 The traditional finance system is falling quite bad miserably, and that's kind of pushing people this way. This is Ben Zhou, the co-founder of Singapore-based crypto exchange Bybit. Earlier this year, Bybit became the official sponsor of Formula One team Red Bull Racing. Formula One is about innovation, pushing the boundary, it's the competitiveness, it's the challenger of the norm. In this video, Zhou points out the synergies between cryptocurrency and Formula One. He also explains why people are increasingly preferring crypto to traditional financial tools. Yeah, so what has came out of this sponsorship, we're being the principal sponsor of the Oracle Red Bull Racing team, has definitely put Bybit on the map. We can, you know, walk around and people recognize me saying that you guys are the Red Bull sponsor, you guys are the crypto guys, you know. Formula One is about innovation, pushing the boundary, you know, it's the competitiveness, it's the challenger of the norm, and that really goes well with crypto, and it really is kind of the Bybit believe as well. We are not the top dog, we are the underdog coming up, you know, and this is also why we picked Red Bull, you know, Red Bull is coming up, the new generation. So it's a really huge synergy we see. Awesome, I like the comparison a lot. So while any visibility brings also mindfulness and education to the crypto industry, so which other tools do you think we can use as a community, as an industry, to bring more newbies to the space? You know, so education I think is definitely one area that Bybit as an exchange focus quite a bit on. Every service more than 160 countries, more than 6 million users globally, a lot of them I would say is new to industry, new to crypto. We recently expanded our product lines including Fiat, Spot and all the products services pretty much we are the kind of the one stop shop for any crypto users. With that you start to see a lot of people asking what is NFT, you know, what is a die, what is a stable coin. But education is one part we focus on teaching people why and how is crypto play a part. But you know, we see the need because the traditional finance system is falling quite bad miserably and that's kind of pushing people this way. So it's both poor and poor factor and we provide our Bybit academies and all the live customer support that you can reach to give the human flavor and the human touch to crypto. This is one thing I think I feel like it's a little bit missing in crypto. I don't want to send people to moon or to Mars. I want to present them exchange that they're familiar with and they're used to and they can actually find someone face to face to talk to understand what's going on. I totally agree with you especially if you are inside this world you see that traditional finance is definitely having problems but maybe for some people outside of crypto they still lack trust and recent events for example Tarol Luna have definitely scared some institutional players and individuals. So what is your take on the current state of the industry and how do you see this trust being built especially after crisis situations like the Tarol Luna one. So I think it's the same with any new industry that you always have this type of crisis happening. Tarol Luna was not the first kind of collapse that we've seen. I think we'll get over it and gradually move on. But yeah I mean this is what triggers this kind of a beer market right now. I think it's one of the big trigger of that. So you've been in the industry for five years. What brought you on the first place. Yeah I mean I think initially I was in Forex and for me looking into crypto I feel like it's there's a need for people to to escape from the current financial kind of I see everything's been centralized. I mean what exactly is your money if it's been controlled and printed in a way that you cannot control right and you constantly being reminded even during the whole COVID period that centralized government printing out monies like crazy and you have you have incidents like wartime and your fiat simply don't represent value and crypto has proven and becoming the safe haven for people. So there's a real need for people to switch over on this side. And this is I think the value I saw initially I feel like okay this is something given the alternative that we could go decentralize why not. Do you have other projects for the Biobit ecosystem. Yeah so I think as exchange we're definitely pushing the boundaries we want to go more on the Web3 side of things. So we are where although we are a centralized exchange we are going to try to incorporate the decentralization part of I'm pushing Biobit becoming more on the crypto native side so we're looking into offer Web3 wallets we have the NFT market ready and possibly we're going to integrate with one of the decentralized exchanges and give so offer our clients the centralized exchange features and experiences plus the decentralization the perks on that side. What's your take on the role of metaverse in the future of money. I think metaverse is not only about money it's about ownership it's about actually a virtual reality I think the whole problem with Web2 is that you cannot actually own things on the internet unless it's been proved by centralized website or agent but Web3 with cryptocurrency NFT you can actually start own things in a very native way and that associated with that is entitlements and status I mean for me it's what is society it's you are you me and me because our stats and our connections in the real life that's what internet couldn't offer before but with NFTs and all that you can actually show status and you can have that different hierarchy systems in the metaverse so I can see that we're going to gradually move kind of that way in the future. Yeah I totally agree I also think that like this NFT vibe actually gives another idea of what is identity identification like now our main identity is basically our password nationality like what is your identity in the digital world is it like your ideas or your affiliation to some DAO or I don't know your background education whatever you travel a lot how do you see different countries continent cultures react to crypto and do you think that there is there are differences in reception for example in the in the States and in Asia and here in Europe? I think the overall sentiment is becoming very positive one of the biggest worries for anyone in the industry is that regulators is just going to say no and classify you as a I don't know kind of gambling type of industry but when the when the regulators start to regulate you it means that you they're putting you on the map and you are being accepted right so that's a very good trend it's just different regions and countries have different mentality towards it I mean for example Dubai we got the UAE license we're moving our headquarters that they are just extremely open they they want to be seen as the crypto hub moving forward and attracting all the crypto talents and with that it definitely takes some boldness and they have to be extremely open and they made it very clear that they want to talk to all the major players to see how to regulate the industry and they have the open mind is that let's sit down together discuss right and then you have we're also in Singapore Singapore is a little bit slow compared to that but they are definitely trying and they are talking to all of us but they're in a little bit more conservative ways so I think and we're in Vietnam we're in Latin America or in South America I think all these countries are trying very hard and trying to jump on a wagon you know before before it's too late you know yeah yeah and again education is key like we also should I guess communicate with regulators as with friends and not as with enemies because well we need to collaborate what about collaboration within the industry collaboration versus competition what do you feel more I definitely feel like it's collaboration look I think inevitably at some point there's gonna be a lot of cultural competitiveness what you witness in the internet we're I don't know Alibaba Tencent this kind of rivalry but even within the industry I think because we're growing and I predict probably within a few years we're still gonna grow 20 30 times as the new user coming so as exchange or anyone in the industry your focus is really about new users whereas new user so the pie is getting bigger and to be honest even now I don't think project or exchanges are are are focusing on I'm gonna steal his clients I mean everyone's like where's new clients let's focus on new clients let's take ourselves out of this industry let's become a more mainstream and especially at times in crypto that regulators are wanting to understand what's going on you want to unite and act as one and to give more leveraging power to regulate and tell them a we're here to do the real thing we're here to stay and let's let's work you know so I think it's definitely more of that other than competitiveness and you know at this current stage how do you see the future of cryptocurrencies do you think that like Bitcoin will stay as you know the main cryptocurrency or will there be something else maybe something that hasn't appeared yet or maybe something that we already have when our raters yeah oh I think I'm very bullish on the industry but I don't know where we're going because two years ago if you ask me what is DeFi what is Metaware was an FT I wouldn't know right there was only Bitcoin Ethereum and there was a little bit focused on smart contract so three years down the road I don't know what's new things is going to be but what I'm very confident is the speed things are developing within two years we had all we have all this now so I think metaverse is definitely going to happen but what's in the metaverse what's going to be the mean the adoption driver for people to come into the metaverse I don't know yet I think it's going to happen and I believe Bitcoin is here to stay for sure I mean for me Bitcoin is the sort of value it's the kind of it's like the gold right I mean gold is here to stay I mean it's something that there's a concrete need for it and I feel like it is here so but I'm very bush an overall industry what about idealistic being idealistic do you believe that crypto industry can make this world better can redistribute wealth can make the world more free it's definitely a redistribution of power it's putting back the financial power into the so so crypto is really a revolution for the financial system it has been controlled by the few and by the institutions and that's why we have all these jokes about Wall Street about all these bigger institutions and the government and central banks but crypto I think is redistribution of that power to the to the real people I mean even now you see the wars happening and people coming to crypto and and because of that if you are a simple civilian in any kind on each side you are not you're kind of the victim right but and then but you get all these financial disturbance on the things you cannot control with so I think crypto would definitely give people the ability and as a young generation start to realize that it's going to just become more and more mass adopted and you see the tipping point where people are switching more and more of their capital asset on this side other than this on the other side so I think given the choice people will always choose for the better one sharing your personal success story what would be your advice to young forex traders or just crypto adopters or maybe someone who hasn't yet even gotten initiated to crypto can you give any advice how to get into the space and what to do in order to become successful yeah I think what I see I met many people in the industry crypto I think what we share in common is just do it mentality it's that there are so many people know there is a thing called crypto but they haven't done anything with it and they kind of already give the prediction saying I'm too late and I've heard this is two years ago and they say I'm too late and now there's still people saying I'm too late but just do it just getting involved and you see there are a lot of things to be done on this on this side of things and if you're already in crypto I think focus on building yeah I mean whether it's beer or bull market if you're here in the long run you believe in the long term of the industry stick your head on and start building and the reward you know will come you know yeah so it's never too late awesome thank you very much enjoy monaco enjoy your wonderful deal and I hope that that red bull will thank you win thank you thank you thank you