Crypto's King Midas: Backstage With CZ, the CEO Who Can't Be Stopped

As of the end of 2018, Binance has eight lines of business - Binance Exchange; Binance Labs; Binance Charity; Binance Academy, Binance Research; Binance Info, Binance Launchpad and Trust Wallet, as well as a ninth, a decentralized exchange, set for launch in January.

Impressive as the list may be, it's even more so when you consider some - in particular, Binance Coin, as well as Binance Exchange's crypto-only trading policy - were radical at the time of their launch.

Still, Binance's meteoric rise has been greeted with skepticism by those who feel Zhao might be moving too fast given the state of global regulation.

Binance left China, where it was initially based, after the country's central bank banned crypto trading in September last year, and it later moved operations to Tokyo.

In comparing Binance with Coinbase, Liu says the latter still takes a rather traditional internet company approach to regulation in the sense that it chooses to offer services based on the world's largest markets step by step, i.e. first the U.S., then the Europe and the U.K. "CZ doesn't think about which country is the biggest market and therefore I'm gonna set up a team there. He starts with what crypto needs - a wallet and an exchange." Liu says.

It's a personal mission that has trickled down to his staff as well, where he estimates that "95 percent" of the Binance team gets at least part of their salary in crypto.

To Zhao Singapore is a major hurdle for Binance, as it still needs to convince a bank to fully back its operation.

While domestic regulators in the region remain open to blockchains and cryptocurrency, it's to be seen how exactly they'll choose to see Binance and Zhao, whether as a potential asset for the local economy or a possible liability.

If blockchain is what allows CZ to become so successful so quickly in so many countries, the same technology could, too, allow others to build a Binance knockoff in one or two months at every other domain.

"Just like other exchanges might have been caught napping and couldn't follow Binance, Binance may get caught napping too no matter how good CZ is. The test will be whether he can decentralize his businesses even further so that his own staff are the ones that own the next Binances."