On Monday, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, announced that the company had decided to convert $1 billion worth of BUSD from the Industry Recovery Initiative fund into three different cryptocurrencies. Zhao noted that significant onchain movements would be noticeable following the announcement.
CZ’s Decision to Convert $1 Billion BUSD Comes Amidst Troubles for Stablecoins
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) announced on Monday that the company had converted $1 billion BUSD into bitcoin (BTC), BNB, and ethereum (ETH). “Given changes in stablecoins and banks, Binance will convert the remaining $1 billion from the Industry Recovery Initiative funds from BUSD to native crypto, including BTC, BNB, and ETH. Some fund movements will occur onchain. Transparency,” Zhao said.
After tweeting the announcement, CZ shared an address for the Industry Recovery Initiative and a transaction explorer link for the transfer that the exchange handled. One person replied to CZ’s Twitter thread and said: “People who are a bit unnerved by recent stablecoin developments will feel much more reassured.” The Binance CEO responded that he “didn’t even think about it that way. I was just discussing how to keep the funds in a safe asset. But that works too.”
At the time of writing, Binance holds 7.56 billion BUSD stablecoins, according to Nansen’s exchange portfolio tool. CZ’s announcement comes as USDC had troubles this weekend holding parity with the US dollar after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Furthermore, US regulators forced Paxos to stop issuing BUSD, and billions of BUSD tokens have been removed from circulation since.
While BUSD has faced regulatory scrutiny, the stablecoin managed to stay within the $0.99 to $1 range most of the time. On March 11, 2023, BUSD slightly dipped to the $0.9848 range for a short period of time, but remained stronger than five other stablecoins that deviated from $1 parity over the past weekend.
What are your thoughts on Binance’s decision to convert $1 billion BUSD into bitcoin, bnb, and ethereum? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
