Important events
Mar 092023
BNBUSD: Binance Continues its Crypto Exchange Market Dominance
- Binance has increased its crypto exchange market share for the fourth consecutive month.
- Its closest competitor by volume is Coinbase, which is significantly behind.
- Binance has also just been given approval to purchase the assets of failed crypto broker Voyager.
Binance has been on something of a roll recently. After the collapse of FTX in November (which some have suggested Binance CEO “CZ” may have played a role in) one of its main competitors had been removed from the scene, allowing it to eat up additional market share. As the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance seems to be going from strength to strength – despite having to jump some regulatory hurdles here and there.
Binance dominance
From January to February this year, Binance has managed to increase its spot trading market share from 59.4% to 61.8% – marking the fourth consecutive month in which it has grown. It also saw a 13.7% increase in its spot volume over the same period – reaching a new all-time high $504bn. The platform’s closest competitor in terms of spot trading, is now the US based Coinbase with $39.9bn – which doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat to Binance for now.
Regulatory scrutiny
Binance’s US entity, Binance US, has been coming under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for offering what the regulator believes could be unregistered securities. Customers however might feel more comfortable trading on Binance in spite of regulatory concerns due to its large trading volumes and seemingly safe capitalization. A judge has also just ruled for the SEC’s concerns to be dismissed regarding Binance’s proposed deal to acquire the assets of failed crypto broker Voyager – spelling good news for ex-users of the platform.
Kanchanara / Unsplash
Subscribe to Snaps
See the market snapshots that matter and nothing else – sent to your inbox daily. Designed to be read in 20 seconds or less.
Feb 242023
BNBUSD: SEC Says Binance’s Voyager Deal Could Breach Securities Law
- The SEC has opposed Binance’s proposed deal to acquire the failed crypto lender Voyager.
- The regulator is concerned that Voyager’s native token VGX could be a security.
- The NY Department of Financial Services has claimed that it would unfairly disadvantage NY users of Voyager.
Binance has had its eye on the assets of failed crypto lender Voyager for some time now. Particularly after the now-bankrupt FTX withdrew from its own bid. But it looks like the deal might have a fair bit of regulatory pressure to overcome if it is to proceed. After already forcing crypto exchange Kraken to stop offering crypto staking services, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has completed its filings on Binance’s Voyager deal.
What’s their issue with the deal?
The regulator had in fact opposed the deal before – stating that Binance had not sufficiently demonstrated its financial stability. Now however, they seem to be turning up the heat. The SEC has now claimed that the deal is likely unlawful, and it’s to do with how the SEC perceives the native token of Voyager, VGX. The regulator believes that the token could be a security, and as the law states that the sale of unregistered securities is prohibited – the transfer of Voyager’s assets to Binance would be illegal. However at the moment, VGX has not been officially declared a security.
It’s not just the SEC taking issue with the deal either. The NY Department of Financial Services has also pushed back on the deal, claiming that Voyager had been operating in the jurisdiction without proper licensing prior to its collapse. It also claimed that the deal would discriminate against Voyager customers based in New York, as they would have to wait for Binance to acquire further state licensing before they could reclaim their assets.
What happens now?
Unsurprisingly, Voyager is very much hoping the deal will be able to proceed and has described the deal as the best possible outcome for its creditors. But the SEC has already suggested that regulatory concerns could make the deal “impossible to consummate”. If the regulator’s recent campaign against stablecoins such as BUSD is anything to go by however, they certainly seem serious about their stance on crypto for the time being.
Vadim Artyukhin / Unsplash
Jan 242023
Next stop, BNB Chain
Crypto’s top decentralized exchange has a new chain in its sights.- Users of the popular decentralized exchange Uniswap have voted 80% in favor of deploying on BNB Chain – the blockchain developed by exchange giant Binance. With 20m votes in favor, the vote saw the highest level of participation in the history of the platform.
- The platform already has around $3.77bn worth of assets locked up across 6 different blockchains. It’s estimated that releasing the platform for BNB chain would bring at least an additional $1bn and 1-2m new users to the platform.
- BNB Chain also has the added benefit of lower transaction fees and faster speeds in comparison to its main deployment on Ethereum. A final proposal to confirm the move with further details will be released in the coming weeks, but the initial poll would suggest the proposal will pass.
Illustration by TradingView
Jan 122023
What crypto crash?
Binance’s dominance in the crypto exchange space is now so strong, you kind of have to feel sorry for its competitors.- While its competitors like Coinbase undergo mass layoffs, Binance has announced a mass hiring plan – which could see its workforce expanded by 30% over the course of 2023. The company already gained 8k employees over 2022.
- Binance reached the impressive milestone of commanding more than two thirds of the global crypto exchange market last month, with its closest competitor, Coinbase, only controlling 8.2%. The collapse of FTX was one factor in Binance’s 2.6% market share growth from Q3 to Q4 2022.
- In other news, it looks like Binance might be able to acquire Voyager’s assets after all – with a judge giving initial approval of the $1bn acquisition deal. While some still have concerns surrounding Binance’s financials – it can’t be denied that it’s on a roll right now.
Web Summit / Wikimedia Commons
Jan 062023
The SEC says "hold up"
Customers of the now-bankrupt Voyager might have got their hopes up for nothing with the possibility of a Binance asset buyout, as the deal now looks like it could be jeopardy.- A judge has been asked to block Binance’s purchase of Voyager’s assets by numerous US regulators, including the SEC. The regulators want the world’s largest crypto exchange to provide more information about its own finances before the deal proceeds.
- Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July 2022 and still owes over $1.3bn to over 100k creditors. Its collapse was in part due to its exposure to Three Arrows Capital, which also filed for bankruptcy after the downfall of Terra.
- There’s a few reasons why regulators might be uneasy with the deal. Binance has been under investigation for money laundering since 2018, and last month the company’s auditor, Mazars, pulled out of the contract – saying that they would be unable to provide assurance.
Unsplash
Dec 192022
Too hot to handle
The crypto industry has been spooked by a new development in the auditing of exchange giant Binance.- Binance’s BNB token dropped by more than 10% and the total market cap of the crypto industry saw a $45bn selloff on Friday, on the news that Mazars will be halting their proof-of-reserves audit of the platform. The auditing firm said that they had limitations in their ability to provide assurances.
- There’s also concerns about Binance’s connection to the now bankrupt FTX. The exchange giant received $2.1bn for selling its shares in the company, and there is now a possibility that these funds might need to be returned. CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, quickly dismissed the concerns, saying the company is “financially OK.”
- Added to that, an influx of outflows from the platform have been shaking investor-confidence. On Tuesday alone, more than $1.14bn net withdrawals were made from Binance. CZ however hit back at concerns, saying that it’s not even in the “top 5” largest withdrawals they’ve processed. However it plays out, there’s an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu.
Patrick Hendry / Unsplash
Dec 162022
I demand a refund
Blockchain social media project Mithril has put its foot down with Binance after being delisted from the exchange..- Blockchain social media project Mithril has demanded Binance returns 200k BNB ($52.6m), which it gave to the exchange giant as a deposit for being listed on the platform. When the deposit was made in 2018 however, it was only worth $1m.
- Mithril was delisted by Binance yesterday, despite being an early collaborator with Binance’s BNB Chain. In fact, Mithril was the first token ever to be listed on the blockchain. It’s also made several donations to Binance Charity, so the delisting probably feels like a knife in the back.
- The delisting has taken its toll on the project’s MITH token, which plummeted by more than 48% with the announcement. If the project can’t receive its refund soon, it might have insufficient funds to continue operating – it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen it.
Binance
Dec 132022
Have the tables turned?
Binance was once breathing a sigh of relief while watching the implosion of FTX, but now it looks like it could be in some trouble of its own.- The Justice Department is considering filing criminal charges against Binance, and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, with charges including money laundering, unlicensed money transmission and breaching criminal sanctions. If Binance were charged, it would probably weaken its position as the largest crypto exchange in the world.
- An investigation was launched into the exchange in 2018, but prosecutors are reportedly now split between moving to charge, or waiting to gather additional evidence. The recent urgency in the investigation is likely related to the collapse of FTX, and its impact on the wider crypto market.
- Speaking of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested yesterday in The Bahamas and now faces extradition to the US. Binance was also asked to submit evidence to UK lawmakers last month regarding how FTX collapsed – which was described as “insufficient” by the Parliamentary Treasury Committee. Stay tuned folks, it’s about to get interesting.
Kanchanara / Unsplash
Dec 052022
A stake to the heart
Binance has made the move to pause withdrawals in the face of not one, but two attacks in the last few days.- BNB Chain-based crypto node project Ankr was hit by a multi-million dollar exploit in the early hours of Friday morning, which saw an “infinite mint” hack drain around $5m – or an estimated 20tn Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc) – and the hacker has since used privacy protocols to obscure the tokens.
- Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the exchange has paused withdrawals of the token in the face of this hack, while aBNBc (the token for a staked version of Binance's BNB that earns rewards on Ankr) has seen its price plummet over 99.5% since the attack. Binance seems to be the only crypto savior left, so they hardly need any bad news.
- Which is unfortunate considering what happened next to Helio. Someone was able to drain another BNB Chain-based staking platform, Helio, of around $15m in liquidity after delays to price data on BNB-related derivative tokens allowed exploiters to piggyback off the Ankr attack – its HAY stablecoin swiftly lost its peg on the news.
Illustration by TradingView
Nov 282022
Too hot to handle
Serum looks like the latest of SBF's projects to get caught up in the crossfire of FTX's collapse.- Exchange giant Binance is delisting three pairs associated with Serum – the decentralized exchange created by Sam Bankman Fried. Users will no longer be able to trade SRM against BNB, SRM/BTC, or SRM/USDT from today onwards.
- Serum’s been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons recently. The exchange is built on the Solana blockchain, and the Solana Foundation said it held some 134m SRM ($33.3m) in FTX – SBF’s crypto exchange which went down in flames earlier this month.
- It’s an even bigger blow for SRM given that the majority of its trading occurs on Binance. The community carried out a fork of the project after FTX was seemingly hacked two weeks ago, but the token has still fallen by around 75% in the wake of the exchange’s downfall.
Serum
Nov 252022
A $1bn rescue fund?
Crypto billionaire and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is once again looking to hop on his white horse and rescue the crypto industry – this time with $1bn in his saddlebag.- Binance has added $1bn to its industry recovery fund, which is dedicated to supporting struggling crypto players in the wake of the FTX disaster. Zhao has become somewhat of a savior for the struggling crypto industry, taking on a role formerly held by SBF himself – others are joining in the fun, with another $50m in donations coming in from various crypto firms.
- Zhao also confirmed that Binance.US will be making a fresh bid for Voyager, the crypto lender previously in acquisition discussions with FTX – there had been rumors that Binance held back from initial chats for over regulatory concerns, which the CEO has now denied, saying he doesn’t think national security will be a concern.
- Crypto itself has actually edged toward a recovery of some kind over the week, giving people hope that the FTX fallout might be starting to ease. That being said, both Bitcoin and Ethereum are still down over 70% in the last twelve months, so that road to recovery could be a long one.
Rodion Kutsaiev/ Unsplash
Nov 152022
Binance to the rescue?
Binance’s Changpeng Zhao looks ready to replace Sam Bankman-Fried as crypto’s guardian angel. Although, is there such a thing anymore?
Ivan Vranić / Unsplash
Oct 312022
Pledge allegiance to the Chief Twit
The craziness that was the Twitter/Elon deal may have drawn to a close, but there’s no shortage of hot goss coming out of HQ – and some of it points to a bullish future for crypto.- Binance’s CEO has confirmed the exchange is an equity investor in Musk’s buyout of Twitter, contributing $500m to the $44bn deal. Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange, so you can bet your bottom dollar crypto is going to be a focus at the new Twitter going forward – and the ball is already rolling.
- Binance is creating a new team to help Elon Musk incorporate blockchain technology into Twitter’s refreshed business model. The social platform had already begun to explore ways to incorporate crypto under former CEO Jack Dorsey, but this team will step it up and explore ways to use on-chain solutions to address issues like bots.
- BNB’s native token had its best week since August 1, and it wasn’t alone in receiving a boost from Twitter-related news. Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have been on an absolute tear, with Doge up a whopping 45% on Saturday and 95% for the week to its highest price since May and Shiba rallying 17% last week – bulls reckon Musk’s newfound power offers an improved adoption case.
Ant Rozetsky / Unsplash
Oct 172022
Binance offers a lifeboat
Binance takes its role as one of the world’s leading crypto mining pools seriously, starting a new fund to help the embattled industry.- Binance has revealed a new $500m lending pool for Bitcoin miners struggling to withstand current conditions. The lending pool will be available to mining groups who need help to stay afloat, but only on the condition that they post collateral to secure the loan. Seems like a fair deal.
- Bitcoin miners have been struggling to stand up to the heat, facing a perfect storm of low prices, soaring energy prices and record high mining difficulty levels. Ethereum miners that were de-homed by the Merge and moved to BTC mining have also been worsening this mining difficulty problem.
- The situation’s so bad that many mining groups are having to shut down their operations. In just the last month, Compass mining had to shut down its operations in Georgia and one of the largest BTC mining pools in the world, Poolin, had to freeze withdrawals. Maybe the Binance lending pool is the lifeboat they’ve been waiting for.
Bart van Dijk / Unsplash
Oct 072022
A potential exploit
Binance battened down the hatches on Thursday as the possibility of one of the biggest hacks in crypto history loomed.- BNB chain halted all activity on Thursday after detecting suspicious activity on the network. Initial analysis of the activity suggested that around $500m worth of assets could have been stolen by the attacker, but the real losses are now looking to be around $100m due to the network suspension.
- The chaos caused the chain’s BNB token to drop 3% after the network halt, with the known offending addresses blacklisted by stablecoin issuer Tether, and $7m worth of the assets being frozen.
- The hack had the potential to be the largest crypto hack of all time if the chain had not been halted, with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao confirming that $100m had been stolen. For now a crisis has been (somewhat) averted, but investor confidence has probably been shaken a bit.
Vadim Artyukhin / Unsplash
Oct 042022
A hack in transit
When the founders of Transit Swap named the exchange, they probably weren’t hoping it would mean a hacker would swap their in-transit money into their own bank account.- Exchange aggregator Transit Swap was hacked to the tune of $21m on Saturday after a bug on its smart contract was exploited by an attacker. The funds stolen were mostly Ethereum and Binance’s BNB, with the platform’s operator tweeting that they were “deeply sorry”.
- There was a bit of a happy ending however (not that kind) as the hacker actually returned 70% of the funds to the platform yesterday. It might have been to do with the fact the attacker’s IP was traced, or maybe their conscience was just eating away at them – although apparently not enough to return all of it.
- Binance isn’t letting crypto hack szn get it down and has continued aggressive expansion despite the broader market downturn. The exchange just expanded its global operations with a new crypto exchange in Kazakhstan, and continues to develop its Law Enforcement Training Program which focuses on preventing cybercrime.
Markus Spiske / Unsplash
Sep 302022
Binance opens the mines
Ex-ETH miners get ready to dust off their pickaxes as Binance announces the grand-opening of its EthereumPoW mining pool.- Crypto exchange Binance has opened a mining pool for ETHW, the forked proof-of-work chain created after Ethereum’s Merge, with a promotional ‘fee-free period’ which will run until October 29 – it’s good news for Ethereum miners who ceased operations after its transition to proof-of-stake and are ready to get back to work.
- The pool got people rather excited and the ETHW token popped 15% on the news. Even before the announcement, ETHW had been making moves – nearly doubling in price since this time last week. Strangely though, the exchange isn’t going to actually list the ETHW token for trading.
- Other proof-of-work ETH tokens haven’t been faring quite as well, with over 80% of Ethereum mining rigs going offline after the Merge. ETC has seen most of its pre-Merge gains wiped out, down 15% this month, and RVN – which was also riding a wave of Merge-related excitement – has plummeted almost 50% since it the upgrade. Maybe ETHW will emerge from the dust on top? Or maybe not. Never know with crypto.
GuerrillaBuzz Crypto PR/ Unsplash
Aug 042022
Binance flexes stablecoin strength
The world’s largest cryptocurrency marketplace is trying to stand out from the stablecoin crowd after watching Terra kick off a crypto contagion.- Binance is sharing data about the money behind its BUSD stablecoin in an effort to prove that it’s more, well… stable than everyone else. Binance says that BUSD is unlike others because it’s not only 100% backed by cash and cash equivalents but is also regulated by the NY State Department of Financial Services.
- The exchange will provide regular monthly updates about the reserves behind the stablecoin. Right now, reserves include $10.6bn in US treasury bills and $6.3bn in treasury repurchase agreements, with the remaining $738m (only 4.1% of BUSD) allocated to cash-related backings.
- It’s trying to increase the transparency of the business, not only because the collapse of Terra’s stablecoin earlier this year thrust uncertainty upon investors, but also because regulators are increasingly stepping up their oversight of stablecoins on the back of the collapse.
Kanchanara / Unsplash
Jul 012022
More 'celebrities' get involved with NFTs
Binance is betting big on NFTs as it brings in some of the hottest stars around, and they’re not the only ones making room for the hype.- Binance is luring in influencers to help with its campaigns. The crypto platform just signed TikTok’s most silent star, Khaby Lame (you know, the dude that makes fun of overcomplicated life hacks) to explain how crypto works. It comes just a week after Binance scored a partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo, who wants to “change the NFT game.”
- A ton of people and companies are jumping on the non-fungible train. NFT platform OpenSea has seen trading volume more than double since this time last year, major financial giants like Goldman Sachs and Mastercard are exploring NFT integrations, and Meta’s Facebook has just started testing NFTs as profile pictures.
- But all is not well in DeFi-land. The overall DeFi market has lost over 75% of its value this year, made worse by Terra’s collapse and a number of hacks. Speaking of, OpenSea has warned customers of possible phishing attacks after reporting a data breach through its email vendor. Stay safe, kids.
Giffoni_ Experience / Flickr
Jun 232022
Keep the satoshis, you filthy animal
Crypto exchange giant Binance will now offer zero fees on Bitcoin transactions, flexing its muscle to the likes of a quietened Coinbase and Robinhood.- Binance.US has scrapped trading fees for Bitcoin spot market trades, hoping the move will encourage retail investors to trade on their platform over the likes of Coinbase, Gemini, and Robinhood. CEO of the US biz, Brian Shroder, said the exchange was the first of its kind to offer zero fees.
- More free-traded crypto could be on the way too. Binance.US plans to introduce a tiered pricing system this summer in which crypto assets beyond just Bitcoin are put into three categories, with Tier 0 being totally free, while Tier 1 and 2 have a price attached.
- Given Binance has just announced plans to hire 2k staff while everyone else seems to be cutting back, this sort of news could further cement its position as the #1 crypto exchange in the US. Archenemy Coinbase sank 10% on Wednesday, still trading near all-time lows as investors look to see how they’ll respond to this whole “free trading” dealio.
Vadim Artyukhin / Unsplash