There are less than two days left before our team and the global cryptocurrency community celebrate Binance’s seventh anniversary, which is also the first anniversary since I took over as CEO of Binance. In general standards, a company that has been established for seven years is still in its early stages of growth, as an ambitious startup. However, in the cryptocurrency industry, a company that has been established for seven years and has maintained its leadership position throughout this period has become an experienced industry veteran. In this rapidly changing industry, Binance has survived and thrived through various stages of development.
The upcoming seventh anniversary of Binance embodies both characteristics: maintaining the curiosity, agility, and growth mindset of a startup, as well as the wisdom and resilience of a seasoned veteran forged through enduring challenges and learning important experiences in difficult processes. With over 210 million global users, and still growing, they have placed great trust in us and are willing to embark on their cryptocurrency journey with us, becoming a driving force for global financial freedom and inclusivity. This is where we stand today.
Current Status of Binance’s Ecosystem
Whether it’s our first anniversary, second anniversary, upcoming seventh anniversary, or any future anniversary, Binance has always kept its original intention: “putting users first” is the most important consideration in making all decisions. We have a hardcore work culture and an owner’s mindset, continuously innovating with the purpose of improving people’s lives.
The past year has been familiar to Binance: challenging obstacles and exciting moments of success intertwined. From turning the page on past issues and undergoing leadership changes, we have seen signs of users regaining confidence in the strong influx of funds and surging new registrations. We have remained strong and never stopped building the industry’s momentum.
A key milestone this year was reaching the threshold of 200 million global registered users in early June. Among them are many users who are already familiar with digital assets, but there are also many new users entering this industry, believing that Binance will open the door for them to enter the Web3 world for the first time. Each of their joinings means that we are one step closer to digital assets entering the mainstream. We warmly welcome these new users and promise to do everything we can to make them feel comfortable and secure in exploring the future of finance with us.
The addition of more users means that Binance is custodian of more funds. Earlier this year, the amount of user funds hosted on our platform exceeded $100 billion for the first time. Our user funds have always been safeguarded in a secure and transparent manner based on the principle of 1:1.
Driving the Mainstream Adoption of Cryptocurrencies
To better support both new and existing users in exploring the world of cryptocurrencies, we have provided a range of infrastructure, products, and services to meet any user’s needs related to Web3 and cryptocurrencies. Currently, Binance supports 541 carefully selected digital assets and 2,632 cryptocurrency trading pairs. Our robust system is ready to handle a large volume of user activities. The highest historical queries per second (QPS) on the Binance platform, which measures the number of requests sent by users to our system and the number of responses received per second, reached as high as 2.58 million. This figure indicates that Binance can smoothly handle a very large workload when users need it the most.
To promote the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies and financial inclusion, we continue to expand our product coverage, ensuring accessibility in a wider range of crypto fields and providing essential financial services.
Our “Binance Earn” product line allows users to increase their cryptocurrency holdings in 392 different cryptocurrencies. It has attracted over 8 million users to experience Binance Earn services. Payment is another pillar of cryptocurrency entering the mainstream. Currently, over 24 million people worldwide use Binance Pay for secure and efficient domestic or international transfers.
In the current market cycle, another key force driving the mainstream adoption of digital assets is the participation of more institutions. Binance’s unparalleled liquidity and market depth, as well as products and solutions tailored to the strict requirements of professional investors, have attracted a large number of institutions to join Binance’s ecosystem. Between January and June 2024, we witnessed over a 36% increase in institutional user registrations.
Cryptocurrency education is also another important foundation for the popularization of digital assets. The total number of learners who have visited Binance Academy has reached 43.6 million. Through learning, users can gain a deeper understanding of the blockchain world and digital assets, and invest in cryptocurrencies in a more thoughtful and responsible way.
Security and Compliance
Over the past seven years, we have made significant investments in regulatory compliance and will continue to do so with even greater determination. We recognize that strong compliance practices will play a crucial role in the mature stage of the cryptocurrency industry. We continue to recruit top talent, constantly improve our systems and technology, and work closely with governments and regulatory agencies in many countries to obtain operational licenses and registrations. Currently, we have obtained licenses and registrations in 18 jurisdictions, ranking first among all centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
Another area of focus for Binance is enhancing security cooperation in the digital finance sector. Our law enforcement training program has contributed to the capacity building of global law enforcement agencies in combating illegal activities related to digital assets through various online and offline courses. Between June 2023 and May 2024, the Binance team handled 62,800 law enforcement requests, with a total of 173,800 requests processed. Each request plays a key role in the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases, locating criminals, and recovering victim funds.
To protect Binance users from potential security risks and losses caused by extreme situations, we will continue to maintain the SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) fund size at over $1 billion. Earlier this year, we converted all SAFU funds into the more trusted and transparent stablecoin USDC, further enhancing the reliability of the fund size and ensuring its value remains stable at $1 billion.
Looking to the Future
As we enter the eighth year of serving cryptocurrency users, we will steadfastly lead the digital asset industry into the next stage of development. With market and industry trends becoming apparent, some forces shaping it are well known.
The institutionalization of digital assets, coupled with clearer regulations, will attract more large-scale investors and capital into this field. At the same time, the importance of retail users will not change, as the group of major early adopters continues to expand, attracting more new users from new regions and demographics. They need a more intuitive user experience, easy-to-understand knowledge of cryptocurrencies, user support, and continuous innovation – which is exactly what Binance was born for.
With the trust and support of the global community, we believe that the hard work of the past seven years has laid a solid foundation for even greater success, and the path to financial freedom and inclusivity will continue to widen. And this is just the beginning.