With Execs Leaving and Market Share Declining, Can Binance Survive?

The director of research at Forbes Crypto explains how Binance plans to tackle a spate of challenges in the wake of FTX’s collapse.

Sep 15, 2023

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ABOUT

In the wake of FTX’s collapse, Binance – already the biggest exchange in the world by a large margin – has continued to grow. But a series of challenges, including billions of dollars worth of customer outflows, the winding down of its stablecoin BUSD, and suits with the SEC and CFTC related to its U.S. operations have challenged its market dominance. Steven Ehrlich, director of research at Forbes Crypto, joins the show to discuss how Binance has been dealing with a deluge of bad news and how it plans to forge a path forward.

Show highlights:

How the collapse of FTX impacted Binance and its market dominance
How Binance has been losing market share over the past few months
Why Steven believes that Binance.US is in a "very tenuous situation?"
Whether Binance is feeling stronger now that the SEC experienced a partial loss in the Ripple case
The consequences of consumers losing trust in Binance
The speculation around the recently filed sealed motion filed by the SEC
Whether Binance is following in the footsteps of FTX
How Binance.US needs to recuperate some market volume to increase its revenue

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Guest |

Steven Ehrlich - Director of Research at Forbes Crypto.

Links |

WSJ:

Binance, the Biggest Player in Crypto, Is Facing Legal Risks Over Russia

More Binance Executives Leave, Including Some Overseeing Russia

How the Binance CEO Operates: Weigh the Risk, Calculate the Reward

What Is Happening With Binance?

Binance Lays Off Over 1,000 Employees

Some Binance.US Crypto Trading Was a Mirage, the SEC Alleges

Binance.US Legal, Risk Executives Leave the Crypto Exchange

Reuters:

Crypto exchange Binance hit by executive exodus

Paxos receives U.S. SEC notice over Binance's stablecoin 'BUSD'

Binance CEO's trading firm received $11 billion via client deposit company, SEC says

The Block:

Binance.US can't grow until CZ sells stake, fixes regulatory issues: sources

Binance to end support for BUSD, encourages conversion to FDUSD

Mastercard, Binance end crypto card partnership in four countries

Binance withdraws crypto license application in Germany

CoinDesk:

SEC's Secret Binance Court Filing Has Observers Bracing for Bad News

John Reed Stark’s post on X

CFTC:

CFTC Charges Binance and Its Founder, Changpeng Zhao, with Willful Evasion of Federal Law and Operating an Illegal Digital Asset Derivatives Exchange

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.

HOST

Laura Shin

Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze” (Public Affairs, 2022). Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had more than 15 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.