Binance: CZ Zhao wants to buy a bank?

According to a Bloomberg report, the CEO of the exchange Binance, CZ Zhao, would like to spend $1 billion in a major deal to buy a bank.

The aim would be to make Binance a bridge between traditional and crypto finance, also to facilitate exchanges for users. This is what CZ said during the Web Summit event being held these days in Lisbon (of which The Cryptonomist is a media partner).

Bloomberg, quoting what was said during the Binance CEO’s speech, reported:

“There are people who hold certain types of local licenses, traditional banking, payment-service providers, even banks. We’re looking at those things.”

Zhao also noted that investing in banks is a smart strategy for Binance because when the cryptocurrency exchange partners with a bank, Binance often ends up bringing many new users to it, increasing the bank’s valuation.

Binance’s acquisitions: will a bank be next?

Last month Zhao stated that Binance has more than $1 billion to invest in new acquisitions, and recently pledged $500 million to help Elon Musk buy Twitter for a total of as much as $44 billion. 

So far in 2022, Binance has made several acquisitions in publishing, decentralized finance (DeFi), and even NFTs, so who knows if the rest of the money on hand will be invested just in acquiring a bank.

The latest news at Binance

Recently, Binance Pay, the payments platform created by Binance, had partnered with Crypto Air Tickets to have users pay directly in Binance Coin (BNB) for airline ticket purchases.

This was actually already possible through Travala, a travel platform similar to Booking.com but using crypto payments, with Binance as one of its investors.

Binance at Web Summit

On stage also in Lisbon, Binance’s CEO also spoke yesterday about the future of Bitcoin and crypto in terms of regulation.

The regulation of cryptocurrencies is a topic that has always been close to Binance’s heart, and it is working to open offices around the world and seek authorizations in the countries where it operates.

With this in mind, it was thanks to Binance’s mediation with countries such as France, Spain, Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi that it was possible to start the path that led these countries through their respective regulators to be important crypto trading venues.

The CEO of Binance described the regulators of the countries described above as “smart” in that they were able to cooperate and let new resources such as crypto flow into their economies.