Binance CEO Believes Industry Is “Healthier” Following Market Turmoil
- Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the world’s biggest crypto exchange platform Binance, stated that the crypto market is in a “healthier position” as the end of the “nasty” year of 2022 nears.
- During a Binance event in Athens, CZ displayed expectation for better things for the upcoming year and stated that he expects a recovery soon as the “industry is healthier.”
- The exchange also released its proof-of-reserves system, starting with Bitcoin to show the health and solvency of the exchange.
- Kraken CEO and co-founder Jesse Powell, have slammed Binance’s proof-of-reserve as “pointless” because exchange does not account for liabilities.
While the crypto community is worried about the future of the crypto market, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the world’s biggest crypto exchange platform, Binance, believes that the industry is in a “healthier position” as the “nasty” year of 2022 is about to end.
During a Binance event in Athens, CZ displayed expectation for better things in the upcoming year by stating:
“I would expect recovery. So, I think 2022 was a really nasty year, the last six months were like too much has happened. Now the industry is healthier.”
Though Zhao avoided any predictions, he suggested investors to closely monitor the industry and support the trending events.
Notably, soon after the collapse of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, Binance CEO established a recovery fund for struggling cryptocurrency businesses, and he was outspoken in his criticism of his former rival.
“FTX is more like Madoff. It’s lying, it’s ponzi. Just because FTX happened, doesn’t mean every other business is bad.”
Binance releases its proof-of-reserves system
Zhao’s recent statements coincide with Binance’s release of its proof-of-reserves system, starting with Bitcoin. The primary reason for this latest release was to show the health and solvency of the exchange. Binance has provided a snapshot of account balances and its Bitcoin reserves, claiming to have 582,485 BTC in its reserves and a net balance of 575,742 BTC for its users.
Displaying a margin of 6,743 Bitcoin units, Binance provided a link for its users to verify their own Bitcoin (BTC) holdings on the exchange platform using a Merkle tree.
Zhao claims that his exchange is in a solid position and aims to expand the market rather than focusing on making money.
“We have enough revenue today. We do not try to maximize profits. We want to be sustainable.”
Kraken CEO Disapproves
The failure of FTX highlighted the value of proof-of-reserves in preventing situations involving the loss of users’ money. Despite the fact that exchanges have proactively begun disclosing wallet addresses to demonstrate the presence of users’ assets, many business leaders, like Kraken CEO and co-founder Jesse Powell, have slammed the move as “pointless” because exchanges do not account for liabilities.
Powell claims that in order for a proof-of-reserve audit to be complete, it must include the sum of client liabilities, user-verifiable cryptographic proof that each account was included in the total, and signatures showing the custodian’s ownership over the wallets.
Powell voiced his disapproval about the recent proof-of-reserves release by Binance, saying that the system did not take accounts with negative balances into account. He stated:
“The whole point of this is to understand whether an exchange has more crypto in its custody than it owes to clients. Putting a hash on a row ID is worthless without everything else.”
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
