Binance announced yesterday that it has just completed its sixteenth quarterly BNB token burn, removing 1,296,728 BNB tokens (or $393,673,653.52 at the time of the announcement) from circulation.
If that’s an eye-watering sum, it’s worth bearing in mind that this is actually Binance’s second-biggest token burn in its four-year history. The largest burn came this April when the exchange destroyed almost $600 billion worth of BNB.
At the time, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao remarked on Twitter, “Imagine burning half a billion dollars, wait, don’t imagine. It’s real.”
Why does the world's largest exchange buy back so much cash every quarter only to destroy it? For the same reason state central banks buy back their own currency in times of need and remove it from circulation. By burning cryptocurrency, Binance reduces the liquid supply, thereby increasing the scarcity of BNB tokens adding upward price pressure to the token’s value in a process that, in theory, benefits BNB holders and the exchange alike.
In its original whitepaper for the BNB token, Binance pledged that it would burn 20% of its quarterly profits. This year, the exchange surreptitiously removed that figure from their whitepaper, arguing that it was following legal advice, but that “the same amount will be destroyed ultimately.”
In summary: 1,296,728 #BNB (390,855,150 USD) burned by @Binance.
The remaining 16m BNB unlocked, and moved to a team address, according to the schedule in the white paper.#Binance team has never used or sold a single team #BNB thus far, only burned them.
Working backward from a figure of $400 million, if Binance still burns a fifth of its quarterly profits, that would mean the exchange made $2 billion since April’s record-setting burn.
Binance’s regulatory woes
There’s currently a global crackdown on crypto globally and authorities have fixed Binance firmly in their regulatory crosshairs.
In the last month alone, the exchange was subject to stiff scrutiny from regulators in Britain and Europe. In late June, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority banned Binance Markets from undertaking any regulated activity in the UK and issued a consumer warning, listing concerns over Binance’s anti-money laundering standards.
A week later, British bank Barclays blocked customers from sending money to Binance, telling customers that the ban was intended “to keep your money safe.”
What happened to Catherine Coley?
The whereabouts of the 30-something former CEO of Binance US is a mystery gripping the crypto world.
Until April of this year, Coley was active on social media and a fixture on the crypto social circuit. She was popular with others in the industry—"call me Coley," she would tell those who first met her—and always quick to respond to event invitations and questions from members of the media.
That all changed when she was abruptly replaced at Binance US in April....
Last Monday, London-based European payments processor Clear Junction also stopped processing transactions with Binance, citing compliance with the FCA’s new regulations.
CZ ultimately believes that compliance is a necessary step on the road to mass adoption. On July 7, he tweeted, “I believe a well-developed legal and regulatory framework in the long term will be a solid foundation that truly makes crypto essential in everyone’s daily life.”
“I believe a well-developed legal and regulatory framework in the long term will be a solid foundation that truly makes crypto essential in everyone’s daily life.”
Hamak Gold, an early-stage mineral exploration company focused on discovering orogenic and greenstone-hosted gold deposits in Liberia, West Africa, is shifting part of its treasury into Bitcoin.
Listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2022, the company announced Thursday that it had raised £2.47 million through a share placement, though it did not specify when the funds were secured.
The "injection of new capital" makes Hamak Gold "well-positioned to pursue two core objectives in parallel,”...
Who doesn't want its own stablecoin these days? Well, don't count out the Russian war machine.
Crypto is once again finding use cases in Russia, as state-owned weapons manufacturer Rostec now plans to launch its own stablecoin, dubbed RUBx, Russian state media reports. The digital token will be backed by rubles and available on Tron.
News agency TASS first reported the news, quoting Alexander Nazarov, Rostec's deputy general director, who claimed that the token will be backed one-to-one by ruble...
Here’s some ammo for decentralization advocates: Hackers stole approximately R$800 million ($140 million) from Brazilian banks after paying a technology company employee just R$15,000 ($2,760) for his corporate credentials, according to law enforcement officials investigating what they describe as the largest digital heist in the country's history.
The attack targeted C&M Software, a São Paulo-based company that connects smaller banks and fintechs to Brazil's Central Bank infrastructure, includi...
