Head of major crypto exchange Binance, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, reportedly expressed his belief that centralized exchanges like his firm would not be removed in the next year and long after that. 

Specifically, the Binance CEO reportedly delivered his remarks via a tongue-in-cheek hot seat video to conclude 2021, in response to several Twitter posts from the Binance community.

“Today, we still need the centralized systems to integrate with the traditional financial industry so that we can bring the money into and out of crypto” CZ shared, regarding a loaded tweet mentioning the dark aspect of CeFi along with what could DeFi become in the long haul. 

He also shared warnings related to the sentiment associated with the crypto market, as still being a nascent sector, vulnerable to “hackers, Ponzi schemes and scammers.”

One nominal instance of what CZ mentioned would reportedly be the Squid Game token (SQUID) which had a record 45,000% gain before dumping – one of the most significant rug pulls of 2021. 

In November this year, Binance reportedly rolled out an inquiry into the token to trace funds in relations with the epic pump-and-dump.

“Binance lists about six or seven hundred coins out of probably 6 million coins. So only one in 10,000 coins that’s ever created gets listed on Binance. That’s about 0.01%. It is a very small number.” CZ offered clarity regarding favoritism related to particular blockchain initiatives, or even coins that, according to one Twitter user, are “totally fake,”

While the subject of coin selection is open to debate, a tighter grasp of centralized exchanges (CEX) has been rife throughout 2021, with Binance Turkey reportedly receiving an 8 million liras fine for non-compliance against money laundering, while CEXs as a whole had to face crackdown back in August.