Binance Co-Founder CZ Pushes for Crypto License Passporting Across ASEAN

One license, valid across an entire region. That’s the pitch Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao is pushing across Southeast Asia, backing a proposal to let crypto firms licensed in one ASEAN country operate across the bloc without repeating the approval process in each one.

Zhao has been actively engaging regional regulators and industry figures on the idea, most recently at events in the Philippines, where he has held direct discussions with financial officials, including the Securities and Exchange Commission chairperson, about digital asset policy. The core argument: requiring firms to seek separate licenses in every ASEAN member state multiplies compliance costs and slows legitimate business expansion, while doing little to actually improve consumer protection compared to a shared, mutually recognized standard.

Passporting arrangements already exist in traditional finance, most notably within the European Union’s single market framework, giving regulators outside Europe a working model to study rather than a purely theoretical proposal. Whether ASEAN’s more diverse mix of regulatory regimes and stages of crypto market development can realistically converge on shared standards remains the open question.

Zhao’s continued regional presence comes as Binance itself deals with regulatory setbacks elsewhere, including a stalled European license bid tied to his own past guilty plea and prison sentence for anti-money-laundering failures, before receiving a pardon in late 2025. That contrast, advocating for smoother regional licensing in Southeast Asia while facing friction in Europe, is not lost on industry observers watching where Zhao is choosing to spend his political capital next.

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