Can the Philippines Be the Launchpad for Southeast Asia’s First Crypto Powerhouse?
From being Binance’s first CFO to rebuilding Coins.ph, Wei Zhou is betting that the Philippines can be the launchpad for Southeast Asia’s first true crypto powerhouse.
Nowhere is that momentum more visible than in Southeast Asia, where remittances, gaming, and payments are turning crypto into everyday infrastructure.
It’s in this environment that Wei Zhou, Binance’s first CFO and current CEO of Coins.ph, is doubling down on a bet he placed back in 2022. By buying Coins.ph at nearly double what Gojek paid, he staked a thesis: that Southeast Asia has all the right components to produce the next crypto powerhouse.
Will the Philippines, and by extension, Southeast Asia, deliver? Here’s what Wei Zhou, in conversation with our Chief Editor for Fintech Philippines, Vincent Fong, shared on Fintech Fireside Asia.
The Accidental All-In Moment
Wei Zhou’s path into crypto was a moment of serendipity. Years earlier, during his time as CFO at a number of startups in Beijing, he had already crossed paths with the future Binance founders, including CZ (Changpeng Zhao).
Fast forward to 2018, when an angel investment unexpectedly pulled him into the sector. A startup he had backed was running an initial coin offering (ICO) and asked him to open a Binance account. This would enable them to airdrop tokens there. Wei Zhou obliged, setting up the account and sharing his wallet’s address.
Tokens appeared almost instantly. Curious, he hit the trade button, sold them, and suddenly a few thousand USDT were sitting in his account. The experience floored him.
From Grindr to crypto Wei Zhou formerly the vice chairman at Grindr recounts how a chance encounter with Binance’s CZ led him to buying over @Coins.ph one of the Philippines’ leading licensed crypto exchanges. #fintech#crypto#btc#cryptocurrency
That instant transfer was his “Google moment”, as revolutionary as the first time he used the search engine. Unlike anything he’d experienced in TradFi, crypto gave him money he could move instantly anywhere in the world. From that point, Wei Zhou knew he needed to be part of the industry.
Digging deeper, he realised the exchange he had just used, Binance, was founded by his friends. He reached out, and a few months later, joined the company as CFO. Binance was then about seven or eight months old at best, with fewer than 100 staff.
Wei Zhou was the first executive there from a more TradFi background (and also a Harvard graduate), taking on growth aspects like investing, M&A, global expansion, and fiat strategy, all at a company that didn’t need to raise capital, thanks to its BNB token.
He would spend the next three years helping Binance chart its course.
From Beachfront Fixer-Upper to Four Seasons With Coins.ph
In 2022, Wei Zhou took another bold step, acquiring Coins.ph from Gojek at almost double what they had paid, reportedly at US$200 million. To outsiders, the move was puzzling.
Past reports noted that although Coins.ph made waves by expanding into a broader suite of financial services, it struggled to establish itself as a serious contender. The pivot also came at a cost; eroding its earlier dominance in digital currency.
Yet in it, Wei Zhou saw what he calls “prime beachfront property.”
“I like to view it as, like, I got access to prime beachfront property. The Philippines has really good demographics, really good crypto adoptions, and is a massive player in the global remittance space. At that point, there was a massive GameFi population in the Philippines.”
More importantly, Coins.ph held a combination of licenses: a cryptocurrency exchange license, an EMI license allowing it to operate as a fiat wallet, and an FX and remittance license enabling cross-border flows.
Add to that a brand with more than 10 million users then, and its reputation as the “Coinbase of the Philippines,” and Wei Zhou believed he had acquired a platform with deep foundations.
He admitted that he first assumed Coins.ph only needed a few cosmetic fixes. Yet, once he stepped inside, it became clear the problems were far more serious. He adds,
“It took a lot of work for us to rebuild it, but I think, now, I’ve got a beachfront Four Seasons.”
It was a huge undertaking, yet Wei Zhou frames it as a turning point. “I want to have a whole collection of Four Seasons,” he quips.
So, Can Southeast Asia Build the Next Crypto Powerhouse?
When Vincent posed this question, Wei Zhou was realistic about the challenge at hand. He says,
“If you look globally, there’s only two countries that kind of dominate in consumer tech, China and the US. I think, to build a tech powerhouse, you’d need to have talent.”
He clarifies that the talent pool does exist in Southeast Asia. What the region lacks is experience.
“We don’t have experienced product managers or experienced CTOs that have managed consumer apps that can serve 100 million daily active users.”
That gap, however, is also where he sees opportunity. Drawing on his years building internet companies in China and supporting growth at Binance, Wei Zhou believes he brings the missing ingredient: the playbook for scaling. He adds,
“We’re going to build the first global company out of the Philippines.”
In his view, the Philippines already plays a role in powering the world’s financial system, hosting BPOs and operations for global banks and financial institutions. The problem is that local talent is often confined to narrow functions, without the broader perspective needed to run a company.
For Zhou, that’s the opportunity: to channel and develop the same talent into building something homegrown that can compete globally.
Wei Zhou
“I’m here to use the competitive advantages that we have in the Philippines to build a global fintech company. The team we’ve built now is with people coming from banks, technology companies, Web3, BPOs, and more, to build something together that’s homegrown and service global, as we service global already.”
Coins.ph, he believes, can be the bridge. By rebuilding it under a homegrown brand, training teams across different segments and proving it can run a licensed exchange at scale, Wei Zhou hopes to show that Southeast Asia can move to become a creator of global fintech platforms.
The journey is far from easy, but he insists the momentum is there. If successful, the Philippines could become the launchpad for Southeast Asia’s first true crypto powerhouse.
Looking ahead, Wei Zhou sees Coins.ph evolving beyond a retail-focused exchange into a dual engine: one serving consumers and another powering institutional payments. The company has already secured licenses and launched operations in Australia, Brazil, and Mauritius, with Europe next on the bucket list.
Want to know more about Wei Zhou’s thoughts about the crypto space? Click the video below and watch the podcast.
