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Binance’s CZ Addresses Volatility In The Crypto-Verse

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The crypto-verse has been experiencing extreme volatility over the last couple of days. Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao aka CZ, addressed this constant rise and fall in the price of cryptocurrencies over the last couple of days.

Volatility has been a great drawback for the crypto industry. While abrupt soars in the price of certain coins can bring extreme joy, untimely drops can cause a commotion. Individuals who seem to be intrigued by the industry have been sitting on the fence fearing volatility. The recent drop of Bitcoin [BTC] from a high of $64K to a low of $48K was noted as a classic example of the latter.

Appearing in Bloomberg’s latest interview, CZ went on to reveal his take on the extreme volatility that the crypto industry hoards.

Binance’s CZ Blames Herd Mentality For Volatility

Bitcoin’s price volatility is directly linked to herd mentality, Binance’s CZ pointed out. Comparing those who enter the crypto-verse, CZ noted that those who invest in crypto were through herd mentality were outdoing those who did their research before investing in the market.

While the price of crypto is usually dictated by the buying and selling activity of these assets, people who enter the market when there’s good news and rush out during bad news are the one’s behind the volatile nature of the industry, CZ asserted. Speaking about the same he added,

“The herd followers are less committed. Whenever there’s some negative news, they run away. Whenever there’s positive news, they try to rush in.”

Furthermore, just as the price of digital assets rose over the past couple of months, institutional investors started pouring their funds into it. CZ pointed out that certain large institutions were keen on “volatility trading.”

Debunking the myth of more institutional trading equals less volatility, the CEO of Binance added,

“They [institutions] seek volatility and they sometimes even want to generate the volatility. So it’s not to say that just because there’s more institutions trading, then there’s less volatility.”

Binance’s CEO CZ Clarifies Claims Regarding CFTC Probe

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The increased demand for cryptocurrencies has paved the way for many governments to take a deeper look into the industry. Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, seems to be the latest platform under the US government’s purview.

The US government has been receiving immense backlash for its stringent laws against crypto. While several platforms have moved out of the country, others like Binance have rolled out exchanges exclusively for the citizens of the US. Despite this, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] of the United States of America reportedly revealed that the platform was being investigated.

An anonymous source allegedly disclosed that the cryptocurrency platform was being investigated by the CFTC over certain derivative trades carried out by users from the US. While no official statement by the CFTC was released regarding the matter, the source affirmed that Binance wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing.

Speaking about the same, CZ added,

“We’ll continue to improve our compliance. We’ll also work very actively with regulators around the world to improve the compliance standards of the industry.”

Binance’s CZ: “An Investigation Doesn’t Mean They’re Trying To Charge Us”

This investigation came as a shock to several, however, Binance decided to stay quiet about it. But, appearing in an Ask Me Anything [AMA] live stream on Clubhouse, the CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao went on to address the latest issue. He stated,

“This is a topic that just came up, literally like a few minutes ago or an hour ago. So number one, the news article said there was no, I don’t have it in front of me, there was no “misconduct,” I have to dig it up. So number one there was no report of misconduct from Binance, so the report kind of defeat itself.”

CZ also clarified that an investigation did not mean that the CFTC was trying to charge Binance with something. He went on to say that the “story doesn’t have any teeth.”

Binance’s CZ Manages To Secure A Spot On Bloomberg 50

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The price movement of Bitcoin caught the attention of the world further garnering several into the ecosystem. As the value of crypto assets have been on a surge, the people behind these assets have also been garnering immense gains and appreciation for their work in building the industry. CZ recently turned heads after he managed to secure a position on Bloomberg 50.

Binance Hopes To Garner Gains Over $800 Billion This Year

Binance has proved to be one of the best performing crypto platforms even during the pandemic. The exchange ranks first on CoinMarketCap’s list of top cryptocurrency exchanges. With expansion as its main goal, the crypto platform veered into several markets throughout the last few years. The man behind the Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange, Changpeng Zhao has always managed to secure a place in the headlines. Once again, CZ has made headlines following his entry to the annual list of Bloomberg 50.

CZ was joined with an array of people from different industries including, politics, entertainment, business, finance, science as well as technology. The list had prominent personalities including Byju Raveendran, Billie Eilish, John Roberts, Bong Joon-Ho, the Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok along with several others.

Speaking about his influence on the crypto market, CZ revealed that he expects Binance to garner gains over $800 million to $1 billion this year. Previously in 2019, CZ’s Binance managed to secure a whopping $750 million. While the regulatory climate remains uncertain in several parts of the globe, they have been huge trouble to the crypto-verse. The lack of regulatory clarity in the US has even led to the members of Ripple moving its headquarters outside the country. CZ added,

“We’re always working closely with regulators and law enforcement worldwide.”

Several members of the crypto-verse lauded Zhao for his latest achievement and went on to say that he was humbled to be a part of the list beside several prominent personalities. He added,

“Alongside these committed and passionate leaders bringing change across diverse spheres, we will continue to work towards increasing financial inclusion globally with crypto as the fundamental means and putting people and our users first.”

Spotify Hints Entry Into Crypto-Verse With Its Latest Job Posting

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The crypto-verse has been veering in several major mainstream companies across the globe. Spotify is the latest to join the bandwagon. Last year, when Facebook revealed its crypto venture several platforms partnered with the social media giant. While many reeled out of the project after increased scrutiny by governments across the globe, the Libra project managed to retain a few. Spotify was one of them. The streaming service posted a job opening with regard to the same.

Spotify Looks For Associate Director To Spearhead Payments Team

In an elaborate post, prominent audio streaming platform, Spotify revealed that it was looking for an individual to fill in the position of Associate Director to head the Payments Strategy and Innovation team. The role requires the applicants to aid in the implementation of Spotify’s payments strategy along with the platform’s activity with the Libra project. While the Libra project is now called Diem, Spotify seems to be prepping for the imminent project.

The role further requires the selected candidate to juggle between Spotify’s London and Stockholm offices. The post further read,

“This role will report to the Director, Payments Strategy & Innovation and will play a key part in defining and implementing Spotify’s payments strategy as well as leading Spotify’s activity within the Libra stablecoin project and wider digital asset & cryptocurrency space.”

Apart from this, Spotify suggested that the associate director would have to “drive further consideration” of prospects in the blockchain, crypto, stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies [CBDC] as well as distributed ledger tech that has been currently flourishing across the globe.

With the crypto industry emerging in full force, several platforms have been setting up resources to comply with the ongoing crypto fervor.

Several members of the crypto industry seemed to be excited about this and expressed their thoughts about the same on Twitter. Binance’s Changpeng Zhao aka CZ was one among them as he highlighted that Spotify was getting into crypto. His tweet read,

Binance Bids Aideu To Ugandan Branch Following Abject Loss

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Numerous cryptocurrency exchanges made a lot of news this year. However, Malta’s Binance exchange turned several heads with its exponential growth. With expansion as one of its primary goals, Binance was seen steering into several countries over the past few years. Despite incurring increased profits through its primary platform, Binance failed to accumulate the required rate of profit through its Uganda wing.

Binance.com To Continue Serving Uganda Citizens

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has spread its wings into several territories. The Changpeng Zhao-led crypto exchange dived into the Ugandan market back in June 2018. However, the platform has decided to pull the plug on Binance Uganda starting from 11 November 2020. Binance wrote an elaborate blog post prepping its Ugandan users for this imminent closure.

Binance Uganda halted registrations of new accounts as well as deposits on 28 October. However, these users were allowed to trade all the available crypto assets and withdraw funds from their accounts. Users would be able to withdraw their funds through the Ugandan shilling [UGX]. All the trading activities would be stopped at 23:59 UTC on 11 November. Once again users would be given the option of withdrawing or accessing their funds.

A “Hard Shutdown” would be implemented after 28 November 2020, after which users would no longer be able to access or withdraw funds from their accounts.

The blog post also elaborated on the reason behind the closing of this platform. The post read,

“Binance Uganda thanks our loyal users for using our services and would strongly encourage everyone to use Binance.com going forward for all their cryptocurrency and trading needs.”

The exchange also pointed out that Binance.com already supported UGX and hence users of Uganda didn’t have to worry about the conversion of currency.

Furthermore, speaking to a news portal the founder and CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao revealed that Binance Uganda harbored very few customers as most of them opted for Binance.com. CZ even on to label the Ugandan branch of Binance a “loss center”.

Binance has been shutting down several branches over the last few weeks. Back in October, the Malta-based exchange announced that it would close Binance Jersey. Once again since Binance.com supports GBP deposits, the platform decided to pull a plug on its Jersey branch. The platform is expected to undergo a hard shutdown by the end of November.

Binance’s CZ: “Certain CBDCs Could Lack The Freedom That Bitcoin Has”

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Over the course of this month, a lot of stuff went down in the crypto-verse. The crypto exchanges under the spotlight for steering into the bad side of the regulators were BitMEX and OKEx. Although some proposed that the arrest of BitMEX ‘s founders was a crypto-verse lesson, a few others thought otherwise. Several crypto personalities have commented on the spiraling of BitMEX, and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao is the latest to join the list. CZ also addressed the development of CBDCs in a recent interview.

A Wake-Up Call For The Crypto-Verse

BitMEX fell under the purview of the United States’ regulators as it failed to put into place the required user verification procedures. While the negligence of the exchange has caused it a hefty price to pay, CZ revealed that the regulatory climate across the globe has become increasingly severe since 2018. He added,

“[BitMEX’s indictment] is a wake-up call for the rest of the players to be more cautious, to be fully compliant. Back in the summer of ’15, you could probably do anything because there was no regulatory [guidance]. But I think by 2018 and in the last couple of years, there has been a lot of regulatory guidelines.”

Elaborating on how his Malta-based crypto exchange has always been compliant with the decrees put forth by the regulators across the globe, CZ mentioned the launch of Binance’s United States exclusive platform, Binance US. He further added that the exchange was striving to keep the residents of the US away from the other platforms of Binance. He suggested that the exchange was not intending on stepping on anybody’s toes.

Furthermore, the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies [CBDC] has been on the mind of every nation. While several propose that these assets could pose as a threat to Bitcoin, CZ suggested otherwise. He pointed out how certain CBDCs could be deprived of the freedom that Bitcoin entails. However he added,

“If there is a government pushing another cryptocurrency that’s even more open, more free, has less restrictions than Bitcoin, and is faster and cheaper to use, then that would threaten Bitcoin. But that is good for the industry, it’s just something better than Bitcoin, and would replace it.”

With China at the forefront of developing CBDC, CZ revealed that Binance has no immediate plans of rolling out a yuan-based stablecoin following the several stipulations in China.

OKEx’s Jay Hao Accuses Binance’s CZ Of Endorsing Dubious DeFi Projects

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The crypto-verse is home to thousands of projects, while many of them enter the market with the intention of making use of technology to contribute to the growth of the ecosystem, a few others aim at extracting money from people. These scammy projects are sometimes wrongly endorsed by prominent personalities of the crypto industry, Binance’s Changpeng Zhao seems to be the latest one to join the list.

OKEx CEO Calls Out Binance For “Irresponsible Behaviour”

Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has been touted as the world’s largest crypto exchange following the array of developments and partnerships, the platform dives into. However, Binance’s quick-wittedness seems to have caused a problem, suggests Jay Hao, the CEO of prominent crypto exchange, OKEx. Recently, in an array of tweets, the CEO of OKEx called out CZ for endorsing certain scammy DeFi projects.

In his tweets, Hao pointed out that Binance Smart Chain [BSC] was an extremely centralized platform. The platform’s venture, BakerySwap reportedly caused protests across China and other places for collapsing in less than 12 hours. He tweeted,

The DeFi boom is hard to miss, with several platforms pouring into space. Binance hopped onto the DeFi bandwagon by listing several DeFi tokens. Binance was quick enough to list SUSHI and Hao criticized Zhao, CEO, for doing so.His tweet read,

“Those financial losses are a result of blind trust in #Binance. Despite @heyibinance’s claims that projects on BSC must pass all security audits, $BAKE still plunged leading @cz_binance to delete his BakerySwap endorsement tweet ytd just like he did with #SushiSwap previously.”

Furthermore, labeling Binance’s latest move as “irresponsible” indicated that it depleted the trust of the crypto community and damaged DeFi ‘s reputation. Ironically, OKEx listed SUSHI on the same day as Binance. Hao added,

“Trust is hard to build but easy to tear down. For the sake of users’ interests & #Crypto development, pls stop these tricks and #BUILD the real #DeFi.”

Additionally, the DeFi space was seen recovering from its latest slump, despite the crackdown of several faulty projects. At the time of writing, a total of 9.36 billion USD was locked in the DeFi space with Uniswap prolonging its dominance by 19.10%

Bitcoin: Altcoins are Taking a Lead Over “Stable Bitcoin”, says Binance’s CZ

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During the month of May, Bitcoin had everyone’s attention in the crypto community. Its immense recovery since the collapse in March had significantly improved its financial credentials and the largest digital asset was touted for a big rally over the next few months.

The situation has drastically changed since June as Bitcoin was hardly made any drastic gains. Over time, the asset has depleted a bit but hasn’t really entertained a bear run as well. BTC was stuck in a price range and over the past month, other altcoins have started to take away its attention.

Cardano has surged 195% in 2020, Crypto.com’s CRO token has improved by 220% but the most notable spike witnessed in the top 40 is Aave’s LEND, which has registered a staggering growth of 1882% YTD.

The buzz around altcoins is gaining significant momentum and now major proponents in the space were starting to entertain in influence.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao was asked about Bitcoin’s price movements and the current impact of altcoins on the industry.

Zhao, or commonly known as CZ, said he was stumped as well and ‘honestly didn’t  know’ when Bitcoin could cross $10,000 again.

He added that with time , major reasons, such as quantitative easing, may have a factor in and BTC ‘s price may eventually break out, but it’s pretty stable at the moment.

Talking about altcoins, he added,

“Data also shows that it is pretty much an alt-season now, with Binance futures, more than 60 percent of the volume comes from altcoin, which is actually much higher than before.”

He also revealed that of all the altcoins that are listed on Binance in Q2 2020, only three coins registered negative returns in that period.

Twitter hack is not Bitcoin’s fault

A common topic of discussion that has been fairly evident over the past few days in the Twitter hack but CZ suggested it was BTC’s moneyness that made it amiable to the hackers, as it was a better form of currency than fiat.

Speaking about the negative impact, he said he would obviously like positive press to follow the largest digital asset in the world but citing “any publicity is good publicity”, it can be speculated that CZ did not mind the recent conundrum and attention that followed Bitcoin after the Twitter hack.

Binance Head Negative to Cryptocurrencies Pumping to Fresh Heights

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The crypto-currency community has been betting on version 2.0 of the altcoin season. Back in March, a team of researchers at Binance suggested that the crypto market might be approaching the Alt season. A situation where alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) pump hundreds of percentages and outperform the leading crypto, Bitcoin.

Well, it’s worth noting that the final alt season took place between 2017 and 2018 after bitcoin hit below-34%. The 6th of March Binance Research Paper hinted at renewed activity across the Altcoin industry. However, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao recently came out claiming the anticipation that all altcoins are going to rally is too optimistic and should be dismissed by far.

Hot Anticipation of Alt Season in Third Quarter of 2020

Of course, a number of traders expect altcoins to gain by the third quarter of 2020. Looking at several altcoins, including Dogecoin, ChainLink and Cardano, reveals a frantic effort to take over the price charts.

Among the list, however, only Dogecoin has made gains in excess of a hundred percent. LINK scored at least 6.11 percent on the 24-hour price chart, while Cardano pumped at least 26 percent. Both hit a market price of $5.99 and $0.13 respectively. In addition, the market dominance of Bitcoin still stands at 63 percent.

Low Bitcoin Trading Volume in February

The basis of Binance Team Research back in March was a huge decline in the dominance of Bitcoin’s trading volume back in February. After that, it plunged from 40% to 27%. In fact, the researchers suggested that if the bearish trend were to continue, the high appetite for trade-in altcoins would definitely be rooted.

However, while the market can predict a surge across the following altcoins; Dogecoin, VeChain, Icon, Cardano, 0x and Cosmos; not all altcoins will pump. This is also according to a tweet from Binance CEO, an opinion backed by other industry followers such as Jason Calacanis-an investor in Robinhood and Uber. Who, however, claims that at least 99 percent of altcoin projects have no merit.

Meanwhile, according to CoinmarketCap the cryptocurrency market capitalization stands at $271.3 billion.

Bitcoin Receives Boost in Asia as Binance Enables Strategic Investment in TokoCrypto

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The cryptocurrency landscape in Indonesia received a massive boost from the largest exchange in the space, as according to reports, Binance facilitated an undisclosed investment in Tokocrypto, an Indonesian digital asset exchange, which is also the first regulated exchange in the country.

The announcement was made live on Binance’s blog, which stated,

“Binance, the global blockchain company behind the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and users, today announced its investment in Tokocrypto, the leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange in Indonesia.”

Additionally, it was mentioned that that Indonesian exchange will be utilizing the fresh influx of cash in order to accelerate the growth of the exchange’s business, and development of new products and services. Innovations will also be carried out in areas which include nationwide expansion and imparting blockchain education in different regions.

In an interview with The Business Times, Pang Xue Kai, Co-Founder and CEO of Tokocrypto, stated that that partnership is extremely crucial and it would allow the exchanges to set up offices in different parts of the country. The focus remains on developing crypto trading within the nation first before targeting other markets.

Mr.Kai indicated that the exchange will have a major role to play in terms of expanding the use of Bitcoin and other cryptos in the Indonesian market and the strategic investment from Binance will assist them in sticking with the long-term plans. Tokocrypto’s average daily transaction volume currently stands at about US$700,000, which is relatively decent for an exchange in Indonesia.

After the announcement, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said,

“Our investment in Tokocrypto will allow us to explore exciting new opportunities together for the Indonesian market with a regulated local partner to further enable the freedom of money.”

Southeast Asia becoming active in the cryptocurrency ecosystem

The above collaboration between Binance and Tokocrypto could reap huge rewards for the Indonesian market but they were not the only Asian country to inject a sense of urgency.

According to recent reports, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance is confident to set up regulations for digital currencies and assets. According to reliable sources,  the ministry is ready to set up a nine-member group that will reportedly be led by Pham Hong Son, Vice Chairman of the State Securities Commission (SSC).

Other members are from the State Securities Commission, General Department of Taxation, State Bank of Vietnam’s Department of Banking and Financial Institutions and Legal Department, Vietnam Customs and National Institute for Vietnam Finance.

According to the market research analytic platform, CrytoCompare, about 80 percent of Bitcoin transactions were found to originate from Asia, mainly from China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Vietnam, back in November 2017.

Although the developments have been steady in the Asian subcontinents, it is imperative to keep an eye on the Asian market over the next few years as the likes of Bitcoin and other assets receive more recognition.