Journalist
Posted:
Binance Exchange has completed the conversion of its $1 billion SAFU Fund from stablecoins to Bitcoin. The world’s largest exchange announced that it had acquired 4,545 BTC as the final tranche of the conversion program announced in late January.
It added,
“Now that the SAFU Fund is fully invested in Bitcoin, we reinforce our belief in BTC as the most important long-term reserve asset.”
Source: Blockchain
AMBCrypto verified that SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) fund address 1BAuq indeed held the 15000 BTC, which was worth $1.013 billion at the time of writing.
The exchange initially announced the conversion plan on January 30; in less than two weeks it completed the program at an average cost base of $67,000.
Binance framed this move is in response to ‘market volatility and pressure’ to support the ‘long-term growth’ of the sector.
But the timing was also questionable. The move coincided with an intense FUD against the stock market that reportedly caused the October crash critics claim that Binance was behind this bear market.
Is the Final BTC Bottom Near?
That said, since the announcement of the SAFU fund conversion, BTC has fallen further from $84K to $67K, which represents an additional 20% drawdown. However, a market watcher said,
“The last time Binance did this, the price was around $30,000 per BTC, dumped by 10%, and then went up four times over the next two years.”
Here it is worth noting that Binance collected more than 16,000 BTC between 2022 and 2024. But the explosive BTC movement in late 2024 was driven by Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections as a pro-crypto candidate. It had nothing to do with Binance’s accumulation wave.
Still, if more companies and investors come in at current levels, it could help stabilize prices and anchor a real market bottom in the long run.
Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode also took a similar stance, noting that whales were already piling into BTC at a discount. So far, the 30-day moving average of whale outflows has risen more than 3% since the sharp drop to $60,000.
A Glassnode analyst added that this aligned with the bottom of the BTC market in 2022.
“This mirrors the structure we saw in the first half of 2022, when whales gathered for several months and in multiple waves before the next bull market began.”
Source: Glassnode
In the short term, however macro headwinds could still keep the crypto asset muted. At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $68K.
Final thoughts
- Binance has completed the conversion of the SAFU fund into BTC and now owns 15,000 BTC, worth over $1 billion.
- The whale buying spree rose 3%, and the accumulation trend could help stabilize the market for the next bull run.