Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, confirmed Thursday its $500M equity investment in Elon Musk's $44B acquisition of social media platform Twitter ( NYSE: TWTR ).
“Our intern says we wired the $500 million 2 days ago, probably just as I was being asked about Elon/Twitter," Binance Founder and CEO Chaopeng Zhao wrote in a Twitter post .
That commitment was first disclosed in May by Bloomberg as part of Binance's vision to merge social media with web3, a decentralized version of the internet developed around blockchains.
Other major investors that backed Musk's Twitter ( TWTR ) deal included Oracle ( ORCL ) Cofounder Larry Ellison and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, a majority stakeholder of Twitter.
The Binance stake comes at a time when prices of digital tokens like bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) and ethereum ( ETH-USD ) have changed hands at depressed levels since the beginning of 2022, dropping around 70% from their November 2021 peaks. Nevertheless, Binance appears to be weathering the storm as it continues to expand its crypto and web3 businesses. The company recently opened a $500M fund to offer lending support bitcoin miners.
Binance did not immediately respond to Seeking Alpha's request for comment.
Earlier, Twitter's execs fired; Musk reportedly plans to take CEO role .
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Web3 giant Binance confirms $500M equity stake in Elon Musk's Twitter takeover