Is Binance CEO Richard Teng Changing the Industry’s Messianic Narrative + More News

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of crypto and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s news.

In this edition:

• Is Binance CEO Richard Teng Changing the Industry’s Messianic Narrative?
• Fidelity Sets Bitcoin ETF Fee at 0.39%
• CleanSpark Plans to Launch In-House Trading Desk This Year

__________

Is Binance CEO Richard Teng Changing the Industry’s Messianic Narrative?

Richard Teng, the new CEO of Binance, has a vital additional role: to establish a new model of business leadership for the crypto world, EL PAÍS argued.

Teng, it said, faces the challenge of “shedding the messianic style” prevalent among the major players in the crypto industry.

The new CEO has complimented the old one, Changpeng Zhao, telling EL PAÍS that Zhao “has been a very inspirational founder CEO. He has done a lot of things for the industry.”

However, Teng’s leadership style seems to be the opposite of Zhao’s. In the interview, he made constant references to the staff that assists in maintaining the company and his experience in the regulatory sector, signaling that “the narrative will not be the same,” the report said.

“The landscape has changed drastically, but users trust us,” Teng told EL PAÍS, referencing a string of incidents hitting the sector. One of the latest was Binance’s own battle with regulators globally and in the US.

“We made mistakes. In terms of compliance, control in those early days [2017] was still inadequate in some areas. As part of the resolution, we acknowledge those mistakes, and we are moving past them,” Teng said.

He made sure to distance Binance from cases like FTX or LUNA, saying that the US regulators found no instances of fraud in the use of Binance’s clients’ assets. Also, users were able to withdraw their investments from the platform at any time.

“For the first few days, there was a net outflow of funds from the Binance platform. However, that has changed: we have seen very robust inflows, and our user base continues to grow,” he added.

One thing that Teng shares with Zhao is that he will not reveal the location of Binance’s global headquarters. “We have already announced our regional headquarters. France is our regional headquarters for Europe. Dubai is our regional headquarters for the Middle East-North Africa region. When we are ready to make that announcement, we will do so. But we are a global company. We do global deployment,” he stated.

Fidelity Sets Bitcoin ETF Fee at 0.39%

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) hopefuls have filed updates to their applications, revealing the details of how the ETFs would function.

Fortune reported that, in updated filings from December 29, two of the issuers released details on the fees that they will charge investors for the ETF.

Invesco/Galaxy announced that it would waive fees for its first six months of operation and for the first $5 billion in assets held. It will follow this with a 0.59% fee.

Fidelity revealed its fee would be 0.39%.

Also, Fidelity, Galaxy/Invesco, WisdomTree, Valkyrie, and BlackRock all listed the first authorized participants that they will work with, Fortune said.

Fidelity and WisdomTree named trading firm Jane Street Capital. BlackRock and Galaxy/Invesco, both named JP Morgan and Virtu, a market-making firm. Valkyrie named Jane Street and Cantor Fitzgerald.

CleanSpark Plans to Launch In-House Trading Desk This Year

US Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark plans to launch an in-house trading desk in 2024 to maximize returns from its holdings of this crypto, Bloomberg reported.

Zachary Bradford, chief executive officer of CleanSpark, said that “we really think that doing it ourselves is the best way especially with the large Bitcoin balance we have. It just makes financial sense to do it in-house.”

Bradford further opined that other miners will likely start having trading desks in-house. “That way, you can manage it with your own risk profiles and expertise and keep a really close eye on it.”

CleanSpark plans to make strategies based on regulated crypto offerings such as the option contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) or its affiliates, the report said.

“We may have to move a small amount into different accounts but we will keep the cold storage custody with holders like Coinbase with segregated accounts,” Bradford stated.