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Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said he wants crypto-AI agents with tokens to have real utility.
During a fireside chat with Raoul Pal at Token2049 in Dubai, he also discussed his ongoing conversations with countries looking to adopt and regulate crypto.

Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of Binance, says he wants crypto-AI agents with tokens to demonstrate real utility, stating that nearly all of them are useless.

“Today there are so many different AI agents with a token but agents don’t have a utility. I want to see real agents that have real utility that can really help you, with tokens. There are AI token launchpads where you click a button, and you have an AI with your own name. That token is useless — 99.99% of them are useless,” said CZ in a fireside chat at Token2049 in Dubai. “What we want to see is real AI agents that can use things.”

CZ said AI will completely revamp the crypto user experience and how people interact with blockchains. This could include the app experience, customer support and risk monitoring among other improvements. “It’s all going to change,” he said.

Binance's founder said it was unfortunate that the crypto industry developed before AI did. He said that it needs to change to an AI industry — embracing the benefits of the technology. He noted that he’s using AI heavily in his educational platform, Giggle, particularly in translating text to other languages.

However, the flip side is that AI can easily adopt cryptocurrency. “The currency for AI is crypto,” CZ said. “AI is not going to swipe a card, get an SMS code, that doesn’t work for AI. It’s going to be crypto.”

CZ said the internet data that has been used to train AI agents has now been exhausted. Going ahead, this data could be captured in a privacy-preserving way using blockchain technology, he suggested. He added that users should be able to monetize the data that they create.

On the speed of development, CZ noted that crypto companies exploded much faster than internet companies did back in the day — and that AI companies are going to rise at an even faster rate. But with blockchain tech, they can more easily monetize.

Helping countries adopt crypto
When it comes to broader adoption, CZ said he’s speaking with around a dozen countries on helping them understand how to encourage crypto’s growth in their regions.

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He said there was a big shift in the last six months or so, since around the time of the US election. He referenced the new administration’s pro-crypto stance and Elon Musk’s reported idea of using blockchain for government efficiency. He said other parts of the world are also exploring similar ideas, such as the UAE looking at decentralized IDs.

Today, blockchain is a single dimension for trading/financials. We can expand blockchain to multiple dimensions,” he said.

CZ specified that the countries reaching out to him are looking at how to regulate crypto. Typically, these are quite advanced conversations about specific issues on regional adoption.

He said regulators generally want to manage everything locally, such as having local wallets and custody solutions and local order books. Only he argued that this approach doesn’t particularly work. “If you divide each country by their own order book, liquidity is gonna suck,” he noted.

On crypto reserves, he said countries are incentivized to create them earlier because they may have to buy at higher prices if they are late to the table. He recommends using professional custody solutions if they’re starting with smaller amounts, with the notion of moving to their own cold storage solution if they grow to holding larger amounts.

While he highlighted a few countries that are embracing crypto, such as Hong Kong and Bhutan, he noted that Europe doesn’t seem to be in the conversation (except for Montenegro). “It’s kind of missing on the map,” he said.