Binance’s CZ on crypto acquisitions: ‘We have a lot of dry powder’

• Binance has appointed co-founder Yi He as Head of Binance Labs to spearhead company’s investments, including an aggressive approach towards getting acquisitions over the line.
• But Binance will only acquire or give money to struggling crypto companies that have good products and are well-managed.
• To that effect, Binance has ‘more dry powder’ than any of the competitors in the crypto industry.

Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao says his crypto company is well capitalised and ready to go on an acquisition spree if it helps the market, confirming to Yahoo Finance Live in a Wednesday interview that Binance has “a lot of dry powder” to that end.

CZ also commented on the broader crypto regulation landscape, Binance.US’ delisting of the Amp (AMP) token and recent hacks – his remarks coming after this week’s exploits on Nomad bridge and Layer blockchain Solana.

Binance is eyeing acquisitions

With several crypto companies coming under distress in the past few months amid the crypto winter, one of the firms to take an aggressive approach towards acquisitions has been FTX – the crypto firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried’s FTX and Alameda have put a combined $1 billion+ into deals, including with potential acquisition for crypto lender BlockFi. The crypto billionaire’s empire even has a proposal to take up assets of embattled Voyager Digital.

So, does Changpeng Zhao’s Binance have a similar outlook even as the crypto industry navigates the bear market? 

According to the Binance chief, that’s exactly what they are ready to do. He told Yahoo Finance Live:

“We have a lot of dry powder…we have more dry powder than almost anyone else we know in the space. So we do want to use that to do acquisitions.”

So, Binance has a lot of cash or other such other highly liquid funds sources to put into investments as the market pushes through the ‘winter’.

However, CZ was quick to mention that most of the troubled crypto companies in the industry today “are not well-managed”, noting that this is why Binance is unlikely to seek to acquire them. But if these are “well-managed, with good products, but just short of cash,” then Binance will be ready to acquire them.

To the effect that his firm is working on acquisitions in the industry, Zhao pointed to the appointment of Binance co-founder Yi He at Binance Labs, the company’s venture capital arm currently managing over $7.5 billion in assets.

Yi will help Binance aggressively pursue several investments in the short term, Zhao explained.