Binance Reveals Plan to Launch Crypto Exchanges on Almost Every Continent

One of the world's largest crypto exchanges by trading volume wants to set up fiat-to-crypto trading platforms on almost every continent.

Binance founder and CEO Zhao Changpeng closed out the first day of CoinDesk's Consensus Singapore event with a fireside chat, where he discussed a range of topics, including how he grew Binance from a startup with a $15 million initial coin offering to one of the world's largest crypto exchanges and his future vision for the platform.

During the conversation with CoinDesk's Pete Rizzo, Zhao indicated that by this time next year, he wants the company to launch five to 10 fiat-to-crypto exchanges, with ideally two per continent.

These plans falls in line with Binance's current efforts to roll out an exchange in Singapore that supports local fiat-to-crypto trading services.

Noting that this move appears to be a reversal to what Binance has been known for, which is its crypto-to-crypto trading, Zhao admitted that the crypto market capitalization is still significantly lower than traditional financial instruments.

The fiat-to-crypto plan also comes as Binance has recorded healthy businesses incomes over the past year despite the overall cryptocurrency market downturn.

During the fireside chat, Zhao confirmed that in the first quarter this year, Binance made $200 million in profits, although the assets are all in cryptos.

Commenting on Binance's rapid growth, Zhao said luck played some role in the company's success so far as it was established with the "Right thing at the right time."

After quitting from OKCoin in 2015, Zhao said he spent the next two years with a team building a cloud-based system that offers crypto exchanges the infrastructure to form their own platforms, a technology he said laid the foundation of the creation of Binance.

Two years later, the exchange went online at a time when the Chinese government was stepping up its scrutiny over crypto trading and eventually issued the ban on domestic initial coin offerings and fiat-to-crypto trading.