Binance's Crypto Winter Strategy: Build and Beef Up Partnerships

Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance has an ambitious mandate for its 400 employees in 2019: leverage industry partnerships to diversify the brand beyond its primary trading platform.

Trust Wallet, which Binance acquired last summer, recently joined the Foundation for Interwallet Operability, CoinDesk has learned.

Binance chief growth officer Ted Lin said that revenue has slowed during the market downturn, but the exchange is still profitable and doesn't currently plan to shore up a venture capital "War chest" the way Coinbase, its Silicon Valley competitor, did with a $300 million fundraise last October.

Although it would probably take years for FIO to potentially offer Binance a significant revenue stream, Lin said the exchange's bear market strategy is to focus on projects with long-term payoffs.

"It will ultimately come down to impact," Lin said, describing how Binance prioritizes partnerships.

That's why the exchange also launched the educational portal Binance Academy in December 2018, with hundreds of introductory videos and articles translated by volunteers into 15 languages.

Gold said Binance has one of the biggest global user bases, over 10 million exchange accounts and 150,000 Trust Wallet downloads, according to the company's 2018 statistics.

With pivotal wallet updates and a DEX on the way, BNB is the third Binance product that lends itself to helping the exchange form deeper industry ties.

Beyond the Trust Wallet acquisition, Binance also invested $2.5 million in the airline payments startup TravelbyBit in 2018.

Plus, educational initiatives at Binance Academy aim to attract newbies while the prices are low, potentially converting them into exchange users if prices spike again.