CZ expects Binance to make profits of $800 million to $1 billion this year

CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, expects the exchange to make profits between $800 million and $1 billion this year. According to Zhao, Binance’s expected profits for this year are up from about $570 million – or almost double – of what it recorded last year. CZ revealed the figures to Bloomberg Businessweek after they named the Binance CEO in their 2020 Bloomberg 50 list. 

Binance launched in July 2017 as a crypto-to-crypto exchange and quickly pivoted to the world’s largest digital asset exchange by trading volume. During the recent rally, trading volume on Binance saw a significant surge. According to data from CoinMarketCap Binance had $25 billion in trading volume on 19 November alone. In terms of the overall exchange volume in BTC, Binance also performed relatively well during the rest of the year, seen in the image below: 

Glassnode reported that Bitcoin futures open interest on Binance hit an all-time high of $1.17 billion on 24 November. 

#Bitcoin futures open interest on #Binance hits an all-time high (~$1.17B)Chart: https://t.co/qktAwF39NV pic.twitter.com/1ohynfUiyf— glassnode (@glassnode) November 24, 2020

With regard to aggregated open interest, Binance’s BTC Futures trading platform crossed the $1 billion mark in November. The exchange has been offering futures trading from September 2019 onwards.

While the leading crypto exchange seems to be attracting more trading activity and seems to be growing in popularity, it is doing so without US users. Recently, Binance reportedly asked some of its users in the US to transfer their holdings out of the exchange, within 14 days, and that if they did not comply, their account would be locked. Reports even stated the exchange had notified these users in the US via an email.

It is important to note that Binance has no regulatory standing in the US. Last month, it was also reported that Binance was sending out emails to users who had US-associated IP addresses. However, the latest crackdown on US users came right after Forbes had recently reported that there were documents that proved Binance was trying to evade US regulators.