Travis Kling, a former L/S Equities Portfolio Manager that fell down the “Crypto rabbit hole” who’s now running the Ikigai fund, notes that as summer officially draws to a close, you may have been “away from the screens over the last few months.”
Travis has shared a summary of the major “negative events” for Binance since December. It’s helpful to see it all in one place, he notes via social media. So, the next time someone tries to label the Binance situation as “FUD”, they might find this list quite helpful.
🚨🚨 Binance's Slow Train Wreck 🚨🚨
As summer officially draws to a close, you may have been away from the screens over the last few months.
Below is a summary of the major negative events for Binance since December. It's helpful to see it all in one place. Next time someone… pic.twitter.com/bYgcVGJBdG
— Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) September 5, 2023
According to Travis, what happens to Binance is “the single most important factor for crypto right now and it is set to be front and center in the coming months.”
However, this is most likely not the case, because the digital asset and broader blockchain ecosystem has grown quite mature and proven to be quite resilient. In the past year, we have witnessed the spectacular collapse of major players like FTX, Three Arrows Capital, and numerous other major entities in the industry. Despite the demise of big names like bankrupt crypto lender Celsius, the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and wider crypto ecosystem continues to gain market share and is approaching mainstream adoption. All of these developments are taking place even though we have been in an extended bear market for a few years.
But Travis has shared a couple thoughts on perhaps why Binance hasn’t collapsed yet. He claims that it’s a great question and he thinks that the short answer is it’s hard to know for sure.
The reason he titled his post, the “Slow Train Wreck” was to acknowledge how strange the timeline has been. According to Travis, a few possibilities, “some, all or none of which may be correct” are as follows.
Changpeng is a rich guy. His personal balance sheet “has been able to buffer the withdrawals to-date.” He may continue to “have enough buffer or he may run out of room and they halt withdrawals.”
As noted by Travis, Binance may be “very close to collapsing.” He claims that we all “know nothing about their customer deposit liabilities and there’s real reason to believe their ‘PoR’ is inaccurate.”
He added hat it could “happen this month and it could certainly happen this year.”
He also noted that Asian crypto investors, “particularly Chinese, have a large degree of trust with Changpeng.” His reputation there is “much stronger than in the US.” Many Asian Binance users may “not be aware of the news events or may not understand the seriousness of the situation.”
