The cryptocurrency exchange Binance has seen a substantial outflow of assets — over the past two months it has lost around $12 billion. Forbes reports.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is struggling to hold onto assets.
Read more: https://t.co/RQU9Ee8M9Q pic.twitter.com/VSpBuzi7uJ
— Forbes (@Forbes) January 11, 2023
On 13 December 2022, Nansen analysts said that withdrawals of $3 billion from the exchange occurred over a seven-day period. At the time, that represented 4% of the total balance, the publication noted.
“Forbes’ investigation showed that Binance had actually lost 15% of its assets after the publication by [the exchange’s CEO Changpeng Zhao] Zhao on Twitter on the same day he downplayed withdrawals from the Nansen report,” the article states.
Journalists noted that since November, net assets on the platform have fallen by 24%, and investments in tokens MATIC, APE and GALA on the exchange have declined by 40–50%.
According to Forbes, investor confidence is best illustrated by the trajectory of Binance Coin (BNB) and Binance USD (BUSD). The former has fallen 29% since November, and, according to the publication, there are around 29 million BNB left on the exchange — 51% less than указывалось in the list of cryptocurrency reserves as of 10 November.
“Meanwhile, the number of BUSD stablecoins on the platform declined by 40% [from 4 November to 4 January],” the journalists noted.
The publication also drew attention to discrepancies in balance estimates across different analytics firms. It cited Binance’s reserves on 10 November, according to which the exchange held 58 million BNB (~$17 billion at the rate then).
As of 4 January, CoinMarketCap (CMC) valued the BNB held by the exchange at 57 million. The publication questioned the reliability of the token counts, citing figures from other analytics firms:
- Nansen — 22 million BNB;
- DefiLlama — 40 million BNB;
- Arkham — 24 million BNB.
Based on its own analysis of data from Etherscan, Forbes “identified 16 million BNB.” The journalists also pointed to discrepancies in Binance’s Bitcoin assets, ranging from $4.8 billion (CMC, data as of 4 January) to $9.6 billion (CER.LIVE).
“Thus, the number of held coins varied sharply from 287 000 BTC to 577 000 BTC. This is likely due to erroneous queries by some analytics firms that do not conduct searches across all Binance wallets. Yet astute observers may wonder how CER.LIVE determined Bitcoin assets totaling $9.6 billion in Binance wallets, more than twice the amount reported by Glassnode and CoinMarketCap,” the article states.
The publication concluded that the exchange is experiencing a “soft bank run” (bank-run), which could intensify.
Some members of the community criticised the piece. One user quipped:
“Dear Forbes, I thought to respond to your article with some facts and figures, but instead, I will respond with the number 4.”
Binance Is Bleeding Assets, $12 Billion Gone In Less Than 60 Days — Forbes
Dear @forbes, I thought of replying to your article with some facts and figures, but instead, I will reply with number 4. #Build #Adoption #BNB
In #Binance we trust.@cz_binance pic.twitter.com/OeauE7Rkwx
— Spidey_ElonFan (@spideycyp_155) January 10, 2023
Another commenter advised the publication to “conduct research before publishing nonsense.” CEO Binance Changpeng Zhao said he would ignore the article.
Think they may need an app to check the crypto market. 😂🤷♂️
Alright, will do 4, and ignore from here. https://t.co/GP67A5iThk
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) January 10, 2023
Earlier, WSJ-sourced experts stated troubling signals in Mazars’ report on Binance’s Bitcoin reserves.
In December, amid outflows from the platform, Zhao said the cryptocurrency exchange had sufficient liquidity to allow all clients to withdraw 100% of their assets if necessary.
Follow ForkLog’s Bitcoin news on our Telegram — news, prices and analysis.