Binance Seeks Investments From Sovereign Wealth Funds

The cryptocurrency exchange’s global entity is looking to ameliorate its relationships with governments.

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BINANCE is in preliminary discussions with “several” sovereign wealth funds about investing in its global entity, CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said in a Nov. 23 interview with the Financial Times, declining to name any specific funds.

• Zhao hopes that Binance’s “perception and relationships” with regulators around the world would improve if sovereign wealth funds took a stake in the company, according to the report. “But it may also tie us to specific countries[,] … which we want to be slightly careful with,” Zhao said.
• Binance has been under the regulatory microscope in jurisdictions ranging from Japan to Singapore.
• Binance’s U.S. entity will be closing pre-initial public offering funding of “a couple hundred million” in the next one to two months, the CEO said last week.
• The exchange is also looking to set up global headquarters, a 360-degree turn from its decentralized operations model.■

[Author: Eliza GRITSI / CoinDesk]