Binance Becomes The Exchange With Most Bitcoin Held

Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume, has surpassed its rival exchange Coinbase and has become the exchange with the most Bitcoin (BTC) held, according to data from Glassnode.

Will Clemente, the lead insights analyst at Blockware Solution - a blockchain infrastructure and cryptocurrency mining firm - posted a chart via his official Twitter account Sunday that compared the Bitcoin balance of the two exchanges.

The chart showed that until now, Coinbase, formed in 2012, was in the lead by significant numbers. But, Binance, formed in 2017, took the lead recently after a bearish market had set in.

This year has so far not been favorable for Coinbase as the firm confirmed a loss of $430 million in its Q1 2022 on May 10 with a year-on-year decrease of 27.05% and a month-on-month decrease of 53.2%. Additionally, the exchange also laid off 18% of its employees "to ensure we stay healthy during this economic downturn," as per the firm's CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong.

On the contrary, Binance has been expanding aggressively since the start of 2022. It signed a multi-year partnership deal with football megastar Cristiano Ronaldo to create several NFTs products on the platform.

The U.S. arm of the exchange, Binance.US, launched zero-fee trading in June to compete with the prices offered by Coinbase to its customers in the country in an effort to "generate positive user sentiment that will bring us new users."

Interestingly, Binance is also witnessing rapid expansion as it received regulatory approval from authorities in Dubai in March, in Bahrain, France and Italy in May, and in Spain in July.