Binance CEO: 'We're excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter'
Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, completed on Thursday, also included a $500 million commitment from crypto's largest trading venue, Binance.
Going forward, that means, a major player in cryptocurrencies and "Web3" now has a stake in the social media giant's success.
Accounting for 1.3% of the company's total value, the stake underscores Binance's growing influence outside crypto.
“We're excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter,” Binance Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a statement. “We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology."
Alongside major angel investors such as Oracle Cofounder Larry Ellison and Twitter majority stakeholder Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, Binance’s support had previously been disclosed as far back as May.
Year to date, $18 trillion worth of crypto has changed hands on Binance, accounting for 22% of global crypto trading volume, nearly quadruple that of any other crypto exchange, according to crypto indexer, Nomics.
Before the Musk deal closed, Twitter had made efforts to further incorporate crypto onto its platform by allowing users to send cryptocurrencies through their user accounts and verify NFTs as profile pictures.
More recently, the company’s lesser known BlueSky initiative launched a website detailing plans to launch the AT Protocol, which aims to create a decentralized social network using blockchain technology.
Started by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, who has since left the company, it remains unclear how BlueSky will fit into Twitter’s plans under Musk.
As of yesterday afternoon, Twitter is also testing "NFT Tweet Tiles," a new feature that let's users buy non-fungible tokens through various NFT marketplaces such as Rarible, Dapper Labs, and Magic Eden.
Dogecoin buyers may also anticipate some value from Musk's takeover. Thanks in part to the billionaire's previous promotion of the meme coin last year, Dogecoin has risen by 38% in value in the week leading up to Musk's Twitter acquisition.
For the period, the market capitalization for DOGE has risen by $3 billion from $7.7 billion to $10.6 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.
For its part, a spokesperson for Binance told Yahoo Finance that Binance is creating a team inside the company to focus on ways cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology could be helpful to Twitter.
"For example, how can we build on-chain solutions to address some of Twitter's issues, such as the proliferation of bot accounts in recent years. We are in the early stages now and still figuring out a plan," the spokesperson added.
Patrick Hillman, Binance's chief strategy officer suggested the company's involvement could mean less speculation and more "practical use cases" for the still buzzy, yet less active, emerging asset class.
"As the world’s leading web3 infrastructure company, we’re looking forward to bringing new solutions to solve some of the issues inherent in the Web2 ecosystem," Hillman said in a statement.
Updated with Binance's comments on the formation of an internal team.
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David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance covering the cryptocurrency and stock markets. Follow him on Twitter at @DsHollers
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