Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong on Thursday that Bitcoin will become more important than gold and could overtake it as soon as the next bull run.
Speaking during a session billed as "The Bitcoin Century," Zhao said the market value gap between gold and Bitcoin has narrowed to roughly tenfold. He argued the main obstacle is institutional rather than technical: large countries already have systems for valuing and holding gold, and replacing that apparatus will take years. "I think Bitcoin will, for sure, become more important than gold... In the next bull run, it could happen," he said.
Zhao added that Bitcoin is "just a much better asset than gold," and joked that long-time critic Peter Schiff would disagree. He told the audience he routinely advises governments to build crypto reserves weighted by market capitalization after stripping out stablecoins and taking the five largest remaining cryptocurrencies. That approach, he acknowledged, is "a little bit self-serving" because the basket would include roughly 50% Bitcoin, 10% to 20% Ethereum, and a slice for BNB.
On artificial intelligence, Zhao said he expects AI agents to transact in crypto, starting with stablecoins, and that adding Bitcoin becomes straightforward once such systems are accepted. He said he has discussed token launches with top-tier AI companies facing capital demands their valuations cannot cover, citing a gigawatt of compute costing between $30 billion and $50 billion. One model under discussion is a "data center token" that could later entitle holders to rewards or compute, possibly extended to subscriptions and model access.
Zhao also argued trading will adopt AI before payments because trading requires gathering and reacting to information quickly, with efficiency gains of roughly tenfold. On price, he said Bitcoin reaching $1 million "would be a good thing, and it will happen," and does not think it needs 25 years. However, he said utility matters more than price, adding: "We need Bitcoin payments to happen on a massive scale... Bitcoin to be a retirement pension fund reserve. It will get there."
