Binance CEO Denies Reports That He Met With Abu Dhabi Investors For Crypto Recovery Fund

Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng has denied reports that he met with investors in Abu Dhabi to raise money for the company’s crypto recovery fund.

According to Bloomberg’s Nov. 22 report, CZ and Binance affiliates have discussed funding for the proposed fund, which aims to back projects with potential liquidity problems. Zhao and the Binance team have reportedly met with potential backers associated with UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Thanoon bin Zayed, and a Binance spokesperson said the meeting “It focuses on general global regulatory issues,” he said. CZ pressed He refuted the report on Twitter, only saying it was “false.”

Binance’s CEO first announced the fund on November 14th following FTX’s “liquidity crisis” and bankruptcy filing. It is unclear how the cryptocurrency exchange intended to scale the fund. FTX’s bankruptcy filing suggested he had just over $1.2 billion in cash as of Nov. 20, while the company owed him more than $3 billion. Added On Twitter, he said the fund was never intended to be “a liar or a fraud.”

To further reduce the cascading effects of FTX, Binance has established an Industry Recovery Fund to support otherwise strong but liquidity-stressed projects. Details to be announced soon. In the meantime, if you think you are eligible, please contact Binance Labs. 1/2

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 14, 2022

Binance and CZ are embroiled in the FTX debacle after the exchange announced plans to liquidate its supply of FTX tokens (FTT) and discussed possible bailouts at the request of then-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. was Binance withdrew from a potential trade less than 48 hours after him, FTX filed for bankruptcy, and Bankman-Fried resigned.

“If we can’t help him, probably no one else,” CZ said Nov. 17 in reference to a call with Bankman-Fried about FTX. “Probably a lot of people passed the deal before us.”

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Based in Dubai since October 2021, CZ has been steadily driving adoption in the Middle East. In September, Dubai’s crypto-asset regulator gave the green light for Binance to offer crypto-asset services to eligible individual and institutional investors. Abu Dhabi’s Global Markets and Financial Services Regulator gave Binance similar approval to offer cryptocurrency services in November.