After its platform users surpassed 300 million, Binance and the Crypto Nasdaq in 2025

Written by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

Outside the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai, a small mosque, its yellow sand hue enveloped in neon lights, appears somewhat distorted in the night. Inside the venue, dark corridors lead to the main hall, their walls adorned with bright yellow LED strips mimicking Binance's logo; to one side is a massive yellow slide leading to the next level, while opposite, spectators line up to wait for the trampolines.

Over two days, this largest indoor venue in the Middle East was completely transformed into a temporary castle of the crypto world. More than 5,200 attendees, from OGs in hoodies to asset management representatives in suits, were all put together on the same program.

This year's Binance Blockchain Week was officially described as "the most ambitious one to date." While still only two days long, the schedule was far more packed than in previous years. The main stage was almost seamless from morning to evening, covering topics ranging from the Bitcoin bull market cycle and stablecoins to the US dollar system, AI integration and innovation, real-world adoption, next-generation infrastructure, institutional growth, and geopolitical risks. The venue was packed.

For those in the crypto asset industry, this is an annual gathering; for the larger financial system, it's more like a showcase for a "crypto Nasdaq" that could potentially accommodate the financial activities of hundreds of millions of people.

He Yi appointed as co-CEO

At Binance Blockchain Week 2025, co-founder He Yi announced her appointment as co-CEO, forming a dual-CEO management structure with Richard Teng, who took over in 2023.

In a group interview with the media, He Yi explained that this arrangement was primarily a natural result of the division of labor. Richard has many years of experience in regulation and traditional finance, and is more familiar with the compliance paths in different jurisdictions, and is seen as a bridge between Binance and regulatory agencies; while she herself has come all the way from the early stages of entrepreneurship, and has long been at the forefront of product and community development, and is closer to real market feedback and user needs.

Over the past year, she has taken over horizontal functions such as human resources, hoping to transform Binance from a company that heavily relies on the founder's judgment into an enterprise system that operates based on systems and organizational capabilities, shifting the focus from people to mechanisms.

In her vision, the co-CEO system is part of this transformation: one CEO focuses more on regulators and institutions, while the other CEO continues to act as the "chief customer service officer," maintaining a user-centric culture and driving organizational restructuring and talent density improvement internally, with both sharing the responsibility for long-term governance.

For outsiders, this personnel arrangement has a more intuitive meaning. As Binance expands in scale, it means that the size of a platform in terms of asset custody, matching frequency, and liquidation pressure is approaching that of the financial infrastructure of a medium-sized economy. At this scale, a single "strongman" style of management is unsustainable, and it is also difficult for the same person to hold both the authority to make decisions on compliance and the authority to make decisions on user issues.

The dual-person structure is seen as a compromise between "user priority" and "compliance priority," and also as a signal that Binance is trying to shift from a rapidly expanding crypto company to an infrastructure-type institution that survives within the regulatory purview.

He Yi attributes her decision to stay with Binance to a sense of responsibility. The large number of users entrusting their assets to the platform signifies that Binance is not only managing massive amounts of money, but also participating in shaping a new phase of the global financial system.

And this responsibility was soon given a concrete numerical measure as its explanation:

On December 8, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao posted that "Binance has over 300 million registered users."

"Compliance and Security" First

Looking back at Binance's own data, at the end of 2024, the exchange disclosed that its registered users had exceeded 250 million, a year-on-year increase of 47%; the assets under custody were approximately US$160 billion, and the cumulative historical trading volume of all products reached the level of US$100 trillion.

In July, when celebrating its eighth anniversary, Binance disclosed the latest figures: 280 million users and a cumulative transaction volume of $125 trillion.

By the end of 2025, this number had officially exceeded 300 million.

This scale is more intuitively measured using traditional financial systems. Over 250 million registered users are roughly equivalent to the total number of securities accounts in several medium-sized economies, and also approach the size of a large retail banking group's global individual customer base.

For any technology and operating system, this means that order matching, risk control engine, clearing and custody system must operate under "national-level" loads for a long time.

However, what truly determines whether Binance can handle this scale is not the growth itself, but its transactions with the regulatory and compliance system over the past two years.

In 2023, Binance reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and its subordinate agencies totaling approximately $4.3 billion. Then, on October 23, 2025, the White House announced that Trump had pardoned Changpeng Zhao.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated at a press conference that Zhao Changpeng's pardon went through standard review procedures before reaching President Trump's desk for final approval. Leavitt emphasized that the pardon process was handled "extremely seriously," adding, "We have a very thorough review process, working with the Department of Justice and the White House Counsel's Office, with a whole team of qualified lawyers reviewing every pardon request that is ultimately submitted to the President of the United States."

Binance's global operational path is also changing. On one hand, Binance has been applying for and renewing licenses in multiple jurisdictions in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and recently obtained a "Global License" under the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) framework, becoming the first crypto trading platform approved under this framework. From January 5, 2026, Binance services will be provided through three ADGM-licensed entities, each playing a specific role according to its regulatory authority: Nest Exchange Services Limited: as an "Accredited Investment Trading Platform (authorized to operate a multilateral trading facility)," responsible for all trading platform activities, including spot and derivatives trading; Nest Clearing and Custody Limited: as an "Accredited Clearing House (authorized to provide custody services)," responsible for clearing and settlement, acting as a central counterparty for derivatives trading on the trading platform, and ensuring the security of users' digital assets; Nest Trading Limited: as a "Brokerage Dealer," responsible for over-the-counter trading activities and proprietary services (e.g., over-the-counter trading, instant swaps, wealth management).

On the other hand, Binance regularly publishes compliance and security reports and makes more frequent updates on Proof of Assets (PoR) and reserve transparency than the industry average.

Behind the number of 300 million users is a system that needs to maintain continuous operation even under extreme market conditions and regulatory pressure.

When Bitcoin futures open interest hits new highs, ETF net subscriptions exceed $1 billion in a single day, and stablecoin cross-border settlement flows surge, the matching engine, clearing chain, and risk control limits must all withstand the test simultaneously.

Bringing the IPO pipeline into the crypto world

If user scale and compliance architecture determine whether a platform can survive in the "superstructure," then the new product launch mechanism directly affects its pricing power on the asset side.

In late 2024, Binance Wallet launched Binance Alpha, officially defined as a pre-listing observation and selection pool. The platform team selects a batch of emerging tokens based on community attention, industry trends, and project quality, showcasing them to users on the wallet and providing a one-click purchase option.

Unlike traditional Launchpad or IDO, Alpha is closer to a pre-listing channel: users can participate in early-stage projects selected by the platform through centralized accounts without opening additional on-chain wallets or excessive exposure to complex contracts; these projects then have the opportunity to "graduate" at some point and be considered for listing on Binance Spot Mainboard.

In more familiar capital market terminology, this mechanism has a distinct IPO pipeline character. Projects accumulate attention and liquidity in a relatively closed pool of candidates, while the platform undertakes some of the functions of information screening, due diligence, and risk warnings, ultimately allowing the main board market to complete a broader price discovery process.

According to data on Alpha tokens provided by Binance, as of August, out of 152 Alpha tokens (including TGE, airdrops, and Booster), 23 were successfully listed on the Binance spot market and 72 were listed on Binance Futures.

Since the official platform does not guarantee that all Alpha projects will be listed on the main board, this mechanism lowers the barrier to entry for users while also raising market expectations regarding the platform's screening capabilities.

This expectation creates both opportunities and pressures. It allows Binance to take a more proactive position in terms of "new project supply." Currently, it is becoming increasingly difficult for projects to achieve a cold start by relying on a fully decentralized issuance path, and the listing windows of top exchanges have once again become the most important liquidity entry points; however, the high-frequency operation of candidate pools has also raised the threshold for project screening and information disclosure. Once there is a concentrated collapse or obvious information asymmetry, doubts will flow back to the platform itself at a faster speed.

Stablecoins and 20 million merchants: When crypto becomes a productivity tool

If Alpha represents innovation in financing and pricing, then stablecoins and payments point to a more fundamental "production tool."

Since its launch in 2021, Binance Pay's growth has been nothing short of explosive. In 2024, the service processed approximately $72.4 billion in transactions and had 41.7 million users.

Entering 2025, this growth extended from the user side to the merchant side. According to Binance's official statistics, at the beginning of the year, only about 12,000 merchants supported Binance Pay, while by November, this number had exceeded 20 million, an increase of more than 1,700 times in ten months. Cumulatively, Binance Pay's total transaction volume since its launch has exceeded US$250 billion, covering more than 45 million users. Since 2025, stablecoin settlements have accounted for more than 98% of B2B to B2C payments.

More importantly, these transactions are not merely symbolic displays of support for crypto payments. Through integration with local payment networks and scenarios in various countries, Binance Pay is gradually becoming embedded in real-world life and business scenarios.

The latest collaboration integrates Binance Pay with Pix, the instant payment network led by the Central Bank of Brazil. Both Brazilian users and Argentine residents with Binance accounts can directly pay for bills and purchases using crypto assets and Pix QR codes. Similar integrations are also appearing in scenarios such as the Bhutan Tourism Authority, which has connected Binance Pay to allow tourists to pay for airfares, visas, and local services using digital assets.

For many small and medium-sized cross-border sellers, freelancers, and travel service providers, "receiving stablecoins first and then exchanging them for local fiat currencies at an opportune time" is becoming the standard operating procedure.

This has quietly elevated Binance Pay's position within the Binance ecosystem from a value-added service to a true financial infrastructure. It connects the exchange's account system and liquidity pools on one end, and payment scenarios and local currencies across multiple continents on the other. For users who don't consider themselves "crypto investors," their entry point to Binance might not be a spot trading pair, but rather a payment QR code that pops up while traveling or shopping online.

The real test begins after reaching 300 million users.

If we extend the timeline to the entire year, 2025 can almost be considered a year of global liquidity repricing. Major central banks repeatedly tested the waters between high interest rates and declining inflation; US stocks experienced multiple sharp fluctuations; technology stocks and artificial intelligence sectors oscillated between optimism and bubble debates; and the rise and fall of risk assets began to show a stronger synchronicity. Crypto assets were increasingly incorporated into the formal allocation frameworks of asset managers.

In mid-July, the global cryptocurrency market capitalization surpassed $4 trillion for the first time, reaching a peak of approximately $4.35 trillion in October. This upward trend was not solely driven by narrative. The US introduced a package of crypto legislation, and several major economies established regulatory frameworks for stablecoins and tokenized assets, providing compliant entry points for mainstream capital. CME's crypto futures and options trading volume exceeded $900 billion in the third quarter, with Bitcoin futures open interest reaching $72 billion at one point, indicating that hedge funds, macro funds, and asset management institutions have come to view Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as standardized assets with manageable exposure through futures, options, and ETFs. Spot ETFs further reshaped the market structure: BlackRock's IBIT surpassed $70 billion in size in less than a year, and Bitcoin spot ETFs once exceeded $140 billion in total assets, marking the first systematic establishment of a funding channel between crypto assets and traditional capital markets.

Binance occupies a delicate position in this process. Due to the restrictions of the US regulatory framework, the custody and main trading of ETF products mostly take place within custodian institutions with full compliance licenses and traditional brokerage systems. On the other hand, these products still rely on over-the-counter market making and the depth and pricing of major global spot and contract trading venues for hedging, rebalancing, and liquidity management, and Binance remains one of the most heavily weighted players in this regard.

In other words, the mainstream institutions' ETF-based allocation of Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with the liquidity supply capabilities of leading crypto platforms like Binance, form an interdependent relationship.

Meanwhile, another traditional giant, Franklin Templeton, is also accelerating its digital asset strategy. In addition to launching Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs and releasing an annual outlook on crypto and tokenized assets, the company announced in 2025 partnerships with several platforms to advance tokenized money market funds and plans to reach a wider range of end-investors through digital wallets, including exploring digital asset products with platforms such as Binance.

Returning to the initial question: When Binance announced it had surpassed 300 million users, and the market described it as the "crypto Nasdaq," what were the true premises for this analogy to hold true?

In traditional capital markets, Nasdaq's significance lies not only in its market capitalization and the number of listed companies, but also in the fact that it has rarely become a source of risk due to its own technological or governance failures during multiple rounds of tech bubbles, liquidity crunches, and systemic panics.

Even under the greatest pressure, the matching and clearing processes continue to operate, and no matter how volatile the prices are, the market itself does not become disordered.

Binance now stands at a similar starting point, with 300 million users making it an inevitable key node for industry sentiment and liquidity; the rectification following the US compliance settlement, the progress of licenses obtained in Europe and the Middle East, and the cooperation with institutions such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton at the product and infrastructure levels have firmly embedded it into the existing financial system.

By 2025, institutional funds, stablecoin traffic, and ordinary users are entering this market in a more institutionalized way, and infrastructure platforms like Binance have become an indispensable part of this path.

In this sense, the "crypto Nasdaq for 300 million people" is more like an exam paper handed to Binance by the market in advance. In terms of its current size, compliance restructuring, and infrastructure investment, Binance has already written a considerable portion of the answers.

What remains for it is time and a cycle.