This week's Coin Stories features Okcoin CEO Hong Fang

***

Okcoin is on a mission to make crypto investing and trading easily accessible to anyone around the world. We are building the next generation of tools to help onboard the investors and traders who have been on the fence about crypto. Okcoin a globally licensed exchange with offices in San Francisco, Miami, Malta, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. We are a collective of global citizens with a common passion to help decentralize finance and level the economic playing field for everyone around the world. Visit https://go.okcoin.com/natalie for $50 in Bitcoin when you sign up.

***

Coin Stories is brought to you in part by The Bitcoin Conference and Okcoin. BITCOIN 2022 will be the BIGGEST BITCOIN EVENT IN HISTORY held in Miami on April 6-9, 2022. For 10% Off your Bitcoin Conference Ticket head to https://b.tc/conference and use code COINSTORIES

***

Hong Fang is the CEO of Okcoin, a global, US-licensed cryptocurrency platform serving 190+ countries — the largest reach of any US-based exchange. Having experienced the opening of China’s economy, Hong worked at Goldman Sachs for nearly a decade, driven by her passion for free markets. She left Wall Street for cryptocurrency after realizing digital assets offer the financial inclusion that traditional finance only claims to. Hong joined Okcoin in 2019 after making a growth equity investment in the company, and has since overseen the company’s rapid growth. She holds an MBA in Finance, Accounting and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

You can follow Hong on Twitter at @hfangca

Timecodes:

00:00 Intro and promo codes

02:26 Hong upbringing

03:48 Hong's Chinese parents

04:38 Understanding money in China

05:26 Applying to school in the US

07:32 Chinese vs. American value systems

08:39 Business school

11:14 Chinese vs. American monetary systems

14:06 First job on Wall Street

15:10 Interest in cryptocurrency

17:10 Was Hong for or against bailouts?

18:32 Satoshi's Bitcoin white paper

20:22 Hong's transition from Goldman Sachs to cryptocurrency world

26:33 Investing in making a difference

31:23 Hong's rise to CEO of OKcoin

38:48 Hong's family's reaction to her career

40:15 Becoming first female global exchange CEO

43:12 OKcoin's culture and diversity

53:26 Hong's take on various coins and cryptocurrencies

58:17 Why does Hong believe in Bitcoin?

1:00:42 What would Hong tell her younger self?

Hong Fang: Bitcoin and Earning Value You Can Rely On

Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell