Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has continued its expansion drive, buying US-based crypto wallet provider Trust Wallet. The acquisition, Binance’s first, is aimed to provide a better service and enhanced safety for its users, who currently transfer their funds to external wallets, the Hong Kong-based exchange said on Tuesday.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Wallets are the most fundamental interface to the crypto economy, and a secure and easy-to-use wallet is key to proliferate the adoption of cryptocurrencies,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a press release. “Trust Wallet is simply the best in this category in my opinion. Trust Wallet is an on-chain wallet, where user private keys are decentralized, ie, stored on user devices. This compliments the centralized architecture of Binance nicely. Now we have the best of both worlds, and users have their choice.”
Founded in November 2017, Trust Wallet is described as a secure, open source, decentralized and anonymous mobile wallet application for storing more than 20,000 different crypto assets. The app is currently focused on Ethereum-based tokens (ERC20, ERC223 and ERC721), but reportedly plans to add support for other blockchains.
Following the deal, the Trust Wallet brand and team will continue operating autonomously, free to develop the core product and explore Binance’s broad user base and its upcoming decentralized exchange.
“This is an incredible opportunity for Trust Wallet to work with the biggest and the most respected exchange in the world, but we also feel as though we are aligning with a partner that shares a similar approach towards security and user management,” said Trust Wallet founder Viktor Radchenko.
The Trust Wallet deal is likely the first of many strategic acquisitions for Binance. In June, the company launched a $1 billion investment fund. Zhao said at the time that the intention is to make 10-20 investments per year.
Binance, which celebrated its first year of operations on July 14, rose to prominence already in the first six months of its operations and has been disputing the first place in the cryptocurrency exchange ranking since then. Presently, it has more than 10 million users and daily trading volumes of more than $1 billion.
Binance, which was originally based in China but had to move to Hong Kong due to the Chinese crypto ban, made a $300 million profit for the first half of this year. It expects a net profit of $500 million to $1 billion for full 2018.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
