While fear looms around whether the US central bank can control inflation without sparking a recession, investors are putting their money in havens while anxiously awaiting some clarity to see what the Fed does and says on Wednesday. With that, Bitcoin, which closely follows the path of equities, has seen its value drop to an 18-month low.
The entire value of the crypto market saw its value dip below the US$1 trillion mark for the first time since January 2021 on Monday, according to CoinMarketCap. And Celsius Network, which is a huge US crypto lending company, froze all withdrawals and inter-account transfers to stabilize liquidity.
But every market dip poses an opportunity for cash-rich companies to acquire, hire and expand. And so, that’s precisely what the world’s largest crypto exchange is up to. During the Consensus 2022 conference, Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao was asked about its competitor Coinbase’s recent hiring freeze. Zhao responded that the company was leveraging the crypto winter to the max. “We have a very healthy war chest, we in fact are expanding hiring right now,” Zhao said, adding that the company is also “kicking into high gear in terms of M&A activity.”
Key comments:
“I don’t think it’s the first time we’re going through a crypto winter. If we’re in a crypto winter or going through a crypto winter, this would be personally my third, Binance’s second, so it’s not the first time we’ve [gone] through this. Binance has always been very frugal on large spendings. We didn’t sponsor the Superbowl, we didn’t buy stadium rights, so we have a very healthy war chest. We are in fact expanding hiring right now. Right now is much better to hire because during bull markets, everyone is starting their own projects and everyone is paying everyone ridiculous amounts of compensation, and so now the market is more balanced. There is top talent that is available, and we want to hire them. We’re increasing hiring. We’re increasing our M&A activity, we want to do more mergers and acquisitions and investments and to the point where we want to lower our fees right now. So, we have a decent war chest. So now over the next couple of years, if we are in a crypto winter, we’ll leverage that. We’ll use that to the max,” said Zhao during the conference.
