Binance announced on Thursday that it has acquired leading crypto data website CoinMarketCap. The acquisition amount stays undisclosed, though the media reports suggest that it could be around a whopping $400 million. Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, had informed yesterday that the two giants in their own rights had joined hands.
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1245701653786816513?s=20
In a live video session on Twitter early morning on Friday, CZ yet again confirmed that Binance had acquired CMC, and the transaction is already done. Speaking about the reason behind the acquisition, he said,
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“In my mind, CoinMarketCap is a super valuable platform. I think it is probably the most valuable platform out there because it has the highest number of visits, so it is the most visited website in our industry. And the acquisition from our perspective is not to acquire CoinMarketCap so that we direct all the traffic to Binance.com. I think that would destroy lot of value because not everyone who want to use CoinMarketCap, including myself, serve or have the same product.”
He further said that CMC would continue to work independently, and the only reason to acquire it was to make the platform even bigger, he added, by about ten times or 100 times in the coming years. CZ further that his philosophy behind buying products or businesses is that each of them “needs to be able to compete on its own.” He ensured the users that Binance.com would not give any preferential treatment to CMS, or CMC wouldn’t treat Binance.com any different, though there will be a fairly conducted business relationship between the two units.
As per the official blog on their website, Binance stated that CMC’s current CEO Brandon Chez is stepping down to focus on his family. Speaking on the acquisition, CMC’s interim CEO Carylyne Chan said,
“Ever since our humble beginnings in 2013, we have been public about our commitment to remaining neutral by avoiding censorship and judgment of projects or exchanges that we list, preferring to let users make their own decisions based on the data. We are delighted that the Binance team has been unequivocal in ensuring that we can continue to adhere to our methodology without prejudice.”
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Binance recently launched its OTC trading platform and has resumed its aggressive expansion mode over the past week, after a slowdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
