despite being The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, however, Binance is struggling to hold on to assets. In the wake of the collapse of rival exchange FTX, investors have been withdrawing their cryptocurrencies in recent weeks.
Despite CEO Changping Zhao’s assertion that the situation has stabilized, outflows are accelerating, with customers withdrawing a net $360 million last Friday, according to data from crypto-data firm Defillama.
On December 13, Nansen, a separate crypto data firm, revealed that Binance had lost $3 billion in assets over the previous week, which represented 4% of the company’s total assets at the time.
A Forbes investigation revealed that Binance has lost 15% of its assets since Zhao posted a tweet on Twitter the same day, downplaying the withdrawals in the Nansen report.
In less than two months, the departures expanded, reaching regarding a quarter of the company’s assets, and Forbes estimated them at $12 billion, according to what Al Arabiya.net reviewed.
Investors’ distrust is more evident in the performance of “Binance Coin”, which is known as (BNB) and Binance USD (BUSD), which are the two symbols that bear the name of the exchange.
BNB has lost regarding 29% of its value in the past two months.
Forbes estimates that the cryptocurrency giant holds regarding 29 million of its coins in Binance, 51% less than what the exchange disclosed on November 10.
While net assets have fallen by 24% since November, investors in well-known tokens such as matic, ape and gala have reduced their assets on the exchange by 40-50%.
Although it remains the largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, Binance has not been hurt by the nearly year-old decline in digital assets.
Its BNB token is down nearly 37% in the 12-month period, according to Nomics, and the exchange’s decision to stop charging fees for spot bitcoin trading saw the company lose regarding $3 billion annually in lost revenue, according to Forbes estimates.
The total value of cryptocurrencies showed an even bigger drop, dropping 56% over the past year, to $848.7 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Zhao himself contributed to FTX’s demise in November when he announced on Twitter that he was planning to sell his holdings of rival FTX tokens, valued at around $580 million, citing “recent discoveries that have come to light.”
He followed that up with a bailout offer that was quickly rescinded, claiming that “FTX’s problems are beyond our control or ability to help”, meaning that an initial look at the company’s books showed a more dire position than previously thought.