<p>“A lot of users don’t need a bank. What they need is a wallet.”</p><p>In this episode of Endgame, Amanda Cassatt sits down with Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, for a conversation about what crypto actually became and whether that’s the right thing. Richard spent three decades in traditional finance, including the Central Bank of Singapore, before joining Binance in 2021. He doesn’t argue like a convert. He argues like someone who watched the old system fail for thirty years and decided the new one had to work differently.</p><p>They start at the founding question: is crypto self-sovereign freedom tech or licensed infrastructure run by a handful of platforms? Richard’s answer is that the frame is wrong. Centralized exchanges aren’t a betrayal of the movement. They’re the interface the movement needs to reach the 1.4 billion people the financial system never bothered to serve. From there they move through Binance’s regulatory strategy in markets like Dubai, why the Genius Act sent stablecoin volume past Visa in under a year, and why regulatory clarity is the unlock for institutional capital, not just compliance overhead.</p><p>Amanda pushes on financialization risk, tokenization of ownership, and whether crypto has run out of native narrative. Richard’s case for the SAFU fund, recovering assets sent to wrong chains, and what a financial super app means in frontier markets is the clearest argument for why centralization isn’t just commercially convenient but structurally necessary for the thing to work at all.</p><p><br></p><p>Timestamps:</p><p>00:00 - Is crypto still freedom tech or licensed infra?</p><p>00:55 - 1.4 billion unbanked: why the system fails them</p><p>03:00 - Why 65% quit after their first onchain transaction</p><p>05:04 - What a bank actually does  and what replaces it</p><p>07:30 - Binance as a financial super app for the excluded</p><p>09:30 - Binance does more for inclusion than governments</p><p>11:02 - China, protectionism and why countries need Binance</p><p>13:52 - The Dubai story: building a crypto hub from scratch</p><p>17:09 - Regulation as a moat vs regulation as a product</p><p>19:32 - The Genius Act and the stablecoin explosion</p><p>21:37 - Is compliance becoming incumbent protection?</p><p>24:39 - Binance&#39;s approach to the US market</p><p>26:29 - AI + Blockchain will rebuild every industry</p><p>28:42 - Will AI suck all trading value to the biggest firm?</p><p>33:11 - Binance AI Pro: what it actually does</p><p>36:46 - Crypto out of ideas? RWAs and the next narrative</p><p>39:14 - Why 24/7 trading changes everything</p><p>41:38 - Invisible crypto and the abstraction risk</p><p>45:58 - Hyperliquid vs Binance: who wins?</p><p>48:47 - Where does Binance&#39;s growth actually come from?</p><p>50:00 - The future: wallets replace banks</p><p>52:16 - The SAFU fund: $1B to protect users</p><p>54:23 - Crypto&#39;s real legacy: financial education</p><p>56:00 - Do banks really create money from a spreadsheet?</p><p><br></p><p>Stay Connected</p><p>Subscribe to Endgame: https://www.youtube.com/@endgamepodcast </p><p>Amanda on X:  https://x.com/amandacassatt  </p><p>Serotonin on X: https://x.com/serotonin_hq </p><p><br></p><p>Links to Follow:</p><p>Endgame on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/45B9szUxVXEwfCDA6uRxwq?si=HT9XXqF9Q2CcM9hfLbmkVg   </p><p>Endgame on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/endgame-with-amanda-cassatt/id1801809440  </p><p><br></p><p>Follow Richard </p><p>https://www.instagram.com/tengrich/</p><p>https://x.com/_RichardTeng</p>