Following Facebook’s announcement of the Libra project, the crypto scene underwent a revolution that, inter alia, had a direct impact on Bitcoin’s and altcoins’ price. A few weeks later, major cryptocurrency exchange Binance had been talking about following suit with a similar ecosystem.
And, whilst numerous pundits and investors have identified Venus, which is Binance’s stablecoin project, as a possible competitor to Facebook’s Libra, that may not be the case, at least according to the crypto exchange’s CEO Changpeng Zhao.
Focusing on Regional Affairs
The company itself, via a blog post published at the start of the week, expressed a similar sentiment to that of “CZ.” It explained that whereas Libra has the intention of being a global project, Binance’s Venus would like to focus in regional affairs, at least at first.
Additionally, and per Binance’s announcement of the Venus ecosystem, it will be more versatile in the sense that it will help other localized, fiat-pegged stablecoins develop, as well as other digital assets.
In a similar (but not exactly the same) way as Facebook’s Libra seeked the help of third-parties in the way of “founding members” and investors, Binance will also search for allianced and partnerships that help the exchange pave the way for the development of its stablecoin. Some of the desired partners will be governmental institutions, firms, and other blockchain-related actors.
The Binance Chain
People inside the industry with knowledge on the matter are speculating (it is not official as of now, though) that Venus will be developed on the Binance Chain, a platform that has already seen the creation of other stablecoins such as BTCB, pegged to the value of Bitcoin, and BGBP, pegged to the value of the GBP.
A Twitter user asked that to CZ, and the Binance CEO responded that “details will come soon,” but also, “we know Binance Chain best, of course.”
CZ states that Binance’s idea is not to dominate the stablecoin market through Venus, but instead, he wants it to promote crypto adoption, and because of that, he thinks that Binance’s project may ultimately help Libra.
Pushing Adoption
Once again via Twitter (and using his official account, @cz_binance,) Zhao wrote: “Pushing adoption, yes. Domination, no. Always happy to co-exist.”
Regarding the subject, Chris Wittenborn, who is currently the Head of Business Development & Strategy at Velocity Markets, told a specialized financial news site that “assuming full legal and regulatory compliance, anything that helps regulators become familiar with this ecosystem is a benefit for both Binance but also Libra as they might be able to learn from some of the successes and failures of Binance.”
Competition can be beneficial if it is healthy and if it will lead to a common, greater good, and that appears to be the case in this particular situation. If a crypto exchange, as big as Binance, comes up with a big ecosystem, it will help spread the word about the benefits of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, exchanges, and other related terms.
By Andres Chavez
