Binance is fastest profitable startup to achieve unicorn status in history

Binance is now probably the fastest profitable startup to achieve unicorn status in history with a valuation of close to $2 billion. They made it in less than six months.

A unicorn is a private company with a valuation of over $1 billion.

Although most people outside of the cryptocurrency scenes have never heard about Binance. The cryptocurrency exchange has had a fantastic time growing to become one of the top three cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

It is now second after Bitfinex according to Binance founder & CEO Changpeng Zhao.

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In comparison, some 20 US private firms achieved the unicorn status in less than half a year. But probably none were profitable then. And in the cryptocurrency scenes, half a dozen startups have raised a 9 figure amount in ICO with coins trading at more than a billion in market capitalization.

Coinbase became the first Bitcoin unicorn in August last year after raising $1.6 billion in venture capital. But it is likely that Binance is trading more volumes than Coinbase. It could go on to take the first spot because it operates in Asia (Japan and China) and considering that Asia has more than 40 percent of global Bitcoin trading. It is well placed to become a global ecosystem.

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Unlike Coinbase, Binance has a real token Binance Coin or BNB, which is trading at more than $8 with more than $800 billion in market cap and more than 99 million coins in circulation. Its value is about $2 billion with founders, insiders, and investors holding 199 million. Binance has other businesses not captured in the stock value.

The success has been due to acquisitions, coins traded and trading volume. The growth has also been due to the hype in cryptocurrencies. Its CEO Zhao Changpeng has previously worked in Wall Street software trading systems, Chinese Bitcoin startups, and other areas. This has propelled the coin significantly.

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