Surprising Statement from Binance Manager: “We Could Exist in 10 Years”

Binance chief strategy officer Patrick Hillman said the company may not survive in 10 years because cryptocurrency market is moving towards decentralized finance (DeFi), he said.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, is a centralized platform.

“It Will Take Time to Do a Reserve Check on a Binance-sized Company”

For now, the exchange is trying to maintain customers’ trust with a “proof of reserve” application, a way to show customers that their assets are fully supported after the collapse of rival exchange FTX. But Hillman said on Thursday that the process was slow:

“It will be a multi-step process, including bringing in a third-party auditor. It takes time to conduct and conduct an audit of the scope and scale required for Binance.”

Binance, along with other leading crypto-based companies, is spearheading an “industry recovery initiative” for Web3 to help fund new ventures in the industry. The exchange said it will contribute up to $2 billion from its corporate reserves, which Hillman says is separate from the storage reserves where users’ funds are held.

While he did not disclose that the exchange “trusts” its reserves and how much money is held in its institutional account, he added that the exchange has implemented Merkle Tree analysis, a way for users to verify their holdings on the platform.

Hillman said he was “slightly embarrassed” by the fact that Binance is “larger than the New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and almost the Tokyo Stock Exchange combined”, that it has been so slow to set up a proof-of-reserve system.

*Not investment advice.