Binance
- Binance chief executive “CZ” told the FT on Tuesday the company is in talks with several sovereign wealth funds.
- The company is seeking investments but is wary of tying itself to specific countries, the CEO said.
- He did not say which funds were involved but said the “ticket size” would not be small.
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Crypto exchange Binance has been in talks with sovereign wealth funds about potentially taking a stake in the company, chief executive Changpeng “CZ” Zhao told the Financial Times on Tuesday in an interview.
CZ said he believed this step could improve its “perception and relationships” with various governments and regulators, the FT said.
He did not disclose which funds the company has been talking to, but he did say “the ticket size involved will not be small . . . it won’t be a short process,” according to the FT.
Binance was not immediately available to comment when contacted by Insider.
Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, according to CoinGecko. However, it has faced pressure from regulators in the UK, Singapore, Canada, Japan, Germany and elsewhere.
CZ, who founded the company, is still the largest stakeholder. Investment from government-owned funds might mean Binance was subject to foreign influence, something the chief executive was a source of concern.
“But it may also tie us to specific countries . . . which we want to be slightly careful with,” he said.
However, this wouldn’t be the company’s first brush with a sovereign wealth fund. The FT noted that Binance’s Singapore arm is backed by Vertex Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek.
The FT also quoted CZ as saying at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last week that Binance was recording daily transaction volumes of $170 billion, compared with $10 billion to $30 billion two years ago and that the revenue run rate was “in the billions”.
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