Binance's CZ Slams Reports Binance's Reserves Are Full of Its Own Tokens (benzinga.com) 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Benzinga: Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao on Friday came down heavily on a report the cryptocurrency exchange holds $74.6 billion in tokens, out of which nearly 40% are its own stablecoin BUSD and native coin BNB. Sharing data provided by blockchain analytics firm provided by Nansen, the Bloomberg report said about $23 billion of the $74.6 billion net worth is in the company's own stablecoin BUSD and $6.4 billion was in its own cryptocurrency, BNB. According to Nansen data, the exchange has also allocated 10.5% of its holdings to Bitcoin and 9.8% to Ether.
Challenging the report, Zhao, popularly known as "CZ" in the crypto industry, said: "#BUSD is issued by Paxos, an NYDFS regulated entity, not Binance. The numbers are all wrong too. These are users' assets, in the form users choose to store with us. We don't convert for them." According to data shared by Binance, it holds around 475,000 Bitcoin ($7.8 billion), 4.8 million Ether ($5.57 billion), 17.6 billion USDT ($607 million), as well as close to 21.7 billion of its own stablecoin BUSD (worth $21.9 billion) and 58 million of its BNB tokens (worth $16 billion). The current value of these tokens is about $72.3 billion, according to Nansen.
Challenging the report, Zhao, popularly known as "CZ" in the crypto industry, said: "#BUSD is issued by Paxos, an NYDFS regulated entity, not Binance. The numbers are all wrong too. These are users' assets, in the form users choose to store with us. We don't convert for them." According to data shared by Binance, it holds around 475,000 Bitcoin ($7.8 billion), 4.8 million Ether ($5.57 billion), 17.6 billion USDT ($607 million), as well as close to 21.7 billion of its own stablecoin BUSD (worth $21.9 billion) and 58 million of its BNB tokens (worth $16 billion). The current value of these tokens is about $72.3 billion, according to Nansen.
Only worth 78 billion USD if (Score:2)
Crypto industry facin crisis (Score:5, Informative)
CZ was at a conference in Indonesia where he said the industry must look to regulation [cnn.com] and acknowledged it is currently facing a 2008 scenario.
“We’ve just seen another very big player going down,” said Zhao, who noted this collapse follows the downfall of Celsius, Voyager, Three Arrows Capital and other crypto firms.
Zhao was a key player in the downfall of FTX. Binance reached a tentative rescue deal with FTX earlier this week, but that transaction almost immediately fell apart, paving the way for Friday’s bankruptcy filing and the resignation of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
The moderator noted the crypto turmoil feels much like the 2008 global financial crisis, which brought down Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and other leading Wall Street players.
“That’s probably an accurate analogy,” Zhao said.
He urged regulators to look beyond just anti-money laundering and know-your-customer (KYC) rules and focus instead on the operations, business models and reserves of exchanges like FTX.
“Regulators, rightfully, will scrutinize this industry much, much harder, which is probably a good thing to be honest,” Zhao said. “Short-term, it’s very painful for retail investorsWe feel that pain. But longer-term, this is another wakeup call to say, ‘Look, we are in a new industry. There are a lot of risks and we need to learn how to deal with these risks.”
Re:Crypto industry facin crisis (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
No, they cannot survive regulation. They simply do not have even the basics, like reliable identification of all customers, ample real reserves, quite high IT security, archiving and auditing requirements, and so on. They will get regulation though and nothing of value will be lost.
Re: Crypto industry facin crisis (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
""... we need to learn how to deal with these risks.”
*AFTER* taking in billions of dollars of investor funds?
STEP 1: Take billions of $$$
STEP 2: $$PROFIT from rampant greed and stupidity$$
STEP 3: Learn how to deal with the risks.
So, they are now at step 2.5 ?
Re: Crypto industry facin crisis (Score:2)
You tell them! (Score:2)
Those reserves are full of other tokens!
REAL tokens! Pinned against real fugazi!
I hope he enjoyed his glass empire while it lasted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:You tell them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully they're matching assets to liabilities. If your customers have BTC deposited and you hold matching BTC reserves then you don't care what the price does, you just pocket the fees when they transact.
Re: You tell them! (Score:1)
Yumm... (Score:3)
Self-licking ice-cream cone
The surprising thing to me is how high it went (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Nobody paid a trillion dollars for crypto. A whole bunch of it (the vast majority?) was mined, minted or otherwise by early adopters. A good chunk of that is (everyone hopes) forever inaccessible because it's been lost or purposely abandoned like Satoshi's hoard of bitcoin.
Re: (Score:2)
Because it is all hot air, you can blow it up as much as desired....
Re: (Score:2)
Valued at a trillion means jack. I have here a piece of pocket lint valued at a billion. I have just found another one, so I now have pocket lint for the combined value of two trillions. And that's true all the way ... until I want to actually convert it to real money. Until then, you can value it at whatever value you feel like.
The actual value of an item is what someone else is willing to pay for it. And that only gets realized the very moment this happens. You have a lot of incorrectly evaluated stuff on
Re: (Score:2)
It's literally data provided (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just glad the whole thing is collapsing before it was integrated into the broader economy. It was painfully obvious Wall Street was hoping to do 2008 style derivatives using cryptocurrency is backing instead of mortgages. I can't even fathom the scale of a market crash that would based on pretend money and Ponzi schemes.
Smooth move by CZ (Score:3)
Mining, is minting. Coins come straight out of some unicorn's ass. Yeah. Really. Want some? I know a really really good one for you. So if regs come in fast enough, CZ doesn't turn into a pumpkin like Friedman-Whatever.
Misread it as $607m real value, true value is zero (Score:4, Informative)
I sort of skimmed over the list of shit coins they hold and then saw USD $607m and thought ok, they're worth $607m not the bullshit $78 billion then I looked again and realized that was USDT aka Tether aka more shit coin bullshit. Their true reserves of things of real value seems to be zero.
Re: (Score:3)
Not only that, but why is 17.8 billion USDT only "worth" $607 million. Isn't it worth $17.8 billion on paper?
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a sheet of paper, there's a box of crayons, paint whatever number you think looks nice onto it and that's about as close to its value on paper than whatever someone else says.
Quite seriously, it's amazing that adults take this bullshit seriously.
Re: Misread it as $607m real value, true value is (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
That's one might big if right there.
The reason that piece of paper is accepted in exchange for goods or services is mostly that whoever you hand it to trusts that he in turn will get goods and services for it. If he doesn't believe that, all you have is slightly scratchy toilet paper.
Re: Misread it as $607m real value, true value is (Score:1)
it's straightforward (Score:2)
Binance next to fall (Score:2)
Now hackers have an idea (Score:1)
17.6 billion Usdt (Score:1)