Changpeng Zhao: Quick Money Moves to AI, Leaving a Stronger Team
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao stated in a recent interview in Hong Kong that both AI startups and crypto ventures have opportunities, but he does not advocate for young people to blindly chase trends. His criteria for selection are the overlap of interest, capability, and value, emphasizing that the success of crypto projects largely depends on the team.
The event took place in a conference room on the 40th floor of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, corresponding to his autobiography "Freedom of Money" (Chinese title: "币安人生") during a Q&A session with readers. He arrived late due to heavy rain and later appeared at Bitcoin Asia. He differentiated between reversible small decisions, which should be tested and adjusted quickly, and irreversible large decisions, which should be made slowly. He repeatedly advised ordinary people not to borrow money to go all in on investments, stating that young people's advantage is time, not overnight wealth.
At an industry conference that same week, the organizers noted that funding, talent, and public attention are shifting towards AI, making crypto seem smaller, and this bear market has not only affected prices but also narratives. Zhao still claimed that Bitcoin will be more important than gold and that reaching a million dollars per coin will happen faster than in 25 years. He sees the intersection of AI and crypto in stablecoins, suggesting that AI agents should first handle transactions, with payments coming later.
He divided Hong Kong into two parts: Web3 has financial centers, talent, and convenient immigration; AI does not have obvious advantages in electricity costs and data centers. He travels to Hong Kong five to six times a year, advising local young people to choose their paths based on their own abilities rather than following trends. In another interview, it was mentioned that his YZi Labs has invested in nearly 200 projects in the past six months, with about 80% in Web3 and 20% in AI.
The statement "quick money moving to AI is a filter" reflects a judgment on the personnel structure during the bear market, rather than a statistic on capital flow. After hot money leaves, the remaining teams are more likely to endure the cycle; this does not prove that the remaining projects can make money, but indicates that fundraising stories are decreasing. In a bull market, it is difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake teams, and he attributed the decrease in discernment difficulty to the external withdrawal of speculators.
In terms of market mechanisms, what is bought is the narrative of "staying is devotion," which facilitates exchanges and incubators to extend the life of old projects; what is sold are purely conceptual coins and crypto shells packaged with AI trends. The beneficiaries are on-chain teams that can still release products and have real users, as well as Binance's ecosystem that continues to provide liquidity; the pressured parties are second-tier public chains and applications that rely on hot money valuations. In reality, a large amount of capital remains in AI computing power and model companies, while crypto transactions shrink and narratives take a back seat.
The migration of attention reduces noise but does not automatically increase on-chain revenue.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
After building the exchange to a global scale, Zhao spent four months in prison and now uses his autobiography and tour Q&A to rebuild his personal interface. This stop in Hong Kong is not about launching new products, but about articulating "who should stay in crypto" as a personnel filter. He simultaneously allocates 80% of checks to Web3 and 20% to AI, indicating that while he verbally welcomes quick money to exit, he has not cleared out of crypto financially. The filtering theory serves the explanatory power of investment portfolios: if a wrong investment is made in a bear market, one can claim that the other party was merely quick money.
Capital has migrated from the primary token market to GPU and model companies, with remaining crypto funds becoming more concentrated in Bitcoin, stablecoins, and a few exchange tokens. YZi Labs' allocation is about using cash flow from old industries to buy options in new industries while maintaining pricing power over the remaining founders. The motivation is to avoid being labeled as an outdated exchange owner and to prevent direct competition in AI infrastructure with regions that have lower electricity costs.
This mirrors the post-2018 ICO retreat that left only core public chain teams, as well as engineers who continued to write protocols after the internet bubble. The industry is in a phase where "trading platforms have scaled, but the application layer still relies on narratives." Dubai and Abu Dhabi are racing ahead with regulations, while Zhao describes Hong Kong as having a strong financial base but a weak AI foundation, positioning it for settlement and licensing rather than training clusters.
Structural changes belong to capital concentration. The mechanism is: when a higher slope narrative emerges, speculative capital leaves low liquidity assets, and those who remain are re-labeled with mission tags. These tags can lower due diligence costs and allow projects lacking revenue to survive another round. The true filter remains users and transaction fees, not who has not trained models.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- The exit of hot money does not mean that those who remain are the right ones.
- The cheapest way to filter tracks is to wait for another track to become hotter.
- After attention migrates, narrative power returns to those still releasing products.