"They Paid People To Spy On Us" - Binance's RUTHLESS Rise To The World's BIGGEST Crypto Empire

Binance launched on July 14th, 2017. The first three weeks saw the BNB price underwater, below its ICO price, creating a high-pressure period. However, about a month after launch, the BNB price surged 29 times (2900%) in one week, specifically the fourth week, signaling potential for the platform. User growth on the platform was also rapid, indicating real users and trading activity. Around two to three months in, the founder inquired about the company's financial performance and was surprised to learn they were making a couple hundred bitcoins in revenue. At the time, Bitcoin was valued at approximately $3,000, not the $70,000-$80,000 of today. This initial revenue, equivalent to about $600,000 over one or two months, confirmed the viability of the business. Binance quickly became one of the fastest companies to reach $1 billion in profits, achieving this milestone in about a year. At that time, profits and revenue were quite similar due to a small team and low costs. In 2017-2018, major players in the crypto exchange space included Poloniex, Brex (which became the biggest), Coinbase (though not the largest), BitFlyer in Japan, and Bitfinex. From day one, Binance experienced jealousy and hostility from competitors, which was viewed as normal business competition. Competitors sponsored smear articles, which inadvertently benefited Binance by providing free advertising for the new platform. These "FUD" (fear, uncertainty, doubt) attacks, essentially false news, were present from the beginning. Regulatory scrutiny, however, came much later, around 2020. The first year of Binance was described as "crazy." The founder's schedule involved sleeping only from 2 AM to 6 AM, including travel and showering, and taking a nap in the office around 2-3 PM. The entire team maintained a similar intense schedule for about a year, working in a loud, energetic office environment likened to a flea market, constantly dealing with issues. While the founder misses the camaraderie and "fighting in the trenches" with teammates, he acknowledges his body couldn't handle that pace now. Other team members experienced more severe exhaustion, with some requiring hospitalization for physical ailments. The former CTO, for instance, still uses eye drops from an eye infection contracted during those demanding early days. Most of the original co-founders (80%) are still with the company and have achieved significant financial success. Even those who left remain friends. The founder identifies ethnically as Chinese but considers his thinking and business approach to be much more Canadian/US, embodying a Western, freedom-driven, capitalist ideology. Sam Bankman-Fried started much later; the founder first met him in January 2019, when Bankman-Fried was primarily known as a significant trader on Binance through his firm, Alameda Research. By 2020, Binance was recognized as the largest crypto exchange, holding that position for over three years. While Binance was the largest centralized exchange, the founder notes the broader crypto ecosystem includes decentralized exchanges, blockchains, and stablecoins. Binance's strategy of charging very low fees, sometimes 20 times lower than US competitors in non-US markets, was a core business idea. The philosophy was to provide immense value and only take a small portion of it, thereby attracting a large volume of transactions. While many businesses aim to maximize their cut per transaction, Binance sought to minimize it to increase the overall number of transactions and scale. This is akin to Google providing free internet infrastructure (like time servers and DNS services) and making money primarily through advertising. Binance's revenue from a few businesses was sufficient to sustain operations and allow them to offer more free services, thus growing the entire crypto industry. The main source of revenue for Binance is trading fees, which are small commissions on trades. Despite the apparent simplicity of this low-fee model, other companies struggled to replicate its success. While some tried similar models, including paying users to trade, none achieved the same widespread success. Fees are important, but success also depends on user protection, customer service, and technology. Staggering statistics highlight Binance's impact: a lifetime trading volume of $125 trillion, 280-300 million registered users globally, and a peak market share of 70% during zero-fee promotions, significantly outpacing competitors like Bybit at 8%. Revenue estimates for 2024-2025 range from $16 billion to $20 billion, making it two and a half times larger than Coinbase. At peak promotions, 85% of total weekly volume was zero-fee, and market share surged from 50% to 70% after the zero-fee Bitcoin trading announcement in July 2022. The company's valuation is often estimated by third parties at $100 billion to $300 billion, but as a private company, Binance has not conducted deals at these valuations. The founder, as a shareholder, personally focuses on user numbers, which recently reached 300-315 million.