The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance is investing $500m into Elon Musk’s $44bn purchase of Twitter.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao spoke to Decrypt in an email which confirmed its involvement in Musk’s Twitter takeover, and in addition, will lend its services to apply blockchain technology to the social media platform.
Zhao confirmed the firm’s investment writing to Decrypt: “We’re excited to be able to help Elon realise a new vision for Twitter.
“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.”
Zhao followed up on this statement via his Twitter account last Thursday, as he confirmed Binance had sent the $500m figure over the same day Musk announced the long-awaited announcement of his purchase of Twitter.
Our intern says we wired the $500 million 2 days ago, probably just as I was being asked about Elon/Twitter. https://t.co/gM65GHUnZC
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) October 28, 2022
Since Zhao’s confirmation of Binance’s Twitter investment, Reuters reported that the crypto exchange platform will work in tandem with Musk and Twitter on how a blockchain infrastructure would benefit Twitter.
Reuters revealed that a co-investor of Musk’s Twitter takeover has said that Binance will “brainstorm plans and strategies that could help Musk run the platform”.
At the heart of the potential blockchain integration is to solve the surge in bot accounts on the social media platform, which was at the centre of concerns Musk had during Twitter negotiations.
Twitter has been long contemplating ideas to integrate crypto and blockchain services to the platform prior to Musk’s purchase, enlisting Stripe’s services earlier this year on integrating a crypto payout function.
Musk has been an avid investor in the cryptocurrency DOGE coin but has not disclosed how much he owns.
Nick Saponaro, CEO of Divi Project, spoke to Payment Expert last April on his belief what Musk’s takeover of Twitter could entail, also speaking on what he wants Musk to achieve in the development of crypto adoption on the website.
He said: “Selfishly, I would love to see him reform the advertising policies to allow more self-custodial wallets and services to advertise. It would be even better if the entirety of the algorithm was open-sourced and Twitter was more decentralised.
“Crypto users have been banned en masse by Twitter, YouTube, etc. on occasion. The hope is a more open version of Twitter gives crypto folks a safer place to engage in discourse.
“If his intentions are pure, this will be a net positive for the crypto space. If they’re not, then everyone is buggered.”
