Binance may buy FTX assets

Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and CEO, shared in a Bloomberg interview firm’s plans for the crypto industry recovery, a bid for Voyager, and he also unruled the possibility of acquiring FTX assets.

СZ shared his views with a Bloomberg reporter on whether contagion in the market will keep pace following the collapse of a big institutional player, FTX. In his opening speech, Binance’s CEO mentioned Genesis, which suspended users’ withdrawals on Nov 16., following the official statement of $175M material exposure to FTX. While it’s unclear if more firms are to fall out, CZ assures that the contagion has a cascading nature, i.e., “each time the effect becomes smaller.”

Changpeng Zhao also shared some details on the industry recovery plan proposed on Twitter last week. According to the program, the VC arm Binance Labs will assist crypto companies suffering from liquidity crises by welcoming other crypto investors to contribute. The recovery plan will be transparent on the blockchain with a starting point of $1B. Further details are to come via the Binance blog.

“Roughly, we’re thinking of setting up $1 billion first, and if that’s not enough we’ll allocate more. If after six months there’s unused funds and there’s not that many projects–hopefully the industry will have recovered by then–we can withdraw it back.”

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The Bloomberg reporter asked if Binance wishes to absorb all the insolvent companies to become an empire. CZ stated that Binance aims to bring more scrutiny and transparency to the space, citing that if Binance started to ask more questions about the FTX transparency’s nature, it might have stopped it earlier, before it got too big. He’s adding that Binance will consider acquiring FTX assets when they come to liquidation core, considering those which may be saved, as not all the FTX investments are viewed as worth saving.

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CZ also confirmed Binance plans to bid for bankrupt Voyager, which was previously interested in negotiating with FTX. Blaming FTX for rumors of security problems at Binance US, the CEO said Binance plans to “make another offer to Voyager because FTX is no longer able to fulfill its obligations.”

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