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Bitcoin will overtake gold, and it could happen as soon as the next bull run, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao told a conference audience in Hong Kong on Thursday.
"I think Bitcoin will, for sure, become more important than gold," Zhao said during a session at Bitcoin Asia billed as "The Bitcoin Century," when asked whether the asset would outrank bullion for sovereign holders.
The obstacle is institutional rather than technical, he argued. Large countries already have mechanisms for valuing gold and holding it, and replacing that apparatus takes years. For those countries to "shift into Bitcoin" will take time, but it will happen, he said, noting that the market value gap between gold and BTC has narrowed to roughly tenfold.
"I think Bitcoin will overtake gold pretty soon," he said, adding that, "In the next bull run, it could happen." Bitcoin, he added, is "just a much better asset than gold," joking that long-time Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff would disagree.
Zhao told the audience he routinely advises governments to build a crypto reserve, and that his recommendation for how is "pretty simple and it's a little bit self-serving." Strip out stablecoins, take the five largest cryptocurrencies that remain, and weight them by market capitalization. That yields roughly 50% Bitcoin, 10% to 20% Ethereum, and a slice for BNB, the token of the exchange he founded.
Zhao expects AI agents to transact in crypto, starting with stablecoins. Once a system accepts those, he said, adding Bitcoin becomes straightforward.
He also said he has discussed token launches with several top-tier AI companies, which face capital demands their valuations cannot cover. A gigawatt of compute costs somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion, Zhao said, and some firms want hundreds of gigawatts within a few years, running to trillions of dollars.
One model under discussion is a "data center token" that later entitles holders to rewards or compute, potentially extended to cover subscriptions and model access.
Trading will adopt AI before payments do, he argued, because consumers can already complete a purchase themselves once an agent has found them a deal. Trading is different, he said, arguing that, "You have to gather a lot of information very quickly. You have to react very quickly to news." He put the efficiency gain at roughly tenfold.
Zhao, who left Binance's chief executive role in 2023 after pleading guilty to a U.S. money laundering charge, closed on price. Bitcoin reaching $1 million "would be a good thing, and it will happen," he said, and he does not think it needs 25 years.
"It's going to happen much quicker, but more than price, I think we need a lot more utility," he said, adding that, "I think we need Bitcoin payments to happen on a massive scale. I think we need Bitcoin to be a retirement pension fund reserve. It will get there."
