For Binance, Mars Finance is the first strategic investment in China since 2017, when Beijing banned digital coin trading and the exchange withdrew from this market.
One of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges Binance has made its first strategic investment in China. The company has invested in Mars Finance, a news platform that focuses on the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector.
As has been reported by Bloomberg, the investment is a part of Mars Finance’s funding round that valued the platform at about $200 million. According to the co-founder of Mars Finance Wu Jihan, investors in the round included Ceyuan Ventures and Matrixport, the financial services startup created by Bitmain Technologies Ltd.
Mars Finance is the Chinese crypto-data platform that provides users with 24/7 news, market research, data, market price, and other services. Founded in 2018 by Chinese entrepreneur Wang Feng, who co-founded a mobile game developer Linekong Interactive Group Co. in 2007, Mars Finance is dedicated to focus on the blockchain industry and to keep pace with the forefront of blockchain’s emerging trends.
Currently, Mars Finance’s offering consists of the following services: Media, Industry Data, Community Operation, Training and Education, Summit and Exhibition. The company also runs Consensus Lab, a new cryptocurrency investment fund that has invested in more than 50 top blockchain projects since April 2018, including Quark, Bumo, Celer, Certik, Bitforex, Coinsuper, Bgogo, and others.
Previously, Mars Finance completed two funding rounds led by such investors IDG Capital and the venture arms of exchange operators OKCoin and Huobi.
Meanwhile, platform’s value of $200 million is quite too high. According to Alexa, the Mars Finance website is ranked 24,476 in global internet engagement, and its traffic has been decreasing since June. What is more, most visitors to the website are from Japan.
For Binance, this funding is the first strategic investment in China. In 2017, Beijing banned digital coin trading considering it unsafe and illegal, that’s why the exchange withdrew from this market.
This week, Binance is set to resume operations in the United States of America under the name of Binance US. The exchange pulled out of the US because of the regulatory environment there and the US government’s recent anti-crypto stance.
As we have reported earlier, starting from September 18, the US markets will start accepting deposits of BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, and USDT first before other cryptocurrencies will be added in time. But trading will not happen in all the 50 states. The state of New York requires a Bitlicense for entities who want to offer cryptocurrency trading services in the state which in itself presents another unwanted hurdle.
Another big event for Binance is set to take place this week: the exchange will list its USD-backed stablecoin BUSD. BUSD is a fully compliant USD-denominated stablecoin issued on Paxos’ platform for direct purchase and redemption 1:1 for US Dollars. It has already scaled through the regulatory hurdles for issuance at the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
