Recently, Bloomberg’s Selina Wang spoke to the Co-founder of Binance, Yi He, on a host of issues. During the conversation, Yi He said that Binance’s proposed Venus project was a similar, but regionally autonomous version of Libra. It would be one that would involve the creation of many stablecoins pegged to regional currencies around the world, she added.
While there is some overlap between their missions, Venus will focus more on supporting developing countries and their financial autonomy, while Libra is focusing more on reducing the cost of money transfers. Yi He also said that Binance is looking to partner with non-western governments and institutions to roll this out, and that the scope of it will roughly align with the areas where China’s Belt and Road initiative is expanding. She added,
“We need more currencies to be involved to hedge, and more commercial institutes to help dilute the financial risks for ordinary people. We’ve started the Venus project to make sure people who haven’t received any financial services can have access to these services.”
Yi He also said that China has been rapidly developing in the industries of mobile Internet and fin-tech, and that the Chinese government has been very supportive to the whole blockchain industry.
“We call it the Belt and Road version of Libra, for regions in which people really need a project like Venus. There are still many people who are suffering from a lack of financial services. For example, they still don’t own a bank card.”
She added that Binance believes countries all around the world will release their own cryptocurrencies in the future and with it, strict measures to supervise the industry will be taken.
“That’s where Binance’s value lies — to help them clearly supervise the cryptocurrency industry and ensure stable, sustainable development.”
Last month, after users on Twitter took to calling Venus a project to “dominate the world” and one to “rival Facebook’s Libra,” Binance CEO responded by stating that they were happy to co-exist, and that Binance’s primary goal is to push adoption and not world domination.
