Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, revealed on January 9 that transactions via Binance Pay surpassed $77 billion in 2023, marking a 71% year-on-year growth. Binance Pay is a contactless cryptocurrency payment method that allows individuals and businesses to utilize crypto for routine transactions.
According to a post on its website, Binance reported that despite facing a "challenging landscape" in 2023, the company's Binance Pay feature witnessed growth in both user numbers and total transaction volume. The number of users on the Binance Pay platform increased nearly 70% in 2023, reaching a total of 12 million. Furthermore, Binance noted that thousands of new merchants began using Binance Pay in 2023.
As per the blog post, Binance launched its Pay platform in February 2021. Since then, the platform has processed over $120 billion in total transactions. Last year, Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, highlighted the growing evidence of crypto's potential to empower individuals in developing countries and broaden financial freedom. "Today, they are able to use crypto to make payments, transfers and remittances at a fraction of the cost of what traditional finance offers," Teng stated. "They are able to get exposure to financial assets at the fraction of the cost, on a 24/7 basis. That’s the beauty of it."
Jonathan Lim, Global Head of Binance Pay, expressed his team's encouragement by their achievements in 2023 in a statement included in the blog post. He emphasized increasing recognition among users and businesses regarding real-world applications offered by crypto. Lim also affirmed their commitment towards offering a secure and expansive crypto payments ecosystem valued by users as they move forward into 2024.
The post further stated that Binance attributes the growth of Binance Pay in 2023 to the "resilience of the crypto community," even amid market uncertainty.
In November 2023, Binance announced that it had reached a settlement with several U.S. government agencies, resolving historical compliance issues, as stated in a post on its website. As part of this resolution, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) agreed to step down from his CEO position and was succeeded by Richard Teng. The company admitted that it lacked adequate compliance controls at its inception. "Today, Binance takes responsibility for this past chapter," the post read.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, CZ stated that stepping down as CEO was "the right thing to do." He acknowledged his mistakes and accepted responsibility for them. CZ described Teng as a "highly qualified leader" who will "ensure Binance delivers on our next phase of security, transparency, compliance, and growth."
According to CoinMarketCap, CZ and Yi He, who manages the company's venture capital arm, co-founded and launched Binance in 2017. As of August 2022, Binance recorded a daily trading volume of approximately $76 billion, making it the largest crypto exchange globally. Binance lists over 350 tokens and enables users to buy, sell, and store digital assets.