He has been blamed for sparking FTX’s collapse. Now CZ wants to save crypto

Zhao said Binance US is planning to revive its bid for the assets of Voyager, a deal which came back into focus after FTX filed itself for bankruptcy. Binance will be competing with crypto exchange CrossTower and other companies for Voyager.

Binance is also in talks with Genesis Global, the US-based cryptocurrency broker which is seeking emergency funding to stay afloat, Zhao said. The troubled brokerage has $US2.8 billion in outstanding loans on its balance sheet, with about 30 per cent of its lending made to related parties including its parent company, Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group.

Zhao said a Genesis collapse might only impact some large institutional players and sought to downplay the potential damage to the industry as a whole.

“There will be pain whenever one player goes down,” he said.

Dubai, Paris ‘hubs’

The crypto billionaire, who moved to Dubai last year, has been expanding his company’s presence in Europe and the Middle East. “Today we have the largest offices in Dubai and Paris so you can view those two as global hubs,” Zhao said, declining to disclose where the company was headquartered.

With FTX now in bankruptcy, Zhao’s interactions with his former competitor is coming full circle. Binance initially agreed to buy FTX as it started crumbling, then pulled out after Zhao realised what a precarious state Bankman-Fried’s exchange was in.

Loading

Binance did not have access to all of FTX’s books or trading history and could not trust the information it provided, Zhao said in the interview. The exchange is now planning to look at FTX’s assets as they come through bankruptcy proceedings, he said.

“They invested in a number of different projects, some of them are OK, some of them are bad but I think there are certain assets that are salvageable,” Zhao said.

Bloomberg

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.