Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao took the stage at Token2049 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he told the audience that his investment in social media platform X was aimed at protecting freedom of speech.
The former Binance executive joined a fireside panel with macroeconomic analyst Raoul Pal to discuss the rationale behind his 2022 investment in X and artificial intelligence. Zhao said:
"I think freedom of money is important, but to have freedom of money, you have to have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is kind of the bottom line. If you don't have that, nothing — no other freedom — works."
"So, when we invested in Twitter back then, it was based on that philosophy," Zhao continued.
The former Binance CEO also criticized Europe's crypto policies, characterizing them as dead in the water compared to more pro-business jurisdictions like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as he advocated for greater financial autonomy and personal liberties.
CZ sees potential in X, but issues persist
In October 2022, Zhau announced that crypto exchange Binance invested $500 million into businessman Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, now known as X.
The crypto exchange was one of 19 co-investors in the deal, which also included firms such as Sequoia Capital Fund and Fidelity Management.
At the time of the investment, the former Binance CEO said that while "the platform has huge value, in itself," it faced several issues, including monetization problems, spam bots, development issues, and scam accounts targeting users with the goal of stealing funds.
Zhao urged Elon Musk to ban bots on X in March, a problem that persists on the platform, particularly impacting the cryptocurrency community on the platform to promote fake tokens, scam users, or spam the site with promotional content.
Despite these issues, Zhao expressed hope that Binance could help the social media site integrate into Web3 by facilitating crypto payments in the near future.
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