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Thus, the figure is problematic because for it to show a $9.39 billion average, the data from Binance itself would have to be several billion dollars below the Nansen and Defillama estimates. There was general agreement by four of the data providers (Nansen, Glassnode, Defillama and Arkham) in terms of how many BUSD tokens Binance held on its wallets as of January 4, approximately $13,468 million, which is an average of the four data firms.ĬoinMarketCap showed a balance of $9.58 billion BUSD on January 4, more than $3.5 billion lower than the $13.1 billion and $13.2 billion respectively published by Nansen and Defillama, the two outside firms that contribute to CMC’s BUSD tally. The number of BUSD tokens fell by $8,724 (40%) between November 4 and January 4. Even so, shrewd observers can well wonder how CER.LIVE has identified $9.6 billion of BTC assets in Binance wallets, more than twice the amount shown by Glassnode and CoinMarketCap. This is probably due to faulty queries on the part of some data companies, not searching all Binance wallets.
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The number of tokens held thus varied sharply from 287,000 BTC to 577,000 BTC. Bitcoinįorbes also found wild discrepancies in Binance’s bitcoin (BTC) holdings, ranging from $4.8 billion (CoinMarkeCap) to $9.6 billion (CER.LIVE). Messari, however, bundles the value of Binance holdings on three chains–BNB, ETH, and Tron–which suggests that the almost $10 billion in the BNB grouping comprises many other tokens, not just BNB. In terms of dollar equivalent, Glassnode places the value of BNB at zero, while Nansen and Arkham put that amount closer to $6 billion and Defillama and Messari see it near $10 billion. If the CMC BNB token count is accurate, it also means that a great portion of the Binance’s wealth comes from IOUs of its making sprinkled with crypto pixie dust. But this 57 million BNB is of questionable reliability because it contrasts sharply with the 22-40 million BNB identified by three data firms and the 16 million BNB Forbes identified using the publicly available etherscan tool. This BNB percentage is higher than any other data firm and Binance’s November statement. The CoinMarketCap January 4 BNB figure attributed to Binance represents 57 million BNB tokens and is equivalent to 31% of the exchange’s total assets. But CMC says that it supplements Binance data with that of Nansen and Defillama. The closest that an independent observer gets to the exchange’s official view on the BNB tokens on its balance sheet these days conceivably comes from CoinMarketCap (CMC), which is the largest crypto website in the world and is owned by Binance. At that time, the firm did include $17 billion denominated in BNB, which represented nearly a quarter of its assets.įast forward to today, BNB’s priced at $262 is a third lower than on November 4. If it can, data firms disagree on how much value to attribute to those holdings.īreaking with its habit of not disclosing sensitive financial information, Binance issued a public transparency statement almost two months ago, listing select crypto holdings. There’s substantial controversy about whether Binance’s BNB–a token whose minting and supply the exchange controls–represents a genuine asset that can meet external obligations in times of distress.
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