe Japan can quickly catch up and lead in this major wave of stablecoins and asset tokenization.
4. Stepping Down as CEO and Judicial Experience: Forced Retirement Became a Gift of Life
Host: We must discuss the life-changing turning point from 2023 to 2024 that shook the global tech circle. During the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, you eventually reached a plea agreement regarding a single violation of the Bank Secrecy Act (failure to register as a financial service provider in the U.S. and oversights in anti-money laundering screening), stepped down as Binance CEO, served four months in prison in 2024, and subsequently received a full pardon. You detailed this psychological journey in your new book. Looking back at everything today, what is your most authentic feeling?
CZ: Your summary is very accurate and objective. In Binance's early entrepreneurial phase, specifically between 2017 and 2019, the platform indeed had users from the United States trading on it, and we were not registered as a regulated financial services enterprise in the U.S. at that time, which violated the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act. Between 2022 and 2023, U.S. regulators launched comprehensive charges regarding this matter, and I chose to face this objective fact and take responsibility.
At that time, I was located in the UAE, and there is no extradition treaty between the UAE and the United States. Had I chosen to evade, I could have easily stayed in the UAE living a quiet life away from worldly affairs. But I absolutely did not want to waste my remaining years living as a fugitive wanted by authorities. I am accustomed to facing problems and solving them, so I proactively booked a one-way flight to the United States and appeared in court to handle all legal procedures.
That experience was absolutely not pleasant, but it was an extremely profound life lesson. I want to reiterate very seriously and clearly: throughout the entire judicial case, there was absolutely no conviction for fraud, no allegations of fund misappropriation, and not a single user suffered a loss. This was purely a financial registration compliance matter. I am genuinely proud that regardless of the tremendous storms weathered, Binance consistently protected 100% of all users' asset safety.
Host: During the four-month period of losing freedom, which was the most challenging for you: physical hardship or mental torment?
CZ: If you look through the entire archive of U.S. judicial history, up until today, no one has ever been sentenced to actual imprisonment solely for a compliance oversight violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Just recently, Bank of America was fined a massive $1.2 billion by regulators for severe systemic compliance loopholes, even though the involved violations were arguably more serious, yet not a single banking executive faced criminal prosecution, let alone imprisonment.
But for me, all of this has long become a distant memory. The world has never been equal; if you obsess over comparing the so-called fairness everywhere, you will fall into endless mental friction. We are operating on a disruptive frontier track in crypto, without obtaining licenses from traditional financial systems. I am a founder with an Asian face helming a platform governing hundreds of billions in international capital flows; every variable is extremely unique. The past is settled; dwelling on resentment is meaningless.
Conversely, taking a step back, being forced to step down as CEO was actually a wonderful gift bestowed upon me by fate. Had I voluntarily resigned, the outside world would certainly accuse me of losing passion and yielding to difficulties; but this time, I was forcibly pushed from the position by external force majeure. Now at 49, I remain energetic, possessing ample time, a clear mind, and massive wealth and resources. I no longer need to be entangled in the endless daily compliance and operational trivia of the exchange. I can completely follow my inner sense of mission to freely choose entirely new tracks that can bring the greatest positive change to human society.
5. Giggle Academy: Building a Perpetually Free Global AI Education Ecosystem
Host: After emerging from the trough, you quickly opened a brand new chapter of life. If founding Binance was to open the door to financial access freedom, is your newly initiated and wholly committed global children's education project, Giggle Academy, opening another door to educational equality and freedom for you?
CZ: Completely correct. This internal foundational logic is entirely continuous. Whether it is the popularization of financial infrastructure or the democratization of educational resources, essentially, it is all about granting ordinary people a fair entry ticket. We cannot guarantee that every person in the world possesses exactly the same wealth at every moment, but a just and civilized society must grant everyone completely equal opportunities to receive education and start creating value. Only in this way can those who put in effort truly change their own destinies.
After stepping down from Binance's management, I profoundly reviewed the resources and capabilities I possessed. I asked myself: what exactly can exert the greatest positive leverage on the entirety of human civilization? My answer is education. The current global educational reality is actually shocking: over 700 million adults worldwide are completely illiterate, two-thirds of whom are women living in underdeveloped regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa; meanwhile, over 500 million school-age children globally still cannot enter classrooms simply because their families are too poor or there are simply no schools nearby.
Even more seriously, even for those children who have schools to attend, the existing traditional exam-oriented education system is stifling talent. Modern schools tend to mold everyone into uniform, mediocre cogs in the machine: if you possess exceptional language aptitude but struggle slightly with math, the school will force you to cut Chinese/language study time to grind relentlessly through math, ultimately polishing you into a featureless mediocre individual. However, in a highly globalized and AI era, the world only demands exceptionally outstanding talents who excel in niche domains; mediocrity will hold absolutely no competitiveness. Coupled with the extreme scarcity of excellent teaching resources globally, the entire educational system urgently awaits disruption.
Host: Facing such a massive global challenge, how does Giggle Academy plan to break through using entirely new technological paradigms?
CZ: Leveraging generative AI, advanced gamification incentive mechanisms, and ubiquitous affordable smartphones, we can absolutely deliver the world's best customized education to everyone for free through a single app. We have been secretly refining this project for a full two years.
Initially, I intended to start with first-grade English, but we quickly discovered that the gap in cognitive development and pronunciation among children widens enormously by age six. Scientific research indicates that humans already enter the critical learning window for language systems from eighteen months to two years old. Therefore, Giggle Academy directly lowered the introductory teaching age to two. We have already developed a complete set of highly sticky, adaptive interactive courses for ages two to six. Over the past year, the platform's student scale has seen explosive exponential growth: in early 2026, our registered students numbered approximately 100,000, and as of now, the number of actively learning children on the platform has surpassed 2 million, achieving a full 20-fold surge in just one year! This thoroughly proves the global hunger for quality free digital education.
Even more wonderfully, looking at the cost structure, the leverage ratio of this undertaking is astonishingly high. I invest roughly $5 million annually to maintain a top-tier engineering team of about 50 people developing software full-time. Because the marginal cost of pure digital products is nearly zero, teaching 2 million children versus 200 million or even 2 billion children in the future entails virtually no essential difference in server and code marginal expenses. In the short term, I personally inject $5 million to $20 million annually, which I can completely sustain for 20 consecutive years based on my personal finances. Twenty years from now, when these children benefiting from free education grow up, enter the workforce, and secure decent high-paying jobs, even if only a tiny fraction voluntarily feeds back 5% of their income to the platform, Giggle Academy will be sufficient to form a vast, perpetually self-sustaining positive feedback loop. This is the happiest undertaking of my life; every time I meet with the Giggle team and review the data, I feel genuine happiness.
6. The Inevitable Fusion of AI and Cryptocurrency: Hardcore Advice for Young Entrepreneurs
Host: Looking ahead, you have made extremely dense investment layouts in Web3, AI, and frontier biotechnology. As an evangelist standing at the forefront of technology, how do you view the cross-evolution of these two super cycles: AI and blockchain? What kind of world will we truly welcome in the next three to five years?
CZ: If we extend the time dimension, over the decades of my adult life, human society has successively welcomed three waves of super technological revolutions capable of altering the foundation of civilization: the first was the internet, the second was blockchain, and the third is the current generative AI. They are spaced approximately 15 years apart. The disruptive nature of AI lies in its ability to exponentially elevate productivity limits across all industries; we are currently merely touching the tip of the tail of this elephant.
However, people universally overlook a fatal fundamental issue: AI must exist relying on networks, and more critically, AI must use currency! In the near future, everyone will have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of autonomously running AI Agents in their backend. For example, after we finish recording this interview today, your backend will have a dedicated AI agent automatically performing precise video slicing and editing, specialized marketing agents for distribution and traffic generation, and financial agents collecting viewing fees from global audiences. These AI agents conduct astronomical volume-level automated value clearing every minute and every second.
I ask you, will AI agents submit account opening applications to traditional bank branches? Will AI agents swipe plastic credit cards or sign paper checks? Absolutely impossible! The only solution is to use frictionless, machine-friendly Crypto-Native digital currency. The arrival of the AI era will not only fail to diminish the value of cryptocurrencies but will instead push the frequency of microtransactions across society by a thousand to a million times. For instance, in the future, when a user watches a piece of high-quality video, an AI agent will automatically deduct 1 yen from their account in the background, eliminating the need to be forced into bundling purchases of expensive subscription packages costing 20,000 yen monthly. Micro-payments, digital identity authentication, on-chain ownership verification—all of this set of machine economy protocols must be carried by blockchain. I believe this ultimate fusion storm between AI and Crypto requires no ten-year wait; it will fully sweep across us within five years.
Host: At the end of the program, we return to Tokyo once more. If you could sit down for a deep conversation today with the young programmers and young entrepreneurs on Tokyo streets who are confusedly exploring, what is the single hardest piece of advice you most want to pass on to them?
CZ: Today is the absolute golden age for founding startups in human history. No single day compares to it. There may be better days in the future, but in the entire long river of human history traveled thus far, today is simply the best day!
The dominant industries of the future are incredibly clear: AI, blockchain, and the next-generation internet. As long as you are in these core tracks, keenly capture those products that can truly solve others' practical pain points while also being what you love and excel at building, sit down and hammer them out with full effort, and the probability of you achieving massive secular success and financial freedom will exceed imagination.
Society in Japan has long advocated a lifetime employment culture of entering large corporations to work as salaried employees (salarymen) for life. Although this viewpoint might sound highly controversial in Japan, I must be extremely candid with young people: I do not recommend this path! In this era of intense disruption, becoming a cog within the establishment is the most dangerous illusion. I strongly urge and advise young people to choose the path of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship inevitably comes with enormous uncertainty, along with unimaginable hardship and pressure, but it equally grants you unprecedented freedom, profound positive societal impact, and substantial economic returns capable of altering family destinies. Embrace new tools early, and bravely dive in to build!