By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 19th, 2024
Binance.US onboarded former Ripple executive Catherine Coley as its new CEO. Coley, who worked as the head of XRP Institutional Liquidity at Ripple, will manage the launch of Binance.US and BAM’s North American market expansion.
BAM Trading Services (“BAM”) announced the appointment of Catherine Coley as CEO. As per announcement, BAM will be the operator of Binance.US, the secure and compliant digital asset marketplace launched in partnership with Binance, the global leader in blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. Coley has recently served as Head of XRP Institutional Liquidity at Ripple.
She also worked for Silicon Valley Bank and Morgan Stanley as a manager for foreign exchange business, before joining blockchain startup Ripple in 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Last month, Binance announced its plans to launch a fiat-to-crypto exchange in the U.S. and after that they broke the news that its main platform, Binance.com, would stop being available in the country in September.
Being a part of its US launch, Binance decided to partner with BAM Trading Services, a little-known Californian-registered firm. They said from the company:
“Binance US will be led by our local partner BAM and will serve the U.S. market in full regulatory compliance.”
Coley will probably work on things related with regulators and building the US-based team. It is not yet clear when the new platform will launch. She said:
“This is just the beginning of a long journey ahead, and I look forward to working with Binance as a partner to unlock more potential for the blockchain ecosystem here in the U.S.”
Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance CEO said:
“I am confident that with Coley’s leadership and Binance’s leading technology platform, Binance.US will be able to provide valuable services to the U.S. community. Binance.US will be led by our local partner BAM and will serve the U.S. market in full regulatory compliance.”
In the meantime, Ripple stays a major cryptocurrency company backing XRP, the third biggest coin by market cap to date. A month ago, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that bitcoin (BTC) and XRP are not competitors, arguing that bitcoin is a store of value or “digital gold,” while XRP is a “bridge currency” that enables an efficient solution for fiat-to-fiat transfers.
He tweeted:
Big congrats to @ripple's former head of #XRP Institutional Liquidity @cryptocoley and her role as CEO of BAM, operator of #BinanceUS @BinanceAmerica ! Awesome to see outstanding Ripple alums (like her) going out and impacting the broader crypto ecosystem. https://t.co/zWCZ3yVqIT
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) July 2, 2019
Let’s just remind you that Binance announced it will offer futures for BTC/USDT trading pairs with a leverage of up to x20. Binance highlighted it will add support for more assets as well as the possibility to trade with higher leverage in the future.
Also let’s not forget that the Binance has been a global leader, both for its billion-dollar daily trading volume and the legitimacy of its trading data. However, they had recently closed its doors to U.S. investors ahead of this launch. On CoinMarketCap, Binance boasts the No. 1 spot for crypto trading volume, which hovers at $2.9 billion in the last 24-hour period.
Binance’s chief strategy officer Gin Chao confirmed last week that the exchange had participated in preliminary but official dialogue with Facebook over listing the social media giant’s coming Libra stablecoin.
Moreover, CSO Chao said Binance was interested in becoming one of Libra’s 100 validators, saying “we would like to throw our hat in the ring.”
We can just wait and see if this will happen, but if it does, it will surely raise their profiles.