Crypto Exchange Binance Expects up to $1 Billion Profit in 2018

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance expects a net profit of up to $1 billion USD this year. The trading platform has already registered about $300 million of revenue in the first half of 2018 and a five-fold increase in the number of users. The data demonstrates a serious growth for Binance which is taking steps to expand globally.

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Binance CEO Claims 10 million Users

In a year with significant losses incurred by investors, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, has already made some $300 million dollars of revenue. Moreover, according to CEO Changpeng Zhao, the trading platform expects to accumulate a net profit of $500 million to $1 billion USD for the whole 2018.

The average daily turnover at Binance, which was launched about a year ago, is around $1.5 billion, its founder and chief executive revealed. Quoted by Bloomberg, Changpeng Zhao also said that his platform now has 10 million users. Their number has increased from 2 million at the beginning of 2018, as announced earlier.

The data shows that Binance has experienced serious growth since it started operations in July last year, after conducting an Initial Coin Offering that attracted $15 million worth of capital. Trading on the platform peaked along with the prices of cryptocurrencies towards the end of 2017, when the exchange was registering up to $11 billion of trades daily.

Global Expansion in Search for a Better Home

Binance was founded in China but left the country before the ban on crypto trading imposed by the Beijing authorities went into effect in September last year. The exchange moved its headquarters to Japan and earlier this year it opened an office in Taiwan as well.

In March, Japan’s Financial Services Authority issued a warning and asked the exchange to shut down its operations in the country. It was reported that the company has been threatened with criminal charges for operating without a license. After regulatory pressures against it increased in both Japan and Hong Kong, where it also operated, the trading platform decided to relocate to Malta.

In Malta, Binance intends to set up a fiat-crypto exchange and start supporting fiat deposits and withdrawals, adding EUR and GBP trading pairs. The island nation, an EU member-state, has established itself as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction, along with Gibraltar and Switzerland. The parliament in Valletta adopted new legislation designed to introduce clear regulations for the country’s growing crypto industry.

Maltese authorities welcomed the arrival of Binance, which is not the only crypto exchange attracted by the favorable business climate the government is trying to create for crypto businesses. Another platform with Chinese roots, Okex, announced in April it is setting foot in the country, and the Polish Bitbay revealed its plans to move to the island in May.

This month, Binance announced it is launching a fiat-crypto trading platform in Uganda. Earlier this year, the largest crypto exchange agreed to a partnership with the government of Bermuda, where it plans to establish a global compliance center and invest in local blockchain companies and projects.

What do you make of the financial data released by the Binance CEO? Tell us in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Changpeng Zhao (Twitter).

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