After the collapse of FTX, the incident prompted many major crypto exchanges to release proof of reserves and lists of known addresses to allow users to verify trading platforms’ solvency. While the accuracy of these reserve records and asset dashboards is debatable, they do provide insight into the large sums of cryptocurrency held by major exchanges. For example, Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, manages $66 billion in crypto assets, which accounts for more than 6% of the total net worth of the $1 trillion cryptocurrency economy.
An inspection of 5 proof-of-reserve lists that provide insight into large cryptocurrency holdings
It has been more than 80 days since Coindesk published a story on Alameda Research’s balance sheet showing that the quantitative trading desk owned a large amount of FTX tokens (FTT). Then, on November 6, 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) announced that his exchange would sell its FTT holdings. Since then, FTT has declined significantly in value and FTX filed for bankruptcy protection five days later on November 11th. Back then and prior to FTX’s failure, monitoring the exchange’s reserves was a challenge as executives kept things very opaque. This situation has prompted exchanges to release proof-of-reserve lists, and there has been criticism from members of the crypto industry about certain types of lists and how they are audited.
Additionally, Paul Munter, acting chief accountant for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), recently stated that the SEC closely monitors Proof-of-Reserves (POR). Despite the complaints, the available proof-of-reserve lists provide some insight into companies’ inventories and help to improve market stability to a certain extent, as inventories can be monitored. The following is an investigation of five different centralized crypto asset exchanges and their holdings of crypto assets as of January 22, 2023 according to the nansen.ai exchange listing. Nansen has a dashboard for 18 different centralized crypto exchange platforms.
binance
Binance is the largest with $66 billion in digital assets held in reserves by the crypto exchange giant. As of Jan. 22, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume held 486,427 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $11.1 billion. In terms of stablecoins, Binance holds $13.2 billion in Tether (USDT) and $13.3 billion in BUSD.
Binance token allocation on January 22, 2023.
In addition, Binance holds 4.7 million Ethers worth $7.6 billion and another $7.6 billion in Binance Coins (BNB). The exchange also holds more than $13 billion worth of other crypto assets too numerous to name. If Binance’s stash were included in the top ten crypto assets by market cap, it would rank fourth.
OK
Nansen’s dashboard list shows that crypto exchange Okx holds $7.6 billion in crypto assets. $3 billion of the funds are held in Tether (USDT), and the exchange also holds 97,656 BTC worth $2.2 billion.
Okx token allocation on January 22, 2023.
25.95% of Okx’s assets are held in Ethereum (ETH), or a balance of 1.2 million ethers worth $1.9 billion using current exchange rates for ETH. In addition, Okx holds around 294 million USD coins (USDC).
Krypto.com
Crypto.com has around $3.83 billion under management as of Jan. 22, and its holdings currently total 44,208 BTC worth just over $1 billion. The exchange also holds 514,763 ETH, which is worth about $833 million as of Sunday.
Crypto.com token allocation on January 22, 2023.
Nansen’s Crypto.com dashboard further shows that the trading platform owns 17.28% of its shares in Shiba Inu (SHIB). Crypto.com’s SHIB holdings are approximately 55.2 trillion SHIB, or $663 million, in meme tokens. The trading platform also manages around 585 million USD coins (USDC) and 2.1 billion kronor (CRO) worth around $167 million.
Bitfinex
Digital currency trading platform Bitfinex holds $8 billion in crypto assets as of Sunday, January 22, 2023. 54.29% of Bitfinex’s holdings are in Bitcoin (BTC), or around 191,654 BTC, worth $4.36 billion today. 28.15% of Bitfinex’s assets are held in approximately $2.2 billion worth of untapped Leo tokens (LEO), or LEO.
Bitfinex token allocation on January 22, 2023.
The exchange also holds 466,014 Ethereum (ETH) worth $756 million as of Jan. 22. Additionally, Bitfinex manages 331 million tether (USDT) and 0.64% of Bitfinex’s assets or around 126 million XRP are held in reserves.
Huobi
Huobi holds around $3.17 billion as of Jan. 22, and 30.91% of the assets are in exchange coin Huobi Token (HT). The exchange manages 196 million HT, which is worth about $980 million today.
Huobi token allocation on January 22, 2023. The exchange portfolio is listed on the nansen.ai exchange list.
Huobi also holds 617 million tether (USDT) and 9 million tron (TRX) worth $596 million. 12.13% of Huobi’s assets are held in BTC, 5.35% are stored in ETH, and 13.35% of Huobi’s assets are alternative crypto assets too numerous to name. The $7.7 million value comes from the HUSD 57.58 million that Huobi holds, accounting for 30.66% of the HUSD supply. While HUSD was once a USD-pegged stablecoin, HUSD is now trading at $0.13 per coin.
The 5 exchanges hold $88.6 billion, or 8.6% of the current USD value of the crypto economy
All five of the above cryptocurrency exchanges collectively hold $88.6 billion in crypto assets. The combined value of all five reserves of the exchange represents 8.6% of the current $1 trillion crypto economy.
74.49% of the $88.6 billion is held on Binance, and the rest is spread across Okx, Crypto.com, Bitfinex, and Huobi. The trading platform with the largest exchange tokens is Bitfinex with a stash of LEO worth $2.2 billion. Of the five exchanges mentioned, Binance holds the most bitcoin (BTC) with its cache of 486,427 BTC.
tags in this story
Alameda Research, Asset Dashboards, Balance Sheet, Balances, Bankruptcy Protection, Binance, Binance CEO, BitFinex, Centralized Crypto Exchange Platforms, Changpeng Zhao, Crypto Assets, Crypto Balances, Crypto Exchanges, Crypto.com, Cryptocurrency Economy, FTT, ftx , Full Audits, Holdings, Huobi, Lists, Market Stability, Nansen, Nansen.ai, nansen.ai Stock List, Net Worth, Okx, Opacity, Paul Munter, Proof of Reserves, Concept of Proof of Reserves, Proof of Solvency, SEC, Trading Volume
What do you think of the recent trend of crypto exchanges releasing reserve lists and asset dashboards? Do you have any concerns about the accuracy of these lists? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news director at Bitcoin.com News and a Florida-based financial technology journalist. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for bitcoin, open source code and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about today’s emerging disruptive protocols.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, exchange list from nansen.ai,
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