In Brief
- Binance is looking for a $1bn fund for future acquisition of troubled assets in the digital asset sector.
- Zhao claimed last week at a conference that there was much interest from industry leaders in a recovery fund.
- Meanwhile, Binance is most likely to submit a second bid for the insolvent lender Voyager Digital.
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao revealed in a recent interview that the company is looking for approximately $1 billion for the future acquisition of troubled assets in the digital asset sector.
Zhao toldBloomberg Television, “If that’s not enough we can allocate more.”
Zhao reportedly claimed last week at a conference in Abu Dhabi that there was much interest from industry leaders in a recovery fund his company planned to form to assist cryptocurrency ventures.
Binance Exchange in Second Bid for Voyager
Binance will most likely submit a second bid for the insolvent lender Voyager Digital, which CZ confirmed in the interview. Last week, the American division of Binance, Binance.US, decided to make a new bid for Voyager after its first attempt failed due to national security concerns.
The news also comes on the back of the collapse of a significant rival FTX. Binance backed out of a proposed acquisition of its now bankrupt rival exchange. The founder also revealed because Binance lacked access to all of FTX’s books or trading records, the deal couldn’t get through. According to him, the exchange intends to examine FTX assets as they pass through the bankruptcy process.
“They [FTX] invested in a number of different projects, some of them are OK, some of them are bad, but I think there are certain assets that are salvageable,” Zhao noted.
He also believes that the industry has to question industry players to avoid similar implosions in the future. “It does not mean any attacks on any of our industry peers. We just want to build more transparency and more scrutiny into the industry,” he said.
Earlier this month, the CEO also said that the exchange would reveal the cold wallet balances and addresses for its top six cryptocurrencies to maintain transparency about its reserves.
Genesis’ Saving Grace
According to Zhao, Binance is also in talks with Genesis Global, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency broker needing financial assistance for survival. In the past weeks, Genesis’ lending divisionhalted new loans and redemptions while looking for emergency funding.
“We are going with a loose approach where different industry players will contribute as they wish,” Zhao added regarding the fund.
“There will be pain whenever one player goes down,” he said. “Each time there’s cascading effects, the effects become smaller, so I think overall the industry is fine.”
Meanwhile, crypto exchange Bybit has established a $100 million fund to support institutional clients.
“We are all in this together, and it’s up to everyone to do what they can to support our industry and this is one way we are helping to give back,” Bybit CEO and co-founder Ben Zhou said.
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