Binance's Catherine Chen outlines a 10x user base target, triparty banking with BlackRock, and Crypto-as-a-Service for institutions. The plan carries concentration risk for traders.
Binance is building toward a 10x increase in its active user base, targeting 3 billion users by 2030. Catherine Chen, the head of VIP and Institutional, told CoinDesk that the exchange currently serves more than 310 million active users – verified through KYC and corporate KYB protocols, not simply registered accounts. The target is a statement of intent, not a forecast with a clear path. The broader crypto market cap sits near $2.7 trillion, down roughly 40% from its all-time high of $4.38 trillion before the October Flash Crash. Bitcoin has been struggling to reclaim the $100,000 psychological level since mid-November.
Chen acknowledged the market environment: “It is true, the market is going through a hard time. There is still some regulatory development, we are seeing some of our competitors either struggling or perhaps shifting their focus.” The comment points directly to Coinbase, which recently cut 14% of its workforce, citing market conditions and AI challenges. Coinbase carries an Alpha Score of 28/100 (Weak, sector Financials), reflecting the broader pressure on exchange business models that rely on trading volume and retail speculation.
For a trader building a watchlist, this Binance announcement is less about a near-term price catalyst and more about a structural shift in who will own the infrastructure of the next cycle. The risk event is not a hack, a regulatory fine, or a sudden outage. It is a deliberate, long-term positioning play that could reshape competitive dynamics – especially in institutional crypto flows.
The 310 million active user figure is the base. The 3 billion target implies adding 2.69 billion new active users over roughly six years – an annual growth rate of about 46% compounded. That is aggressive even by Binance’s historical standards. During the 2021 bull market, the exchange benefited from a surge in retail sign-ups, many of those accounts went dormant when prices fell. Chen emphasized that the active user metric is “actual active individual users” verified through KYC, not inflated registration numbers that exchanges have used historically to pad user counts.
The target implies that Binance expects institutional and retail adoption to accelerate, not just in trading, in actual usage – lending, staking, payments, and custody. If Binance achieves even half the target, it will entrench its dominance further. For competitors like Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken, the risk is a permanent loss of market share in the institutional segment, which is higher margin and more stable than retail day trading.
A 10x user base in a market that has never topped 500 million active crypto users globally (by most estimates) stretches credibility. The number may be aspirational, designed to signal long-term confidence and attract institutional partners rather than serve as a literal operational target. Traders should watch for quarterly user growth disclosures as a reality check.
Binance’s most concrete move in the institutional direction is the rollout of a triparty banking framework. The mechanism addresses a core institutional pain point: counterparty risk. Clients do not want to custody crypto directly or leave capital on an exchange. They prefer to hold fiat or fiat-equivalents with their existing banking partners. Binance now accepts tokenized money market funds from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton as eligible triparty ecosystems.
Instead of manually rolling Treasury futures or incurring administrative fees, institutional traders can pledge real-time, yield-bearing tokenized shares to back their trading operations. Chen noted that Traditional Finance (TradFi) spends north of $2 billion annually on advanced Order Management Systems (OMS). In crypto, infrastructure spend is less than a tenth of that, around $185 million. Binance’s new OMS toolkit, built with partners Coin Metrics, Talos, and 3Commas, aims to close that gap.
| Metric | TradFi | Crypto |
|---|---|---|
| Annual OMS spend | $2B+ | $185M |
| Ratio | 10.8x | 1x |
Chen pointed to a 12-to-18-month timeline where real-world asset (RWA) tokenization matures rapidly. “People have finally figured out that you don't magically change the fundamental characteristics or price of an asset by tokenizing it. It is fundamentally an improved form to ensure better accessibility.” The statement signals that Binance views tokenized equities, treasuries, and debt as the next major product category.
Binance launched its Crypto-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform in September last year. Designed exclusively for financial institutions, the platform lets banks and asset managers offer digital asset services without building their own infrastructure. Chen said over 15 major financial institutions have signed up since launch. That number is small relative to the total addressable market, it shows early traction.
The most immediate risk to Binance’s plan is the macro environment. A prolonged bear market would stall institutional adoption. The total crypto market cap is $2.7 trillion, 40% below the peak. Bitcoin is pinned below $100,000, a level that had been a psychological support and now functions as resistance. Without a recovery in prices and trading volumes, the incremental user growth case weakens.
Binance continues to navigate regulatory challenges globally. The US, UK, EU, and several Asian regulators have imposed restrictions, fines, or investigations. A major regulatory escalation – such as a license revocation in a key market – could derail institutional trust. The triparty banking framework partially mitigates this by shifting custody to regulated banking partners, Binance itself remains a counterparty risk.
Chen acknowledged that Hyperliquid is emerging as a blockchain-based financial infrastructure platform with the potential to “expand beyond crypto trading and challenge parts of traditional derivatives and exchange markets.” Hyperliquid offers a fully on-chain order book with matching engine, which could attract institutional traders seeking transparency and low latency without relying on a centralized exchange. If Hyperliquid gains traction, Binance may face a new type of competitor that is more decentralized and harder to regulate.
Confirmation signals:
Weakening signals:
Binance is building institutional infrastructure during a downturn. The 3 billion user target is aspirational, the underlying strategy is concrete: bridge the spending gap between TradFi order management and crypto infrastructure, tokenize real-world assets, and offer a triparty custody solution that integrates with BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. For active traders, the key risk is not that Binance fails – it is that Binance succeeds and consolidates its market power further, making it harder for alternative venues to offer competitive liquidity. The watchlist question is whether the macro environment cooperates before the 12-to-18-month RWA horizon arrives.
For more on exchange dynamics, see COIN stock page and crypto market analysis.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.