The rumours surrounding the Biannace acquisition of one of the most-referenced crypto data websites, Coinmarketcap, has now been confirmed for an undisclosed fee — rumours suggested it could have been as much as $400 million.

The acquisition makes it one of the biggest mergers seen in the cryptocurrency space as Binance is a world leader in regards to cryptocurrency exchanges while Coinmarketcap is unparalleled in its information offering.

However, the acquisition immediately calls into question issues regarding a conflict of interest as Coinmarketcap is meant to provide unbiased and true data and information about the cryptocurrency space. Having been acquired by Binance could allow the parent company to skew data to its needs.

These concerns have been quelled by Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance, who has explained that while the companies will work closely together, they will also remain a good degree of separation to maintain the data site’s independence and neutrality.

No bearing on the rankings

One of the most important roles that Coinmakretcpa fills for the community is its ranking system of coins based on — predominantly — their market capitalization. Binance, as an exchange, has different operations and allegiances with different cryptocurrencies, but this will not affect the rankings.

Zhao stressed that the acquisition will not change CMC’s independence from external stakeholders:

“Binance has no bearing on CoinMarketCap rankings. CoinMarketCap stays committed to providing the most accurate, timely and quality cryptocurrency data in the industry while benefiting from Binance’s expertise, resources and scale.”

There will however be a reshuffle at CEO with Brandon Chez, CMC’s founder, will be stepping down as CEO and will be replaced by CoinMarketCap’s current chief strategy officer, Carylyne Chan, as interim CEO.

No other changes on the cards

As part of the deal, Chan explained the site would keep to its own listing methodology. The interim CEO told Cointelegraph that the firm is not planning any sufficient listing changes anytime soon:

“We’ll stick to our listing requirements and make sure that everything is fair and unbiased to anyone who wants to list anything on CoinMarketCap. So that will be our firm commitment that […] will not change following the acquisition.”