Binance is one of the top crypto exchanges on the market today. Launching on the back of a successful ICO in 2017 that raised $15 million, the exchange has become a household name in crypto, having over 10 million user accounts.
In less than 2 years of operation, Binance has gotten the attention of crypto traders around the world through its low fees, throughput speed, coin availability, and transparency. The BNB was created for users of the exchange to further enjoy lower fees when trading. This has resulted in Binance being the number one exchange by trade volume for the most part of the last year.
Binance CEO, ‘CZ’ Zhao, is quite outspoken on Twitter, responding to matters that have to do with Binance and the crypto world. His outspokenness gives the community confidence of what he believes. He is very optimistic about crypto and recently said “the more people adopt crypto, the better”, with regards to JPM coin and the anticipated FB coin.
Binance began as a crypto-to-crypto exchange but it now includes a number of fiat to crypto exchanges such as Binance Uganda and Binance Jersey.
The Binance exchange is simple to use, as expressed in this guide of ‘How to use Binance Exchange’.
Binance witnessed a lot of developments in Q1 2019, some of which include the launch of Binance Jersey and Trust Wallet joining Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO).
Direct partnerships by Binance includes with IdentityMind, CertiK, and the government of Argentina.
Binance 2018 Partnership Overview
In one of the top acquisitions in the crypto world in 2018, Binance acquired Trust Wallet, a wallet app for storing cryptocurrencies. This move sets the tone for the upcoming Binance DEX, as the Trust Wallet will be the first mobile crypto wallet to support integration with the Binance DEX.
Binance invested in the airline payment startup, TravelbyBit. The company has since become a place BNB holders can spend their tokens. Many other companies have jumped on this wagon, accepting BNB tokens as a means of payment.
Late in December 2018, Moeda, a local-community impact investing startup, partnered with Binance enabling BNB contributions to its loan programs. The company, through its international investors, issues short-term crypto loans to small businesses in developing countries
Binance Q1 2019 Partnerships
IdentityMind
IdentityMind is a risk management and RegTech compliance platform with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) services. The purpose of the partnership is to improve data protection and compliance measures for Binance operations.
This partnership was announced on March 26, 2019, and it is aimed to create a new industry standard in regulatory compliance.
IdentityMind was founded in 2014 and is the creator of Trusted Digital Identities (TDIs). The company offers SaaS platform for online risk management and compliance automation.
Garrett Gafke, President and CEO of IdentityMind says:
“Our risk and compliance platform powered by a patented digital identities engine meet the scale demands of Binance’s global operations while providing a highly accurate system for assessing any global risk factors from outside entities for transactions. We are excited to provide the necessary tools that will allow them to continue growing and serving more users around the world in a secure and compliant manner”
IdentityMind is a portfolio company of Medici Ventures, which is a subsidiary of Overstock.com.
CertiK
CertiK announced a partnership with Binance in January to enhance the security of tokens listed on Binance. The relationship between the two companies began in 2018 when Binance Lab invested in CertiK. Binance will make use of CertiK patented Formal Verification Technology and security experts to audit smart contracts.
CertiK is a blockchain and smart contract verification platform founded by professors from Yale and Columbia. It tests for critical vulnerabilities in the source code of blockchains and smart contracts through mathematical theorems. This is to prevent hacking attacks and make users transact with confidence.
CEO of Binance Labs, Ella Zhang, says:
“We chose to partner with CertiK because we believe that security is paramount to give the ecosystem the confidence needed for greater adoption of blockchain technology. When token projects present us with an audit report verified by CertiK, we know that they take security as seriously as we do at Binance.”
Government of Argentina
The ministry of Production and Labour in Argentina as agreed to give a grant of up to $50,000 to every Argentine blockchain project that gets funded by Binance Labs. This will go on for about 4 years and will reach 3-10 blockchain projects per year.
Binance Labs (in collaboration with Founders Lab) is the only blockchain accelerator given an Accelerator License by the Argentine government. Binance has stated it will host a 10-week incubation program for blockchain startups in the Latin American region in Buenos Aires. The choice of the city is a result of the friendliness the crypto industry enjoys from the public and private stakeholders in the country.
CEO of Binance Labs, Ella Zhang says:
“Argentina is at the forefront of blockchain adoption and we’ve witnessed how it’s becoming home to some very passionate blockchain communities during our trip there. Our mission at Binance Labs is to realize the full potential of blockchain technologies. To that end, we are very excited to support blockchain projects, entrepreneurs and developers through our Buenos Aires chapter, to advise and mentor them, to find product-market fit, and provide them with in-time access to global blockchain technology development to solve local problems.”
Conclusion
Binance is fast becoming more than just a crypto exchange. It is growing into an all-purpose crypto company with its own blockchain, Launchpad and fiat-to-crypto exchanges all over the world.
The impact of this growth is seen on the BNB which has grown by almost 200% since January 2019.
