Binance CEO CZ announces $1 billion allocation to industry recovery fund

Binance and its CEO Chengpang Zhao (CZ), have emerged as key entities over the last couple of weeks following FTX’s collapse. The downfall of the now-bankrupt FTX exchange also inspired CZ to launch an industry recovery fund. Living up to his word, the executive launched the Industry Recovery Initiative (IRI) on Thursday.

Binance takes initiative

Binance introduced a fund titled the Industry Recovery Initiative (IRI) to support the future of web3. Taking charge of protecting the consumers and rebuilding the industry, Binance presented eager organizations with the opportunity to co-invest in the IRI.

The announcement came hours after CZ stated in an interview with Bloomberg that Binance would be setting aside $1 billion for the fund. As per the fund’s address, the IRI has a mix of assets, including Binance USD (BUSD), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), Luffy (LUFFY) and XEN Crypto (XEN). However, the fund is mostly entirely made up of BUSD, which alone amounts to $1.002 billion.

Industry Recovery Initiative asset distribution

As previously reported, the IRI has been conceived as a means of helping projects that are fundamentally strong but are suffering from liquidity crises. Binance further clarified that the IRI is not going to be an investment fund and that it would only last about six months.

Binance.US plans to bid on Voyager, again

During the interview on Thursday, CZ also stated that Binance arm in the United States, Binance.US, is preparing to bid on Voyager once again. The fallout of FTX led to the bankrupt exchange pulling out of its bid, allowing Binance to jump back in. Explaining the reason for holding back on the bid before, Zhao stated,

“I think the US national security concerns were rumors spread by FTX to try and push us out of the bid. There was never any concerns about us participating in the bid.

He further refuted the allegations of Binance being a Chinese company claiming no relation to China, tweeting,

Binance Coin price makes a jump

Binance Coin price registered a 12.17% spike in price in the last 24 hours to trade at $298. The exchange token flipped some breached through multiple resistances and is looking to tag $311 over the next few trading sessions.

BNB/USD 1-day chart

The rise was also seen on the broader crypto market. The total crypto market capitalization spiked by 3.2% to recover more than $24 billion on Thursday. This brought the total value of the crypto market up to $789 billion. A consistent bullish momentum from here on is expected to improve the market’s condition, further upping the combined value of all cryptocurrencies to $800 billion.