‘People have lost their mind’: Binance CEO on NFT craze
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is not a big fan of non-fungible-tokens (NFTs). He thinks that NFT craze is ‘bonkers’ and “people have lost their mind”. NFT is anything starting from your art, drawing, music, GIF, etc or even a selfie can be turned into an NFT. Any digital file can be turned into an NFT on blockchain dributed database. It is a certificate of authenticity for artwork, music, videos, and even tweets.
In a recent interview with Fortune, Zhao said whatever your opinion of NFTs, they cannot be ignored. They “allow arts to monetize their work globally again…and reach a much wider audience.” He adds, “Some guy in Singapore can pay $69 million for your art.”
What makes NFTs unique from other digital forms is that it is backed Blockchain technology. For the uninitiated, Blockchain is a dributed ledger where all transactions are recorded. It is like your bank passbook, except all your transactions are transparent and can be seen anyone and cannot be changed or modified once recorded.
Not only Zhao but Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is not a big fan of NFTs. Buterin is worried about how Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible-tokens (NFTs) have become a symbol of wealth and status. In an interview with Time magazine, Buterin called out the ape avatar collection “a different kind of ‘gambling”.
“The peril is you have these $3 million monkeys and it becomes a different kind of gambling,” he said while Time magazine noted he was talking about BAYC.
Earlier last month, Zhao said that the exchange is freezing the accounts of Russians targeted international sanctions. “Binance follows sanctions rules very strictly. Whoever is on the sanctions l, they won’t be able to use our platform, for whoever is not, they can,” Zhao said in an interview. “Expanding restrictions beyond the l of sanctioned individuals would be “unethical for us to do,” he added.
In other news, Binance is recruiting over 100 positions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is helping to shape Dubai’s new virtual assets’ regulations, its regional head said. Binance’s links with the Gulf state have deepened in recent months as the UAE tries to style itself as the world’s new digital assets hub and develops regulation.
