TakeAway Points:
- In a joint press release, the firms said the minority stake would be paid for in stablecoins, making it the biggest investment ever paid in cryptocurrency.
- A joint press release noted that “by partnering with the leading industry player, MGX aims to enable innovation at the intersection of AI, blockchain technology and finance.”
- Meta Platforms prevailed in an urgent arbitration decision to temporarily halt the advertising of a former employee’s expose book “Careless People.”
Abu Dhabi’s
MGX
META
pledges $2 billion investment
This marks the cryptocurrency exchange’s first institutional investment and the “single largest investment” ever paird in crypto.
In a joint press release, the firms said the minority stake would be paid for in stablecoins, making it the “largest investment ever” paid in cryptocurrency. Stablecoins are a type of digital asset designed to hold a constant value, typically with a peg to a fiat currency.
Abu Dhabi launched the MGX investment firm last year with a focus on AI technology. In September, MGX partnered with the likes of BlackRock
and Microsoft to launch a more than $30 billion AI fund, but it had yet to invest in the cryptocurrency industry and blockchain sectors.
“MGX’s investment in Binance reflects our commitment to advancing blockchain’s transformative potential for digital finance,” Ahmed Yahia, managing director and CEO at MGX, said in a statement.
The press release added that “by partnering with the leading industry player, MGX aims to enable innovation at the intersection of AI, blockchain technology and finance.”
Binance and MGX did not immediately comment on the size of the stake or what stablecoin would be used for the payment. Binance has not responded to an inquiry on whether the deal has been completed.
As part of the UAE’s broader ambitions to become a global technology leader, it has been growing into a regional crypto hub.
Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, has grown its Middle East footprint as it faced regulatory hurdles and enforcement measures in other jurisdictions in recent years,
According to the press release, Binance employs approximately 1,000 of its roughly 5,000 global workforce in the UAE. It adds that it now boasts over 260 million registered users and has surpassed $100 trillion in cumulative trading volume.
Binance CEO Richard Teng is scheduled to take part in a panel session at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore at 2:40 p.m. local time (2:40 a.m. ET) on Thursday.
Meta wins halt to promotion of ‘Careless People’ tell-all book by former employee
Meta Platforms on Wednesday won an emergency arbitration ruling to temporarily stop promotion of the tell-all book “Careless People” by a former employee, according to a copy of the ruling published by the social media company.
The book by Meta’s former director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams, was called by the New York Times book review “an ugly, detailed portrait of one of the most powerful companies in the world,” and its leading executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan.
