Prepare Your Crypto Startups as Binance is Shopping
Major crypto exchange Binance plans to do about three acquisitions every month, according to CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ).
Binance is "actively doing acquisition deals, especially in a lot of these new areas. My view is I’m not an expert in these areas, and it’s better for us to find strong teams that are already doing this well," he told Bloomberg.
And the future, per the CEO, holds quite a few of these deals as well. CZ said that,
"We plan to do somewhere between 20 and 30 acquisitions a year. Most are smaller acquisitions—we don’t announce them. Some will be bigger ones like CoinMarketCap, but we do plan to do about 30 acquisitions each year, which probably means about three deals every month now."
The CEO did not elaborate on potential acquisition targets.
As reported, responding to speculations in South Korean media that Binance might be among potential buyers of the Bithumb exchange, Binance said that they are "always open to considering strategic partnerships and investments at any given time."
Meanwhile, in their recent M&A report, major consultancy company PwC said they expect to see further consolidation in the industry with some of the larger, well-funded, or profitable firms continuing their M&A activities.
"We expect the focus to be not on the acquisition of smaller competitors but rather of firms that offer ancillary services to their current offering (e.g. crypto media, data, compliance, research)," they added.
On multiple occasions, Binance stressed that they're building "the infrastructure for the blockchain ecosystem." They control both custodian and non-custodian crypto exchanges, develop Binance Smart Chain, own a token launch platform, have their own investment arm, an incubator for blockchain projects, provide digital asset research services, have their own crypto wallet, operate a charity foundation, and recently introduced a crypto pay service.
As to whether Binance would eventually becoming a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), the CEO said "it’s possible, but it’s going to take a number of years."