Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, officially launched on 14 July 2017.
Today, five years later, the exchange’s growth has given over 120 million users across the globe access to an innovative blockchain-powered ecosystem that counts products such as the crypto wallet Trust Wallet, an NFT marketplace, aggregator platform CoinMarketCap and Binance Earn among others.
And on its birthday, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao says there’s more the platform can offer as the crypto world enters the “exciting phase” of Web3.
In his letter to Binancians on the exchange’s fifth anniversary, Zhao said he sees the platform playing a crucial role in the growth of the Web3 ecosystem.
“Web3 is bringing together all the technology we’ve seen developed over the past years: NFTs, digital identities, tokenomics, play-to-earn models, and much more,” he wrote.
It’s a development that is bringing loads of capital and talent to the crypto space, two components that have historically preceded huge leaps across product innovation and adoption.
2020s is the ‘decade of Web3’
Technological development has happened in leaps and bounds since the 80s when client-server tech hit the market. The following decade heralded the age of the Internet, and in the 2000s, smartphones catapulted the mobile tech industry.
Blockchain technology has grown massively in the intervening decade, with the 2020s set to be “the decade of Web3,” the Binance chief noted.
It’s Web3 that will allow users to take control of their personal data and the monetization of the value that this creates.
Binance thus wants to be at the center of making this a possibility for billions of people.
We want to be the gateway to Web3,” Zhao said, adding that the goal is to provide the “set of tools that billions of people use to make their first steps into this new world.”
Ordinary users who are not “crypto maxis” as one commentator points out.
Through partnerships such as the recent high-profile deal with soccer superstar Christiano Ronaldo, or TikTok celebrity Khaby Lame are targeted at showcasing the day-to-day use cases possible with Web3, he added.
While some view the partnerships are “simple promos”, Binance takes a different outlook. According to Zhao:
The beauty isn’t in bringing in the big names; it’s in accessing their audiences and demonstrating that Web3 isn’t just a techy dream for the nerdy few.”
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