In the words of Changpeng Zhao, “Given the changes in stablecoins and banks, Binance will convert the remaining of the 1 billion Industry Recovery Initiative funds from BUSD to native crypto, including BTC, BNB, and ETH.”
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the exchange will convert nearly $1B worth of Industry Recovery Initiative (IRI) funds into native crypto assets following recent turmoil in the stablecoin market.
In November 2022, Changpeng Zhao set up the Industry Recovery Initiative to aid troubled crypto projects from the aftereffects of FTX’s collapse. By the end of the month, Binance had committed $1B worth of Binance USD (BUSD) tokens into the program.
According to CZ, Binance will convert the remaining $985M BUSD assets from the IRI program into native crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and BNB (BNB).
Soon, Blockchain analysis firm Nansen confirmed that Binance has moved the BUSD tokens from the IRI wallet to the firm’s wallet. CZ claimed the transaction cost $1.29 and was completed in 15 seconds.
Meanwhile, stablecoin prices started recovering from Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. USD Coin (USDC), however, has still not regained its USD peg as the stablecoin’s price hovers around the $0.99 mark.