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Binance, the international crypto exchange, plans to invest $200 million in Forbes as the century-old business magazine lays plans to go public through a deal with Magnum Opus Acquisition Ltd., a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Forbes is seeking $400 million in a private placement as part of its entry into the stock market, which is expected to value the publisher at about $630 million.
Binance’s investment would give the crypto platform two seats on Forbes’ board of directors, the Financial Times reported, and help the publisher advance its digital ambitions.
“With Binance’s investment, we now have the experience, network, and resources of the world’s leading crypto exchange and one of the world’s most successful blockchain innovators,” Forbes CEO Michael Federle said in a statement.
In 2018, Forbes initiated a wealth database of crypto billionaires and began publishing lists of promising crypto startups.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, with a fortune valued at $1.9 billion, was the subject of a Forbes cover profile in 2018.
Binance sued Forbes in 2020 after the magazine alleged that the exchange used a complicated corporate structure to evade U.S. regulations.
Binance denied the charge but later dropped the lawsuit.
Binance Smart Chain Was A Positive in 2021
Binance, still the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange, saw more than its share of negative press coverage in 2021.
But despite having to wrestle with meeting a growing and sometimes messy regulatory landscape, Binance also experienced some major successes, including rapid adoption of its Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain solution.
First launched in September 2020, BSC offers smart contract capabilities similar to Ethereum, with faster transaction times and lower costs for developers.
Binance had already been operating “Binance Chain,” but decided to start a second blockchain network that had smart contract features.
The availability of Ethereum’s open source code in the open-source world may have made it simple for Binance to fork it.
Binance Smart Chain is a fork of the open source Go Ethereum (Geth) client, with some additions and differences added, according to Finbold.com.
Instead of Ethereum’s present Proof of Work (PoW) consensus process, BSA uses a Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA). Faster block writing times and reduced transaction costs are possible using PoSA.
BSC also built Ethereum compatibility into their blockchain via an Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Binance was racing against time to capitalize on the decentralized finance (Defi) and non-fungible token (NFT) frenzy.
So far, BSC has paid off. PancakeSwap, a top ten DeFi app, with over 300 thousand users, operates on the network.
Autoshark Finance, another popular DeFi app, and games like Alien Worlds also opted for BSC.
The BSC network token Binance Coin (BNB) was trading at 136 dollars in Feb 2021. The price reached highs of over 600 dollars in the fall, and the token is currently valued at 406 dollars.