At a time when most companies across different sectors are dealing with layoffs and other cost-cutting measures triggered by the pandemic, this leading crypto firm had plans of its own.
Binance, which is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange, announced the acquisition of CoinMarketCap. Shortly after the news of the acquisition broke, Bobby Ong, the Co-founder of another data provider CoinGecko, tweeted,
“We will continue upholding data integrity in the crypto space. We are now the largest independent crypto data aggregator and will do our best to ensure things are tracked in a transparent and neutral manner.”
This came as a surprise as the community began speculating a one-sided deal. Questions were also raised on the acquisition amount which was reported to be $400 million.
However, quashing these debates, CMC CEO, Carylyne Chan in a recent interview said that COVID-19 crisis did not affect this long-term negotiation or the final price of the deal.
“CoinMarketCap and Binance are both very focused on the long-term when it comes to major decisions, so the deal was definitely centered around the shared vision to make crypto more accessible for everyone around the world. It wasn’t affected at all by the current coronavirus crisis”
The community also debated on potential conflict of interest and data accuracy as well as preferential treatment. Responding to these allegations, the exec went on to say that,
“CoinMarketCap will continue to be run independently, as an independent entity, from Binance. We will make decisions that will be in the best interests of CoinMarketCap [CMC], and we will continue to develop products and services that benefit CoinMarketCap users.”
Along the same line, the CEO of the crypto exchange, CZ also noted,
“.. so CoinMarketCap will continue to maintain neutrality and independence and any other exchange who wants to continue to working with them, will continue to work with CMC.”
Meanwhile, the CMC exec, Chan stated that there will be “zero preferential treatment”, and that the CMC team will enforce this policy to ensure that its users can continue to trust the platform and the data quality that it has been known for regardless.
While Binance enjoys its fair share of support from the community, CMC also happens to be one of the oldest data aggregators for cryptocurrencies that witnesses over 37.1 million in monthly visits according to SimilarWeb’s data. With this, the CZ-led exchange could potentially be eyeing to capitalize on the mass audience generated by CMC.
It is a big deal to be listed on the CMC website. During the 2017 boom, many scam projects got listed on the site and were able to attract enough investors and before anyone got the hint, made an ideal exit. Due to these flashpoints, CMC has faced significant flak for apparently turning a blind eye to scams engaged by a few smaller exchanges to amplify the trading volumes. But it’s no secret that retail investors continue to religiously rely on the data curated by the coin ranking site and Binance is here to benefit from the traffic.
