Binance announced Monday that they plan to launch Venus, a global cryptocurrency designed in a similar mold to Facebook’s proposed Libra token but with key differences. According to the announcement published early Monday, the “open blockchain project” aims to encourage emerging nations into the blockchain and cryptocurrency space by inviting them to join the Venus network and tailor the token to their own local requirements. This approach has echoes of Facebook’s desire to ‘bank the unbanked’, but goes about it in a less authoritarian manner, with Binance promising to work with all relevant regional stakeholders to tailor the token to countries that wish to take part.
#Binance Announces Open Blockchain Project ‘Venus’https://t.co/tlEzpD0CUA pic.twitter.com/v22HgtK8cB
— Binance (@binance) August 19, 2019
Binance’s “Open Alliance”
Binance’s ambition to become a world leader in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space is well known, and the announcement of a global cryptocurrency goes hand in hand with that ambition. According to the statement, Venus will be an “open alliance” that seeks to use the skills and technology of numerous blockchain companies to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. The idea of a global cryptocurrency is of course going to draw parallels with Facebook’s Libra token (in astrology, Venus is Libra’s ruling planet), but Binance is going about things in a more collaborative way than the social media giant:
Binance is looking to create new alliances and partnerships with governments, corporations, technology companies, and other cryptocurrency companies and projects involved in the larger blockchain ecosystem, to empower developed and developing countries to spur new currencies.
Positive Response from the Community
The initial response to the news was positive, perhaps because of the animosity thrown up by Facebook’s enclosed, permissioned token that was everything but a cryptocurrency. In this vein, it is unsurprising that Venus has met with a positive reaction, although the premise of the project is certainly more open and inclusive than Facebook’s token which is more in line with the geopolitical aspirations of blockchain.
Binance is not only focused on bnb but blockchain as whole. Feeling proud to be Binancian & We believe @cz_binance will never let us down. Slowly but surely
— CryptoWOLF (@CryptoW89215873) August 19, 2019
#libra told the senate someone will do it before them, and I knew @cz_binance gonna do it 😀 I’m so happy today 😀
— Abdul Rafay (@ARafayGadit) August 19, 2019
With such grand ambitions comes a huge amount of work, so we can’t expect to see Venus in any working capacity this year, or perhaps even next, that’s assuming it gets off the ground in the first place. What is clear is that Libra now has competition, and who’s to say that Binance will be the last to offer such a proposition? The plethora of stablecoins now on the market is not an accident, and there is every chance that this time next year we will see similar competition in the global cryptocurrency space.
