About this episode
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?