When You Don’t Buy Crypto, Crypto Buys You

Major crypto exchanges are rapidly expanding their empires across the world

How do you make the crypto industry bigger?

Bring ’em all into it.

And if not by choice, by assimilation.

Crypto exchanges have so much money that they’re slowly assimilating other non-crypto companies and expanding the crypto space into the world.

The force of acquisition is impressive and it seems it will continue at a rapid pace. So let’s look at some of the largest exchanges and see what they’ve been up to in the last couple of months.

Binance buying companies across all industries

As the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, Binance is looking outside its borders for fresh prey.

CEO Changpeng Zhao has found targets in different economic sectors and is investing heavily in them.

For instance, Binance invested $200 million in Forbes, one of the most iconic publishers of lists and rankings of the world’s richest people. These funds will be used to accelerate its digital growth and educate its clients on crypto-related investments.

With this allocation, Binance has become one of the two biggest owners of the company and this will allow them to have a strategic seat on Forbe’s board.

They’ll be adopting Web3 and blockchain technologies in no time.

All that media firepower to spread the crypto gospel to consumers all around the world.

Zhao also has placed his eye on Latin America and is already in the talks about buying banks and payment processors in Brazil.

He’s been very active in his recent visit to Brazi. Zhao recently attended the Ethereum Rio summit held in Rio de Janeiro, met politicians like the governor of São Paulo, João Dória, and signed an agreement to acquire Brazilian securities brokerage Sim;paul Investimentos.

All these moves are a way of making it interesting for non-crypto companies and their clients to adopt and trade digital assets as soon as possible.

Coinbase is also moving its chess pieces

Another one entering big into the Brazilian market is Coinbase.

According to the Brazilian newspaper Estadao, Coinbase is currently looking to buy 2TM, a holding of several financial technology companies. The acquisition might take place soon, before the end of Q2.

The investment amount hasn’t been disclosed yet but if it goes through it will be a major move for Coinbase in the Latinamerican market, not just for 2TM but for all its reach to the masses.

Mercado Bitcoin is Brazil’s most popular cryptocurrency exchange that reached unicorn status last year after passing the one billion dollar mark. It has more than 3 million customers, with a third of those entering only last year, and an astonishing $7.1 billion trading volume.

Why the sudden interest in Brazil?

Well, there’s a lot of hype around cryptocurrencies with more than 10 million Brazilians owning crypto, and potentially having many millions of customers more coming into the space.

Also, legislation is pro-crypto. Several cities will start accepting digital assets, like payments for real estate taxes in Rio de Janeiro.

Coinbase has also been acquiring other firms like Agara (Indian AI Startup in the customer service field), FairX (a Chicago-based exchange for retail investors), and other companies, piling up to 22 companies so far.

Another empire is born.

Other honourable mentions

Another way to enter into the minds and hearts of customers is through sports.

The home of famous basketball teams (Lakers, Clippers, Kings, and Sparks) called Staples Center, has been rebranded as the Crypto.com Arena for a modest $700 million deal. Fans will see the brand of the crypto exchange for the next 20 years, making it one of the biggest naming acquisitions in sports history.

Another major crypto exchange, FTX, doesn’t want to be left behind and it has managed to close a deal for the Miami Heat Arena for a whopping $135 million. The FTX’s purchase gets them the right to name it FTX Arena for the following 19 years.

This crossover between cryptos and sports fans is paying out.

According to polling from Morning Consult, sports fans are two times more likely to say they’re familiar with digital assets compared to non-fans. In addition to creating crypto awareness through sports, 24% of these sports fans actually own crypto.

At this growth rate of cryptocurrencies, we might expect many more of these huge deals to come through throughout this year.

The Takeaway

Crypto exchanges are heavily investing outside of the industry itself to pave their wave into people’s minds and wallets.

Binance, Coinbase, Crypto.com, FTX, and others are either buying firms or making deals with companies across different sectors. They’re creating not only awareness about digital assets but also making them accessible to anyone.

Using cryptocurrencies will be just common sense in no time.

Soon resistance (to digital assets) will be futile.

writer- Pavle Marinkovic

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