What the founder of Binance said in Athens
“I expect a broad recovery of the industry,” Zhao said at the packed event organized by the Binance exchange in Athens at the Divani Caravel Hotel. “Well I think 2022 was a really bad year, the last six months it was like too much happened. Now the industry is healthier,” he added.
Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ”, the co-founder and CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is undoubtedly the person who “represents” the cryptocurrency market globally and is ranked among the richest people in the world with a net worth of the. $33 billion
He said he met with ministers and officials, but the names were not released. However, the next day he met with the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, with whom he also published a photo. It is unknown whether Edi Rama visited Greece or Zhao visited him.
The event received strong criticism from representatives of the Greek cryptocurrency and blockchain industry regarding the guest speakers. Many are wondering if there are better options for such an important event and with Zhao’s visit potentially having key decisions on the exchange’s investments in Greece and possible job creation.
Changpeng Zhao sees the cryptocurrency industry in a better position after a difficult 2022. “Just because the FTX crash happened doesn’t mean all other businesses are correspondingly bad,” he emphasized. Zhao also said that the industry is now in a “healthier” position after a “bad” 2022 and expects offers for cryptocurrency markets in 2023.
The CEO, strongly criticized the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
“FTX is more like Madoff. They lied, it was a ponzi,” Zhao said.
Binance also launched a proof-of-reserve system, starting with the bitcoins deposited on the exchange, in order to prove that the exchange is healthy and solvent. The exchange holds 582,485 bitcoins in its reserves, while it has 575,742 bitcoins to users, giving it a margin of 6,743 bitcoins. At the same time it enables each user to verify where their own bitcoins are kept.
Zhao said that Binance is in a stable position and is focused on market development rather than making money.
“We have enough today,” he said. “We’re not trying to maximize profits. We want to be sustainable,” he added.
One of Zhao’s comments was that the valuations of cryptocurrency market startups a year ago were astronomical and have since returned to reasonable levels.
The Binance exchange is now undoubtedly at the center of legislation around the world, as it could prove to be a systematic place to lure cryptocurrency markets and wipe out investors’ funds with any possible operational failure or failure.
Last week there was a lot of concern about the cryptocurrency as the initial deposit of 1 billion BUSD for the recovery fund that the exchange had announced came from the same assets of Binance.
Analysis of on-chain transactions showed that the funds came from one of the exchange’s cold wallets, which raised concerns in the community about whether the exchange can use customer funds.
When asked if Binance was holding its own funds along with the naysayers’ deposits, a representative did not comment. This wallet was also recently listed on Binance’s proof of funds, which shows all the hot and cold wallets the exchange has as part of a transparency effort on cryptocurrency exchange reserves following the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Some in the crypto community had raised concerns that Binance could use client capital, as the wallet is listed as part of the proof of funds. Binance’s original blog post does not specify the purposes of each wallet and all wallets are presented to hold customer funds.
One of the reasonable concerns is whether the company Binance holds its own funds in wallets along with customer deposits. Despite the backlash, Binance isn’t about to add another $1B. in the recovery capital, effectively increasing the size of the fund to over $2 billion. The recovery fund used to buy struggling cryptocurrency companies and support the industry.