Despite the long-lasted crypto winter, blockchain developments continue to make headlines almost daily.
Similarly, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, Binance, has spent a considerable fortune on investments and acquisitions and continues to pour money even in worse market situations. Chengpeng Zhao (CZ), the crypto exchange founder, has revealed that there is still so much left to build, and the company’s spending is expected to reach 1 billion by ending this year.
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Without providing specific figures, CZ uncovered during the announcement that the company had marked profits during this bear time. He further pointed to cryptocurrency’s prices have plunged more than 50% compared to last year’s bull market.
In 2022, Binance invested $325 million into 67 projects. Notably, the company’s backed developments have grown significantly this year, neglecting the downtrends of crypto prices. The crypto exchange invested only $140 million in 73 projects last year. Still, a big part of dry powder remains to build by Binance, which could bring the figure up.
Besides, investment by crypto exchange expected to be committed in 2023 is a $500 million deal for sporting Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc. buyout that is on the table again and financing $200 billion in Forbes media company. CZ noted that Binance might also be interested in acquiring minority stakes in traditional e-commerce and gaming companies in the coming months.
Binance CEO Prefers Investing In DeFi, NFTs
Unlike its competitor Sam-Bakman Fried of FTX exchange, who preferred to support distressed crypto projects, CZ shows interest in investing in the NFTs and DeFi projects among payment transferring services.
The CEO of CZ noted;
DeFi works NFTs are a lot more than selling pictures of monkeys. NFT use cases have not largely been well built — NFTs for tickets, for university degrees. I think the technology will stay.
Rival crypto exchange FTX committed big deals for bailouts and loans with crypto companies like Voyager, which ultimately filed for bankruptcy. And as of now, FTX has acquired its assets in an auction for 1 billion.
The Binance CEO commented;
We did look at a lot of lenders in recent months, because that’s where all the issues are,” Zhao said in an interview this week. “Many of them, they just take a user’s money and give it to somebody else. There’s not a lot of intrinsic value. In that case, what’s to acquire? We want to see real products that people use.
Moreover, Binance exchange employs a team of over 30 headcounts focused on acquisition and mergers. In addition, it currently has a whopping $7 billion fund for investing.
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It is also noteworthy that when other crypto firms cut their workforce due to bear, Binance keeps hiring more experts worldwide. Therefore, the CEO exposed in May that the company maintained a healthy war chest by controlling overspending in the bull market.
Featured image from Pixabay and chart from TradingView.com
