BUSD, a stablecoin issued by Paxos, a blockchain infrastructure platform in New York, is still one of the most dominant assets on Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by client count and trading volume.
BUSD Remains Dominant
DeFiLlama data on February 14 shows that BUSD makes up over 18% of all assets locked and managed in Binance. It is the third largest asset, with stablecoins worth more than $13.3 billion locked when writing.
BUSD comes third only after BNB, the native currency of the Binance ecosystem, and USDT, a competing stablecoin issued by Tether Holdings. There is $17.61 billion worth of BNB managed by Binance, while users have deposited $15.01 billion of USDT in the exchange.
Binance manages over $70 billion of various assets, with tokens from Ethereum being the most popular. There are also tokens from the BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Tron, Avalanche, and other blockchains. Binance currently manages $10.62 billion of BTC, up from around $8 billion in early January 2023.
When BNB is excluded, Binance has more than $53 billion of assets under management.
Binance is the world’s largest exchange by the number of assets it manages. The second is OKX, an exchange with a TVL of over $7.6 billion, excluding the value of its native token, OKB.
Paxos Ordered To Halt BUSD Minting, USDT Trading Volumes Surge
On February 13, Paxos stated that it had received a Wells notice from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The agency, Paxos said, had concluded that BUSD is a security and was considering enforcement action. This action is likely a lawsuit. Paxos is supposed to respond in writing, explaining why the SEC’s assessment is incorrect.
Paxos asserts that BUSD is not a security under the United States federal laws. They will “engage with the SEC staff on this issue and are prepared to vigorously litigate if necessary.”
In an update, Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, said Paxos had received an order from New York regulators to halt the new minting of BUSD.
#BUSD. A thread. 1/8
In summary, BUSD is issued and redeemed by Paxos. And funds are #SAFU!
— CZ
Binance (@cz_binance) February 13, 2023
Paxos were allowed to handle redemption requests from users.
Following this announcement, USDT’s trading volumes spiked as users redeemed BUSD for other stablecoins, mainly USDT.
Remember when journalists were lining up to write every time #Tether would trade couple of bps < 1$?I'm sure they will write as much now… pic.twitter.com/XVo22HaWoF
— Paolo Ardoino
(@paoloardoino) February 13, 2023
By early February 14, DeFiLlama data showed that $547.41 million of USDT had been transferred into Binance, up from $86.43 million users moved to the exchange on February 13.
