- Binance’s CEO has hinted at the possibility of buying a full-fledged bank.
- The firm is expanding its global presence with strategic investments.
Binance, the world’s biggest crypto trading platform is reportedly eyeing making investments in a traditional financial institution, preferably a bank. According to a Bloomberg report, citing the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the move, if eventually made, will be centered on positioning the trading platform to be the perfect link between the crypto world and the traditional banking system.
“There are people who hold certain types of local licenses, traditional banking, payment-service providers, even banks. We’re looking at those things,” Zhao said in an interview at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, without identifying a target. “We want to be the bridge between crypto and the traditional, financial world.”
Besides being the largest trading outfit by market size and trading volume, Binance is also arguably the most capitalized outfit around today. With its position, the firm is often making new strides that translate as the first of its kind in the industry.
With the turmoil the crypto ecosystem has been facing in recent times, the need to tap a major banking partner is becoming quite necessary. The collapse of Silvergate Bank has sent shockwaves into the ecosystem, and industry advocates fear that regulators and lawmakers might make an attempt to cut crypto off the banking industry.
Should Zhao lead the trading platform to buy a fully-fledged bank, it can significantly help bridge the gap in funding as needed by key players in the industry. The exchange already has functional partnerships with different banks whose valuations tend to shoot up afterward. He believes the firm can capitalize on these partnerships to benefit more. He said.
What we have found is when banks work with us, we drive so many users to them, so the bank’s valuation goes up exponentially, like why don’t we just invest in them as well, so that we capture some of the equity upsides.
Binance and Twitter Link-up
Binance has been pushing for its global expansion for the past few years and the company invested the sum of $500 million to support the acquisition of microblogging platform, Twitter Inc by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
At the time the investment was made, Zhao said he identifies with the freedom of speech agenda that Musk was pushing for with the acquisition. Binance was billed to be the exchange partner for the social media platform, with the trading platform set to contribute to the company’s Web3.0 initiative.
Binance’s global expansion move has been very focused and through its Binance Labs outfit, it has been making a lot of strategic investments in a number of high-growth startups. With more than $1 billion in available funds, the firm might also double down on its stake in Binance which is also looking to pivot into digital payments.
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