David Prinçay (Binance): "There will be no adoption as long as it's the Wild West".

You head up the French subsidiary of the world's largest exchange platform, but not many people know about you. How did you get to this position?

My story is rather atypical. I've been involved in the sector since 2017, when I created a Facebook group with some friends called the "French Cryptocurrency Club" in which we offered a review of news links on cryptos.

As a result of asking around and learning about the subject, I met the Binance teams at Paris Blockchain Week 2019. Our first discussions focused on a crypto-donation that had been made after the Notre-Dame de Paris fire to finance its reconstruction, and which Binance had wanted to join.

I then joined their team of "angels" (volunteers, ed. note) to help them, particularly with translation. That's how I began to understand how Binance worked, what its corporate culture was, and so on. At the time, there was no one in France to represent the company...

And that's how you came to apply to head up the French entity?

It happened in several stages. I initially applied in 2020 for a community manager position, which I thought would be fairly easy to get. I was already in their world, I knew blockchain, I had the right qualifications, so I thought it would be fairly easy, but it didn't go as planned and I was rejected. I must admit that I questioned myself quite a lot and that was a very good thing...

Three months later, Binance opened the position of director for France, I applied for it, and I got it at the end of 2020! I remember, it was right in the middle of Covid-19 🦠.

What is your relationship with Changpeng Zhao, aka "CZ", the boss of Binance?

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