- Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, was one of Musk’s financial backers in his multi-billion acquisition of Twitter, contributing a staggering US$500 million.
- According to a Reuters report, Binance plans to create a dedicated team to work on potential crypto and blockchain-based solutions for Twitter and the new team will explore how to build on-chain solutions to address issues such as spam bot accounts.
After lengthy discussions and drama between the two sides, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, officially acquired Twitter last week for the original bid of US$44 billion, but behind that bid were some of the most prolific users of the social media platform – crypto bros.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, was one of Musk’s financial backers in his multi-billion acquisition of Twitter, contributing a staggering US$500 million.
In a recent interview, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao explained the reasoning behind the exchange’s US$500 million co-investment into Elon Musk’s Twitter, citing monetization potential, crypto community free speech and the opportunity to eventually “help bring Twitter into Web3.”
Zhao argued that Twitter will become a much better platform and grant crypto “a seat at the table when it comes to free speech.”
In a CNBC Squawk Box segment that was aired on October 31, Zhao noted,
“I believe Twitter has not been monetized well, it has not grown well, there are many tactical problems like bots that spam my comments, there are scammer accounts on there.”
Zhao added that while Twitter has numerous issues, the platform has “huge value in itself,” and with Musk on top of it, “we’re very confident.”
According to a Reuters report, Binance plans to create a dedicated team to work on potential crypto and blockchain-based solutions for Twitter and the new team will explore how to build on-chain solutions to address issues such as spam bot accounts.
Binance’s US$500 million investment into Twitter makes the crypto exchange the fourth-largest shareholder in the social media platform among 19 investors, including Sequoia Capital Fund, Fidelity Management and Research Company.
Since the early days of cryptocurrencies, Twitter has been the main social media platform for a smorgasbord of crypto operators, from now infamous personalities like Luna’s Do Kwon and Three Arrows Capital’s Zhu Su, to venture capital personalities like Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz and Pantera’s Dan Morehead.
“Lesser” Twitter personalities have used the platform to shill tokens that ultimately collapsed in value, or promote outright scams, something which Musk’s move to charge US$8 a month for Twitter users to become so-called “blue tick” verified users, might help to reduce.
Twitter could also benefit from not just the decentralization of the social media platform, for instance NFTs could be used to verify identity and prevent spam and scam bots, free speech is also very much in sync with the decentralized ethos.
