From the rise of exchange tokens to the proliferation of initial exchange offerings (IEOs), in 2019, exchanges are one of the key centers of power in crypto markets.
Last week was full of exchange news. In the US, INX
announced their intention to raise up to $130 million in an SEC-compliant, regulated initial public offering. The project captured attention not only because people thought “IPO” must be a typo, but because of a list of backers that included some prominent bitcoiners.
In Asia, meanwhile, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten
launched a new exchange offering spot trading of BTC, ETH, and BCH. Plans for the project were first announced in March and the launch makes Rakuten one of the world’s biggest companies to have launched a crypto exchange.
Still, the biggest exchange related news last week came from none other than Binance, who
announced Venus, a sort of independent, regional, alternative to Facebook’s Libra. In short, the exchange intends to leverage the Binance blockchain to help governmental partners launch stablecoins pegged to local currencies.
Will Binance’s Venus project be able to outflank Facebook as it gets stuck in regulatory mire and the morass of coordinating partners? Or will it run into its own unique barriers and hurdles?
To discuss Venus, Binance, and exchanges as a whole, we’re thrilled to welcome the man in charge of Binance’s books, its chief financial officer, Wei Zhou.
