Binance acquires CoinMarketCap for $400M: report

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Update: New reports indicated that the CoinMarketCap acquisition is now a done deal. 

For the average user looking to find the most up to date digital asset prices, CoinMarketCap has been the dominant resource. It shows up at the top, or near the top, for most Google search terms, and has done very well for itself in traffic. Perhaps for those reasons, The Block reports Binance is working on acquiring the site for nearly $400 million.

Terms of the deal aren’t entirely clear, but the cash-and-stock purchase of the site appears to be nearly complete. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao teased earlier this year that the bucket shop was looking into two major acquisitions, and a $400 million purchase of one of the world’s most popular market watching sites should certainly qualify.

According to Alexa, the internet traffic monitoring website, CoinMarketCap is the 570th most popular site in the world. Binance, in comparison, is ranked 1,691. The Block also notes that CoinMarketCap receives 80% more traffic than Binance. This makes it all pretty easy to conclude that if CZ is indeed purchasing the site, and can use it to funnel traffic to Binance, it would be a pretty important way of growing his business.

For those in the industry who already have a distrust of Binance, this might seem like dire news. Taking on a site that is even more exposed to the public and visible to regulators is a risky move for the bucket shop.

With supporters of every digital asset turning to CoinMarketCap to check on market performance, the site faces scrutiny above and beyond most exchanges. If a token isn’t reflecting its true price in the market, people care, and they’ll sound the alarm when it happens. If Binance has any role in manipulating those prices, not only will the public show outrage, but regulators will have to act.

That makes for a net positive in the industry. As the light shines brighter on the legit digital asset exchanges and the shady bucket shops, and the tools that monitor them, all involved will have to prove they are offering legitimate information, and operating ethical and professional businesses. If they fail to do so, the law will come down on them, hard. Sounds like I am going to have to start using OnChainFX.com now for my digital currency market cap information going forward.