Binance Leaders Take to the Stage at the FT’s Crypto and Digital Assets Summit

Main Takeaways

Noah Perlman, Binance’s Chief Compliance Officer, and Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s Chief Communications Officer, both spoke on Tuesday, May 9, at the Binance Leadership Take to the Stage at the Financial Times’ Crypto and Digital Assets Summit.

Noah took the stage during a panel discussing the coordination of global crypto regulatory efforts. He discussed the tremendous growth of Binance’s compliance team over the past few years and its ever-increasing expertise enhanced by adding former financiers and traditional compliance professionals.

Patrick rounded up day one with a closing fireside chat covering Binance’s past and future. Binance’s founders’ experience allowed them to create a feature-rich product that has got them to where it is today. Even in times of market doubt, Binance’s focus on providing quality service and commitment to compliant practices proved incredibly resilient.

Get up to speed with Noah Perlman and Patrick Hillmann’s talks at the Financial Times’s Crypto and Digital Assets Summit.

On Tuesday, May 9, Noah Perlman and Patrick Hillmann brought some Binance expertise to the stage of the Financial Times’s premier Web3-focused event. The Crypto & Digital Assets Summit made a perfect setting for discussing crypto’s most pressing topics and how Binance fits into this broad picture. Binance was also proud to act as a Strategic Partner for the event and provide sponsorship.

How Coordinated Are Crypto’s Global Regulatory Efforts?

Joining Noah on stage were:

Lisa Cameron, MP and Chair, Crypto and Digital Assets All Party Parliamentary Group, UK Parliament

Kristin Smith, CEO, Blockchain Association

Moderator: Scott Chipolina, Digital Assets Correspondent, Financial Times

Consistency of digital assets’ regulation is a priority for many policymakers. However, while we’ve seen authorities target exchanges and other platforms during times of crisis or prosperity, regulating the assets themselves has proved more difficult.

Noah opened the conversation with a broad assessment of the situation.

“It does appear to be that there is some coordination. Whether that's explicit or just regulators seeing what other regulators are doing and joining in.”

However, as the panel speakers agreed, there’s no single “master plan” that countries are implementing. And, in fact, this may even be a good thing. Different jurisdictions experimenting with new ways can help create stronger regulations and examples for others to follow.

Key to the topic is compliance by exchanges and other crypto service providers. Binance takes its role seriously, looking to set an example and stepping up its compliance efforts.

“About… a year and a half ago, the compliance department I run was about 100 people. We stand today at around 750 worldwide. [Many of them] have vast experience in traditional finance, [and we also] spent about $80 million over the last two years to beef up our systems.”

Noah further explained that Binance’s compliance program looks similar to what you’d find in a traditional financial institution. “And that, that's a profound pivot from where we started.”

So, can the industry work with regulators constructively for the benefit of consumers? It definitely seems so, and more CEOs and industry players are taking the opportunity to work directly with regulators for a more secure future for the industry and its users.

Closing Keynote: Fireside Chat With Patrick Hillmann

In day one’s closing fireside chat, Scott Chipolina took 20 minutes with Patrick Hillmann to catch up on the latest Binance news and the state of the crypto environment. The conversation began with a look backward at Binance’s birth and initial growth in its first year.

“Binance’s growth in the early days, I think, sometimes gets a little bit lost in its history. I think every company feels that they have a superior product.

But in the early days, it was pretty hard to impeach the fact that you have a founder who came from Bloomberg Terminal and other founders… from the traditional financial space building crypto trading or traditional trading platforms.”

Binance’s feature-rich product, Patrick noted, began to attract large amounts of liquidity. It ensured that Binance was the place to go when making large trades. However, this doesn’t mean there haven’t been doubts with users to ease.

“We went through a moment ourselves where approximately $6 billion in net outflows happened over a span of 48 hours. Now, that would have bankrupted Silicon Valley Bank twice and FTX three times over,” Patrick observed.

However, events like these, along with properly demonstrated reserves, have shown Binance’s resilience and trustworthiness. It provides a springboard for growth in regions where Binance can operate in compliance with local regulations.