During a roundtable at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, former Binance CEO Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao outlined the three next major frontiers for the cryptocurrency industry. He began by noting that two products have already achieved massive scale: cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoins, which he described as "huge businesses."
The first frontier is state-level asset tokenization. CZ revealed he has discussed this with numerous governments over recent years. He argued that if state assets are tokenized and placed on-chain, governments could be the first to realize profits and help further develop the industry.
The second is crypto payments becoming an "invisible rail." CZ pointed out that current crypto card payments rely on crypto-to-fiat bridges. He believes crypto payments are poised to become "pretty big" as they evolve into a seamless, backend payment infrastructure.
The third frontier is AI agents using crypto natively. CZ labeled crypto and blockchain as "the most native technology for AI agents." He envisions a future where AI agents perform tasks and make autonomous payments using cryptocurrencies instead of traditional bank cards.
Separately, CZ made a stark prediction about the future of physical banking, stating that the need to visit brick-and-mortar banks will "substantially drop" over the next decade, accelerated by crypto and e-KYC technology. He referenced ING's pioneering of online banking 25 years ago as a precursor to this shift.
On the topic of memecoins, CZ offered a critical view, stating that most are highly speculative and have a low probability of long-term survival. However, he made a notable exception for Dogecoin (DOGE), singling it out as one of the few with a strong cultural foundation that gives it potential for long-term sustainability.
