FO529 Raj Shamani: w/ Richard Teng – Bitcoin, Crypto & De-dollarisation (Transcript)

So stablecoin is just starting to take off with clarity provided by the Genius Act. And many other countries around the world are now embracing stablecoin and coming out with clear legislation.

I mean, if you think about it, one of the biggest problem with trading today is you can only trade within a certain amount of hours a day, right? Whether it’s 9 to 5, whether it’s 10 to 4, depending on the countries you are in, it’s constrained. And people don’t realize the amount of liquidity risk that institutions, the corporates, the retail have to bear once the market closes, so to say. If there’s anything that’s happening in the world in terms of news flow, you can’t take on new positions. You can’t hedge your risk. You can’t offset your position. So you’re bearing a lot of risk until tomorrow the market opens and the price point opens at a totally different level.

So if you think about it, isn’t it better if you are allowed to do 24/7, manage your risk effectively, whether it’s through human, whether it’s through AI intervention, et cetera. So that is what crypto has already offered, 24/7 trading from the start. So the future world in terms of how all these things are being managed will be very different.

Many securities companies in the world, exchanges, still operate on T+2. So during that 2 days of clearing and settlement, there’s a lot of risk that’s being borne. In crypto, we have already moved to atomic settlement. It’s instantaneous because the technology provides for that. So if you think about it, there are so many facets within financial services that will be transformed very drastically. Once you have more and more institutions, and once you have more new fintechs, more new providers coming into the market providing much better alternative of how financial infrastructure will look like, the transformation will take place very quickly.

The Biggest Lie About Money People Still Believe

RAJ SHAMANI: See, all of this to you, it sounds very obvious, right? And because you’re in this world, you understand this. And probably for 5-6% people in the world also, this sounds obvious. And that’s why they’re betting towards this future, right? But for a lot of people, majority of people, they still believe in the old way of money.

RICHARD TENG: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: That money is still powerful.

RICHARD TENG: Yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: That money is still the most important source for them, right? Yes. So what do you think? Why people still hold on to it? Or rather, I would say, what is that one lie about money that people still believe today?

RICHARD TENG: You are brought up in the world, right, that the only sensible way, or the only way that you can transfer money is you go up to a remittance house or you go to the bank and say that this is how I send money to the— Firstly, it’s habit. And secondly, you are not open up to new areas of growth and new areas that you can do that much quicker. And thirdly is structural, right? There are a lot of structural impediments.

Even today, the way financial institutions are engineered, they’re structured in a certain fashion, right? In the front office, there’s middle office, there’s back office. Middle and back office do certain functions. They have to go through reconciliation, they have to go through accounting settlement, right? But if another competing bank come through, or another big bank to say that, look, I’m going to do middle and back office very different. I’m not going to do reconciliation because I don’t have to. Once we blockchain technology, everything is immutable. So reconciliation become irrelevant, right?

So once all those structural changes come through, both in terms of the financial institutions itself, but in terms of financial landscape, right? With stablecoin coming through and growing so rapidly, with real-world assets tokenization coming through, so even the Swift of the world are forced to look at it and say, “Hey, look, we’re going to support blockchain,” right?

So it’s also habit and it’s also literacy and awareness. But once a lot of all these things come through, then people realize through media, through education, through your friends to say, “Instead of paying 6 to 7%, you can pay 0.1%. Isn’t this much more superior?” But that change, especially depending on demographics, may come through differently.

So if you talk about to a person 20 to 30 years old, digitally savvy, using mobile most of the time, they know how it works. They’ll be the first embracer of this, definitely. And then if you go up the age group in the value chain, those change will take slightly more time for them to embrace it, but it’ll come through because technology will come through. It’s just like initially when internet came through, did the embracement take place overnight? No, it’ll take period of time. It’ll take for mobile penetration, internet penetration to take place. So that penetration will take place. So it’s a matter of speed.

Where Would You Put $100: Banks, Governments, or Technology?

RAJ SHAMANI: Let’s say if you had $100.

RICHARD TENG: Yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: And you had to, you can only put in banks, governments, or technology companies for the future who can either bring change and actually end up giving you a lot of power compounding or whatever you want to put it.

RICHARD TENG: And you’re saying the $100, is from a private investor or—

RAJ SHAMANI: Like from a private investor, just you.

RICHARD TENG: You cannot afford to put $100 in the government. Government has its own funding and has its own mechanism, right? There’s no way that you can put—

RAJ SHAMANI: Let’s say all three of you had one stock and equally priced $100. Which one do you think will give you a maximum return on the scale of power, not in scale of actually money?

RICHARD TENG: I would say that in the first instance, it’s always about the technology, right? Without the technology, without showing the world the capabilities, right, the rest may not follow, right? So like it or not, regulations is always half a step, one step, one and a half steps behind because the regulations can never keep up with changes and the new technological advances.

So it’s very, very important that we place the emphasis on technology, on the use case, on the utility, how do we transform the world? Same that you’re seeing in AI. I mean, the regulations don’t come in first, right? Same that you are seeing in quantum computing, et cetera. Because you have to prove that this has the ability to take root, this has the ability to transform and present a much better use case than what is the current state, right?

Without that, the government doesn’t know what it’s looking at, right? The financial institutions are not understanding what it’s going to look at. So I would say in the first instance, it’s always the technology. The technology is the most important part. You have to show what is the future state, what is the use case, what’s the utility, right? How do you bring about the development? How is it a technology that can bring about betterment for the people, right? So those are extremely important. Then the government and the institutions will come into play.

What Do Crypto Skeptics Like Warren Buffett Really Fear?

RAJ SHAMANI: Warren Buffett, right? And he’s been very vocal about not favoring crypto.

RICHARD TENG: Yes, yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: Charlie Munger and him, they both have said it multiple times in multiple occasions.

RICHARD TENG: Yes.

RAJ SHAMANI: So when you meet people like him or people who believe in that kind of philosophy, what worries them the most about crypto and this new asset class?

RICHARD TENG: I don’t think it’s something that they worry about. I think it’s something that for the skeptics is something that they have not spent enough time, energy to invest, to investigate and to understand. So for the longest time, some of the largest money managers in the world, some of the largest financial institutions are skeptics and critics.

So if you look at BlackRock, Mr. Larry Fynn, CEO, for the longest time he was a sharp critic of crypto. And then the more he understand it, now he has turned into a keen supporter. Jamie Dimon, one of the sharpest critics for the longest time, for 7 years has been coming out to say negative things about crypto. He has changed his stance, right? The more he understands it and what this technology represents and how it can transform financial landscape. Now JPMorgan is trying to work with, for example, DBS, on tokenized deposits, which is an important use case for cryptography, for blockchain as well, right? So they’re starting to embrace it in a very, very big way.

So it’s about that awareness, about understanding, it’s about deep dive and knowing the technology and what it can bring and how it can shape the future world.

De-Dollarisation and the Future of Money

RAJ SHAMANI: Do you think one of the reasons for a lot of these people to change their stance is about Dollar devalue?

RICHARD TENG: Well—

RAJ SHAMANI: Like everybody keeps saying that dollar is dying.

RICHARD TENG: Yeah, there are many people that may subscribe to that view. I actually don’t.

RAJ SHAMANI: You don’t?

RICHARD TENG: I don’t. And I can explain to you why, right? I think that there are countries that want to move away from dollar dominance. I think that’s a fact. And that fact has been in existence for a long period of time, right? But for that to come true, you need several elements to come into play, right?

So today, if you look at globally, which is not only a reserve currency, but a safe haven currency, essentially that’s just US dollars, right? So why are we in this current state? Because the US dollar is used as a denomination for majority of all the trade flows, right? So global trade flows is denominated. You have a world and infrastructure under the existing system pretty much controlled by the US financial system, right?

If you look at just US equities alone, it accounts for close to 60%, 70% of equity value of the world, right? If you want to do a fundraising at high valuation for a tech company, where do you go to? The US market, right? So again, because of all that different parts of the ecosystem, are you able to move quickly? No. Would all the different countries want to come up with their own solutions, definitely. So CBDCs, for example, is what the countries wanted to do to also try to de-risk from US currency. But that will take some time. And whether those experiments are going to be used, is going to be transformational, it really depends on what is being embarked in those experimentations.

Is Crypto an Alternative to the Dollar?

RAJ SHAMANI: True. But then isn’t crypto essentially an alternative for the dollar?

RICHARD TENG: Well, I don’t—

RAJ SHAMANI: I say crypto, but let’s say Bitcoin.

RICHARD TENG: I don’t think it’s going to be alternative for, I mean, if you look at most of the stablecoin today, it’s still denominated in US dollars, right? So crypto is an asset class, right? It is in many instances extremely volatile. Useful and the best form of transfer of value, right, globally, right? But the transfer of value has to be denominated in something. So I don’t see crypto as that.

And the crypto usage goes way more beyond just a mode of transfer of that. It’s a store of value used in most instances, it’s a mode of payment, it’s a mode in which future financial infrastructure is being built, it’s a mode that really facilitates 24/7 settlement, global asset tokenization, and many, many use cases are being developed as we speak. In the DeFi space, there are so many new different projects. So in the payment space, again, in RWA space that has grown by 25 times in the last year alone, the script is just being rewritten at this point in time. There are so many strong use cases coming through. So it’s just not one dimension.

Freedom, Technology, and Bad Actors

RAJ SHAMANI: Crypto is giving a lot of freedom to people, right? There’s not going to be a bank in the middle, or no government in the middle, or no charge, which is 6-7%, essentially comes down to 0.1%, right? So it’s like a lot of freedom for people to not put their trust into one institution, right?

But that’s also a gateway and freedom for, let’s say, a scammer or a dictator or a trafficker to just attack an individual. So maybe this technology, which is empowering a lot of freedom, is at the same time empowering a lot of bad actors. So do you think about that sometimes, that both sides are just getting empowered at the same time with the technology?

RICHARD TENG: Same with any technology, right? So just let me elaborate a lot more. The scammers, the fraudsters has existed for the longest time within financial services. I don’t know whether you do this, you receive this in India, but in Singapore, we receive a lot of scam calls. People, and even people masquerading as our Prime Minister asking for transfer from banks. And one unfortunate individual has been scammed to transfer $4.9 million, if you look at the press article. So scams, fraudsters exist in any situation, especially the advent of technology such as AI.

People have to be very, very cautious, right? So there are areas that we need to continue to invest in, both in the traditional financial institutions to provide enough guardrails, right? But for our users, for the global users, whether they’re users of financial institution or crypto, they have to do a lot of understanding, research. Don’t trust all these things coming through, right? Have an independent mind. Don’t just trust. Normally the scammers play up to emotions to say that if you don’t do this, there’s either a risk, right? You have to give me access, otherwise your account will be accessed by other people, et cetera. So I’m trying to secure your— or opportunity is too good to miss, right? I’m going to offer you how many percent return, et cetera. So whatever it is, you have to be prudent and be cautious in whatever format that’s coming through. So it’s not limited, right? Unlike what you say in crypto, it happens all the time in financial institutions.

But as a responsible entity, we have built in so many guardrails, right? And we are utilizing this technology in many sense that financial institutions are not utilizing. So for example, on the cybersecurity side, we have invested very heavily. Today we have more than 100 AI models just doing anti-fraud scanning. And last year alone, we helped our users avoid close to $7 billion in terms of potential scams, right? More than 5.4 million users, close to $7 billion in potential scams. Because using all this new technology, we have the ability to detect that. And when our users want to transfer funds, we warn them, “Are you sure about this? Who are you trying to—” So those are things that, as a responsible entity, we do.

Trusting Math Over Institutions

RAJ SHAMANI: On this point, I have a rather philosophical question to follow up. If you look at money, in the entire human time, in last 5,000 years of our history, we always needed someone who we trusted, right? Some kind of king, some kind of temple, or a bank, or a government, or something in the middle there where we trusted, right?

Crypto for the first time is where we all are coming together and we are like, we don’t trust someone, we trust math, we trust some code or some math formula, right? So are we moving away from trusting an individual and outsourcing our, what do you say, outsourcing betrayal to a form of math or a form of code?

RICHARD TENG: No, so what you say is not true. So in the very early days with barter trade, right, the transfer of value is different, right? And if you remember, if I bring you back 16 years, how Bitcoin manifesto came about was really loss of faith, faith not of the central authority, but of the centralized platforms, the Lehman Brothers collapse, et cetera, et cetera, financial institutions not being able to manage the risks. You know, you can see those collapse coming through. And people feel disenfranchised when something collapse. They can’t do what they need to do via proper transactions, right? The system froze. You have a central party in that.

So that’s how Bitcoin was then said, look, this is a better alternative way of payment where you disintermediate from a central middleman, that there’s a lot of vagueness and it’s opaque. We do not know what is in there. We do not know how they’re regulated. The central banks say they’re properly regulated, then how can they fail, right? So to say. So it’s slightly different. And that then takes root among a group of very early adopters, early believers to say this is way superior. Instead of letting a middleman take 6, 7, 10% of my transfer, why shouldn’t I do this using technology which is far superior?

And today it has transformed, right? So if you look at stablecoin, it’s one of the most important use cases of that technology. But even the banks are embracing it now. So if you look at global banks like Standard Chartered, HSBC, they say that we’re going to issue stablecoins. They’ve gotten licenses in jurisdiction, including in Hong Kong, to do that. So this technology is proving itself to be important and relevant and changing how future remittance, how future payment, how the future of financial services will look like.

Is Binance Becoming the New Middleman?

RAJ SHAMANI: Aren’t you, as Binance, becoming the middleman?

RICHARD TENG: So we are centralizing—

RAJ SHAMANI: Like the concept you were against, you guys are becoming the same concept. No, so that’s different.

RICHARD TENG: So the banks operate on a fractionalized reserve basis, right? So for every $100 that they get, they keep 5%, 8% in terms of regulatory reserve. They then lend out the rest of that money, right? So it’s about risk management. For us, it’s different. Customers’ money, 100%.

And because we have this technology, we introduce proof of reserve so that customers can at any point in time check on the chain, check your address, that the money, their assets are there, right? So at any point in time, we hold not of $140 billion of customer assets, but those assets are properly safeguarded. And we became the first global exchange to have a home regulator, right? So other than 20 over countries that we are regulated in, we are the only one with a home regulator that regulate us on an end-to-end basis.

So not just about AML, transaction monitoring, how we do our know your customer, know your business, how we do enforcement, listings, our global liquidity is regulated, but also areas of how we custodize, how we safeguard money. When we do our proof of reserve, which give transparency to our customers that your money is held safe, where you can verify all this. The financial institutions, traditional financial institutions are not able to do that for customers. So it’s a totally different concept.

The Future: Wallets Over Bank Accounts

RAJ SHAMANI: If you were 18 today, would you open a bank account?

RICHARD TENG: Well, it really depends. It depends on whether I’m technologically savvy, right? So if I am 18 and not technologically savvy, and depending on whether there are banks in my country. If you look at, I mean, I’ve been in financial services for more than 30 years. Since day one, central bankers, financial institutions around the world say that we have to bring about greater financial inclusion. But as of today, you have 1.4 billion people, 4 billion people around the world with no access to proper payment system, with no access to proper banking system because financial institutions are making it too expensive. They don’t want to serve this group of people.

So what’s the alternative? What’s the option? It is crypto. It is blockchain technology. It is Bitcoin. So I go around the world to many parts of the frontier market, Global South, emerging markets where people come out and thank me, right? And thank Binance, because their life has improved tremendously once they got to know, firstly, crypto, secondly, Binance, using it as a platform for store of wealth, for transfer of value, et cetera. Because these are— they get access to things that they couldn’t get access before, right? So those are extremely important.

So I would say that if I’m 18, definitely I believe I’ll be savvy enough. Hopefully. And I will definitely embrace this. Because I will give you a situation. The future will, if you think about it, you don’t necessarily need a bank account, but you definitely need a wallet. So the wallet infrastructure is very, very important.

So through your wallet, you get payments from your employers. It could be in the form of stablecoins coming in on a monthly basis. From there, using a combination of AI and blockchain, you can pay your normal bills, right? Whatever bills that you need to pay. You can then do, using that diversification, right? You can have a balanced portfolio. I want to invest in equities, commodities, credit. Part of it will go to earn product and savings. Everything can be managed out from that wallet, right?

So the concept of a banking institution to the future generation, I believe, will look very different as we continue to evolve because through a mobile, through a wallet, you can do everything, literally. So do you still need to go to a bank to set up a bank account? No. What you need is a wallet. So, which is why it’s very important to think forward and rethink the future of the world and what’s coming, right? So if you look at, we continue to invest very heavily into our Web3 wallet on that front. Today, our market share stands at north of 80%. So we believe that all this technology and infrastructure, these are infrastructure layers that are extremely important for the future world.

RAJ SHAMANI: So you believe that the wallet infrastructure will become more important than the bank infrastructure?

RICHARD TENG: Absolutely.

RAJ SHAMANI: At some point?

RICHARD TENG: Absolutely.

RAJ SHAMANI: Do you think our kids will talk about bank accounts the way we talk about fax machines?

RICHARD TENG: I don’t know, but my kids doesn’t quite talk about bank account anymore.

RAJ SHAMANI: Yours should not.

The Case Against Banning Crypto

Richard Teng: So different economies have different setups, and different economies evolve and innovate at different paces. So it really depends. But I would say that the more the evolution goes, the more prevalent and important all this new technology, all this new way of working.

Because today, once I give you a much better alternative, you will not go back to the past alternative. You will demand the future alternative. Why am I paying 6% to 7% if I can do 0.1%? Why am I not allowed to take positions when there’s 24/7 trading? Why do I have to wait for 2 to 3 days if I can do transfer on an instantaneous basis?

It’s not only the retail that is asking that, the corporates are doing that. You look at all the very big corporate treasuries, they’re moving to say, “Look, on a daily basis, I need to transfer hundreds of millions of funds from Australia to Europe, to US, to different parts of Asia. I need to allocate that. Isn’t it better to make use of stablecoin or crypto technology to do that transfer so that I hold less capital, my capital is put to better use, is much greater efficiency, I save a lot of cost for the organization, and I have certainty for myself, all my subsidiaries, all my vendors, when are they going to receive the payment.”

That brings about greater capital velocity. There’s a better alternative. And once they do that, they will not go back to the existing state of play.

Raj Shamani: True. You said it depends on different economies how the manifestation will take place, and it’s an important question that different economies will function in different ways. They will have different thought processes. What if some people come together and decide they want to ban crypto? What happens then?

Richard Teng: Well, you have countries that ban crypto. But as with technology, you can try to curtail it, you can try to ban it, but the technology will continue to advance very, very quickly. And there are many countries around the world that are embracing it. Crypto is becoming mainstream. You can’t turn back the clock now.

So the longer you actually ban this technology, the further behind the value chain the country will be. And over time, it actually impacts a country’s competitiveness. But those are country-level considerations. Those are policy considerations. Countries will have their own considerations to take into play why they do certain things.

But from a competitive angle, as I mentioned, AI and blockchain, crypto technology are the two most important technologies that will underpin every economic sector. If you think about every sector, every economic sector in the world going forward, whether it’s trade, whether it’s financial services, whether it’s media entertainment, every sector can be rebuilt using these two fundamental technologies. They’ll look extremely different 5, 10 years from now compared to the current state that we see today.

Raj Shamani: So it won’t be completely banned?

Richard Teng: It’s not something that you will be able to ban. It has now gone into mass adoption. So in my view, but I might be wrong, a lot of times it’s much better to embrace the technology, to embrace it and to regulate it. Then you have proper oversight of the technology, what it does, and then you can put in place guardrails.

A lot of countries — if you look at the history of the world, countries that close themselves off to the outside world tend to fall behind very quickly because they are not in touch with the latest innovation, the latest technology. In the past world history, they don’t get access to military technology like gunpowders and such, and they fall behind very, very quickly. So every time a country shuts its borders and doesn’t continue to embrace innovation and all these new changes coming through, that’s a risk to the country.

AI Agents and the Future of Trading

Raj Shamani: Another technology — I was reading some comments that you guys are using AI agents a lot in Binance. Are you using AI agents for better trading as well?

Richard Teng: Absolutely. So we use AI across the organization. For example, this year, every business unit leader’s mandate is to make every function within Binance much more effective and much more efficient with the usage of AI. And then from our user level, it’s also giving them the right tools through AI to facilitate that. So we introduced Binance AI Pro, where you can do proper analytics, you can do assessment of analytics, you can do trading on it.

And the future world, again, of all the other things I mentioned, is one that agentic trading is going to be prevalent. So agentic trading, agentic payment is going to be prevalent. So if you think about it, all these are important usages of blockchain. And important usage of payment going forward will be stablecoins and crypto. Because once you use agentic, you can’t afford to make payments using your traditional card payment or traditional banking payment, because it’s too costly. So crypto, instantaneous transfer, low cost becomes the natural default currency for AI.

That’s why we always say that crypto and stablecoins are the natural currency for the AI generation because of all these changes that you’re seeing. And agentic trading coming through, agentic payment coming through, it is only natural that the evolution will continue to evolve very, very quickly.

Raj Shamani: Explain to me, agentic trading is like on my behalf, an agent will trade?

Richard Teng: Yes. So you give the parameters.

Raj Shamani: So what if an AI agent loses my money at 3:00 AM? Who do I blame?

Richard Teng: The AI model — you have to make sure that you have proper risk parameters. You have proper cut loss measures. For an experienced trader, you know what to do. You can build in all these guardrails for yourself.

Raj Shamani: But who do I blame? Let’s say some bug feature happened and then my agent ends up losing my entire life savings on your platform.

Richard Teng: Safeguard all those. Do things that you understand and put in place proper guardrails. Don’t have fat finger. In the traditional world, you have fat finger as well. So have proper safeguards. And it’s very important that you test the agent to make sure it’s doing all the right things.

Raj Shamani: Even after putting proper safeguards, would you trust an AI agent with all your money?

Richard Teng: It’s about risk diversification.

Raj Shamani: But would you trust yourself?

Richard Teng: I would make sure that I test it properly first. I make sure that there’s a proper track record of how it’s operating before I continue to invest. As we always say, start small. Make sure that you understand it. Make sure you understand the potential and the pitfalls of anything that you put your money into, because it’s your money that you’re dealing with, before you continue to expand that portfolio.

Raj Shamani: But here’s the scary part about it. What if in my first few trades I end up making money with my little amount and then I put my whole amount and then my AI agent messes up the entire thing?

Richard Teng: Well, then you’re not being prudent. Yeah, it’s all about risk management. It’s very important to make sure that the AI agent is tested for different market conditions, different situations and circumstances. So it’s very important for you to test the parameters and you know what you’re getting into.

Steering the Ship: Lessons from Leading Binance

Raj Shamani: And what was the toughest thing for you personally as a CEO when you took over?

Richard Teng: Well, I do think that it is steering the ship and working through with all the regulators around the world to show that we have pivoted very, very strongly. We have invested greatly into compliance. Financial institutions make mistakes. It’s not only us, but if you look at all the global financial institutions, they have breached law, they have breached AML provisions at some point in time. The rules and standards are ever-evolving, so we need to keep pace with those rules and standards.

But what is important, as with responsible entities like ourselves, is to acknowledge those mistakes, make the right investments, and then come out of it much stronger, which we have done. So we have demonstrated that we make mistakes. We have underinvested in compliance. Now we have made huge commitment to investment, to compliance, and invested greatly. We work with global regulators to embrace regulations, to embrace compliance. We have a very strong and robust team now. And we continue to work very closely with policymakers and regulators around the world so that good regulations, smart regulations are being promulgated to regulate this sector for the benefit of everybody.

We want proper regulations. Our interests are aligned with users and aligned with regulators. We want a responsible ecosystem in place that’s properly regulated for the benefit of everybody. So our interests are all aligned. It’s how do we get there and to make sure that smart regulations come through instead of one-dimensional regulation that focuses on risk, which then makes it a very poor piece of legislation.

Because for any legislation that just focuses on risk without also supporting innovation and growth, it’s going to be very, very challenging. As an ex-regulator, I can tell you that the easiest form of regulation is to regulate everything to the ground, is to have zero risk. But when you have zero risk, you have zero activity. How is it going to benefit the economy and the people? So you need to come up with balanced, smart regulations to support both sides.

In Binance, I hope I continue to do the same as an enabler, as a builder, working with a fantastic team. So I have the founders, co-CEO Yi, working alongside. We have many brilliant people. And we continue to believe that we need to continue that mission of Binance, which is the freedom of money, build the best platform out there into a financial super app, to serve our users in terms of all their financial services needs. And that’s where we are heading towards.

Advice for the Next Generation of Builders

Raj Shamani: So if some builder is watching you right now who’s probably in their early 20s, wanting to build his or her career — the money is changing, the world is changing, AI and technology is changing, geopolitics is changing. So many changes happening in the world. What should they focus on, or which industry perhaps, or what one specific thing should they look at to create wealth in the next 10, 20, 30 years?

Richard Teng: I would say that the technology will always come through. So there’ll always be new technology coming through. The sectors will always evolve. The opportunities will always evolve. So I think it’s important for them first to understand — spend as much time as possible understanding the different landscape, do deep dives.

But it’s also understanding that if you are a builder, focus on building things that will create value. It’s very important. So if you focus on building things that will create value, that’s sustainable, that has utility about it, there are strong use cases, you won’t go too far wrong. Because these are things that people will continue to use to create value for the world, for yourself. So those are the areas that they should focus on. Continue to look at ways to create new value or enhance existing value.

Raj Shamani: Is there any specific sector that you believe is going to see disruption in the next 5, 10 years? Where there’s not a lot of work that has been done, so somebody can maybe look at it?

Richard Teng: I really believe that every economic sector in the world will be transformed using AI and crypto. Entertainment, for example — payments in entertainment will be totally transformed. Supply chain financing will be totally transformed using AI and crypto. Financial services, I think we have touched on. But if you look at even different types of sectors, there are so many sectors with so many opportunities that are ripe for transformation. So if you inject the right lens, if you have the right expertise and you use the right technology, you can create a lot of new value in each of these economic sectors.

One Piece of Advice Nobody Should Follow

Raj Shamani: Got it. Well, thank you so much. Here’s one last thing I’ve started asking my guests these days. What is one advice that nobody should follow?

Richard Teng: “Hey, I have this great investment that can generate huge returns for you.” So don’t trust those. Do your own research. It’s extremely important. Just don’t trust what other people tell you without understanding, without researching, without analysing. It’s going to be challenging. So importantly, do your own research. It’s very important that you are the master of your own money and your own knowledge. So invest time in all those things.

Raj Shamani: Alright, thank you so much. That’s a great one. Thank you so much.

Richard Teng: Thank you. So I was in Budapest, so I saw the match between—

Raj Shamani: Are you a PSG fan or Arsenal?

Richard Teng: Actually, I’m a fan of football. I’m not a fan of both clubs, but I think they are very, very good clubs and play — but it’s very tight football that they play on the finals, very, very cautious, very tight football.

RAJ SHAMANI: Which is what is your favorite club?

Richard Teng: Liverpool.

RAJ SHAMANI: Thank you so much for watching this episode till the end. Now you have to do 3 things. Number 1, subscribe to this channel right now. The more you subscribe, the better the guests we will be able to get for you. Number 2, please comment and let us know what did we do wrong and what did we do right, because the more you give us feedback, the better we will be able to make episodes for you. And number 3, please share this episode with at least one person, because one conversation can change someone’s entire life. I’ll see you next time. Until then, keep figuring out.

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